Quick answer
Calendly - Calendly wins for most builders because its free tier is better for individual scheduling workflows and the paid path scales more naturally for teams, while cally.com is narrower and better suited to simple group event coordination.
How the free tiers compare
Calendly and cally.com both start as capped free plans, but they solve different problems. Calendly is built around appointment booking with availability rules, calendars, video calls, and integration hooks, so its free tier is more useful if you need to let people book time with you. The tradeoff is that it is tightly limited: 1 event type and 1 connected calendar. cally.com is more of a group event planner. Its free Basic plan is broader within that workflow, with event overviews, calendar views, mobile apps, groups, and up to 100 contacts. But it does not try to be a booking engine. After free, Calendly moves to per-seat pricing at $10/month, while cally.com’s Plus plan is cheaper at about $3/month for one user, though the enterprise leap is unusually high.
Calendly vs cally.com free tier, side by side
| CalendlyFTV 42 | cally.comFTV 40 | |
|---|---|---|
| Connected calendars on free planCalendly explicitly caps free at 1 connected calendar. | 1 calendar | Not stated in provided free tier |
| Event types on free planCalendly’s free tier is limited to one event type. | 1 event type | Not stated in provided free tier |
| Contacts import limit on free plancally.com’s Basic plan includes contact import up to 100. | Not stated in provided free tier | Up to 100 contacts |
| Mobile appsBoth free tiers include mobile apps, though the use cases differ. | Yes | Yes |
| Credit card required for free tierBoth inputs explicitly say a card is required for the free tier. | False | False |
After you outgrow the free tier
Calendly’s first paid tier is Standard at $10/seat/mo, then Teams at $16/seat/mo, with Enterprise starting at $15k/year. That is straightforward per-seat pricing, and costs rise as you add users. cally.com’s first paid tier is Plus at €29/year or €3/month excl. VAT for 1 user, which is much cheaper for a single user; its enterprise plan jumps to €1999/year per subdomain. For small-team use, cally.com is cheaper on the entry paid tier, while Calendly is the more established per-seat path once scheduling teams and integrations matter.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Calendly | cally.com |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user, basic paid upgradeCalendly Standard is per seat; cally.com Plus is priced for 1 user. | $10/mo | $3/mo |
| 3 usersAssumes cally.com scales linearly at the stated per-user price; the input only gives 1-user pricing. | $30/mo | $9/mo |
| 10 userscally.com does not provide a bulk/team price in the supplied data, so this is a straight per-user extrapolation from the 1-user Plus price. | $100/mo | $30/mo |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Calendly when…
- You need a booking link for clients, recruits, or collaborators to reserve time on your calendar.
- You want calendar availability rules, booking-page customization, reminders, or video conferencing in the same tool.
- You expect to connect multiple calendars soon and may later need Zapier or webhook integrations.
- You are a solo operator who schedules meetings, demos, or interviews rather than organizing group events.
Pick cally.com when…
- You are organizing shared events where several participants need to respond to dates and locations.
- You want a simple event overview, calendar view, and mobile app without a booking workflow.
- You need an address book with groups and a contact import limit that reaches 100 contacts on free.
- You mainly care about a low-cost paid upgrade for one user and do not need sales or workflow integrations.
Bottom line
For the most common builder use case, Calendly is the safer winner: if you need people to book time with you, its free plan is more directly useful and its upgrade path is clear. cally.com is the better budget pick only if your real job is coordinating group events rather than running a scheduling workflow. It is cheaper at the paid entry point, but it stays narrower in scope. Calendly costs more as you scale, yet it solves the more common scheduling problem better.
Read the full listings: Calendly and cally.com. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.