Zedule vs SimplyBook.me | Honest comparison
SimplyBook.me is a horizontal booking platform with deep feature breadth — bookings, classes, packages, gift cards, loyalty programs, marketing tools — at tier-based pricing. Zedule is the lean alternative at $100/year flat. The pricing math depends entirely on whether the SimplyBook.me features above the Free tier are ones you'd actually use.
Updated May 5, 2026
SimplyBook.me has been the kitchen-sink horizontal booking platform for over a decade. They support every booking-software feature you can name — services, classes, packages, gift cards, loyalty, marketing — and gate them behind tier-based pricing and a plugin system.
Zedule is the deliberate opposite: a lean booking layer with strong defaults, $100/year flat, BYO messaging providers.
How they differ
SimplyBook.me’s pitch: “Whatever booking-related thing you need, we have a feature for it.” Their plugin system is impressive in range and intimidating in scope. The Premier tier is genuinely comparable to Mindbody or Vagaro for many use-cases.
Zedule’s pitch: “We do the booking layer well, you handle the rest with lighter tools.” Stripe at booking, intake forms, gift cards, packages — all V2 or out-of-scope. We’d rather ship the core well than the periphery poorly.
Side-by-side
| Zedule | SimplyBook.me | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing (low usage) | $100/yr | Free up to 50 bookings/mo |
| Pricing (medium usage) | $100/yr | $29.90-59.90/mo ($358-718/yr) |
| Pricing (high usage) | $100/yr | $109.90/mo ($1,318/yr) |
| Customer-facing booking page | Custom hex, full embed | Tier-gated branding |
| Plugin system | No (flat features) | Yes (50+ plugins) |
| Classes / waitlists | No | Yes (plugin) |
| Packages / gift cards | No | Yes (plugin) |
| Stripe / payment at booking | V2 | Yes |
| Intake forms | No (notes field) | Yes (plugin) |
| Loyalty programs | No | Yes (plugin) |
| Marketing tools (email campaigns) | No (BYO Resend) | Yes (plugin) |
| API + webhooks | No (V2) | Yes |
| BYO email/SMS provider | Yes (5+5) | Limited |
| Multi-staff | Yes | Yes |
| Custom hex on free tier | Yes (trial) | No |
| Setup time | ~30 min | ~1-2 hours |
Where SimplyBook.me wins
- Feature breadth. If you can name a booking-software feature, SimplyBook.me has a plugin for it. Loyalty, gift cards, packages, recurring bookings, intake, marketing campaigns, HIPAA — all available, tier-gated.
- Free tier for trial users. Up to 50 bookings/month free. Useful if you’re testing without commitment.
- Stripe at booking. Customers pay when they book; you don’t chase invoices.
- Marketing tools. Email campaigns to your customer list, drip sequences, automated follow-ups. We don’t ship any of this — you’d run it through Mailchimp or similar.
- API + webhooks. Build custom integrations.
Where Zedule wins
- Flat pricing. $100/year regardless of volume. SimplyBook.me’s pricing scales with bookings; a busy small business pays $700-1,300/year.
- No tier confusion. Zedule has one tier. SimplyBook.me has five plus a plugin system. The decision-making cost of configuring SimplyBook.me is real — you’ll spend 30 minutes reading docs to figure out which plugin lives in which tier.
- Custom hex on day one. No tier upgrade needed.
- BYO messaging providers. Customers see emails from your domain. SimplyBook.me sends through theirs.
- Per-tenant data isolation. Each Zedule business is its own Cloudflare D1 database. SimplyBook.me is shared multi-tenant.
- Faster to set up. 30 minutes vs 1-2 hours.
Which one to pick
Pick SimplyBook.me if:
- You need 3+ of: classes, packages, gift cards, loyalty, intake forms, payment-at-booking, marketing campaigns. The breadth pays for itself.
- You’re at a volume tier where SimplyBook.me’s free or basic plan covers you.
- You want a single platform that handles booking + adjacent workflows.
- You’re comfortable navigating a tier + plugin matrix to configure features.
Pick Zedule if:
- You want flat pricing and predictable monthly cost.
- You’d rather use specialised tools for non-booking workflows (Stripe Invoices for billing, Mailchimp for marketing, Google Forms for intake).
- BYO messaging matters to you.
- You don’t want to spend an afternoon learning a feature taxonomy.
Migration
SimplyBook.me → Zedule:
- Export your service list, bookings, and customer list from SimplyBook.me’s Reports section.
- Re-create services in Zedule with the same names, durations, prices.
- Re-add staff with their hours.
- Set up your messaging providers.
- Cut over the booking URL.
If you were using SimplyBook.me plugins for marketing, packages, or gift cards, you’ll need to migrate those workflows to other tools (Mailchimp, your own POS, Stripe gift cards) before fully cutting over.
Try it
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
- What's SimplyBook.me's pricing?
- Free for up to 50 bookings/month. Basic at $9.90/month for 100 bookings. Standard at $29.90/month for 500. Premium at $59.90/month for 2,000. Premier at $109.90/month unlimited. Most operators outgrow Free fast and end up on Standard or higher.
- Does the free tier of SimplyBook.me have hidden costs?
- Sort of — booking-page branding, custom features (called 'plugins'), and certain integrations are tier-gated even when you have booking volume to spare. The free tier is functional but heavily branded with SimplyBook.me's identity.
- What about SimplyBook.me's 'plugins' system?
- SimplyBook.me bundles features as enable/disable plugins — recurring bookings, intake forms, gift cards, marketing tools. You enable what you need; some plugins require higher tiers. Zedule's approach is flat: features ship for everyone or not at all. Less flexible, simpler to reason about.
- Which one has better branding?
- Zedule's custom hex on every plan, including the trial, beats SimplyBook.me's branding gates on lower tiers. SimplyBook.me's higher tiers have richer branding (custom HTML/CSS) than we offer.
- Does Zedule have classes / waitlists?
- No. SimplyBook.me has them via plugins. If classes with waitlists are a core need, SimplyBook.me's middle tiers fit better than Zedule's V1.
- How are payments handled?
- SimplyBook.me has integrated payment via Stripe and others on paid tiers. Zedule's Stripe-at-booking integration is V2. For paid bookings today, SimplyBook.me ships the workflow.
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