The short answer
- One person with booking links? Cal.com is free forever for individuals, with booking pages, availability, time zones, calendar events and reminders. Modeled first-year saving against Calendly Standard: $70. the math
- Already paying for Google Workspace? Appointment booking pages are included on eligible plans, a modeled first-year saving of $119. the math
- For a team, Cal.com Teams costs $12/user/mo billed yearly, more than Calendly Standard at $10/user/mo billed yearly: switch a team for features, not price. the math
- A custom scheduler is modeled to cost $760 more than Calendly in year one for 1 seat. Don't write calendar sync from scratch. the math
Four ways to stop paying for Calendly
A cheaper vendor
Already included Google Workspace: saves $119 in year one (+3 more below)
Open source
Rallly: costs $1,316 more in year one (+1 more below)
An agent skill
Agent skill: propose meeting times by email: costs $206 more in year one (+2 more below)
Replace with AI
The best option of each kind, modeled, not measured: each figure links its math. Keeping Calendly is a valid answer too.
Who should switch, and who shouldn't
Switch if
Stay if
- You use round-robin, multi-resource scheduling or enterprise routing. recipe
- You're a team: Cal.com's free plan is for 1 user, and its Teams plan costs more per user than Calendly Standard. the math
- Missed meetings cost you money and your current setup has no double-bookings: test daylight-saving changes and calendar conflicts before you switch. recipe
What Calendly costs today
List prices from the vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calendly Standard | $12/user/mo | $10/user/mo | Unlimited event types, multiple calendars, automations & reminders |
| Calendly Teams | $20/user/mo | $16/user/mo | Round-robin & team scheduling, routing, Salesforce |
The alternatives, ranked
10 ways out, ranked by modeled saving in the first year after setup and upkeep (9 priced). Modeled, not measured: each figure links the math on the recipe page.
- Paths are modeled for 1 user against Calendly Standard, at the monthly price for some paths and the yearly one for others, as each path shows. recipe
- Tested by Stackcut: all 14 test emails passed a strict check in round 1, including requests across the UK and US clock changes, a reschedule and a group call; an independent round (a fresh agent ran every case, a separate agent graded it) passed 14 of 14. our test
- A script does the time-zone and daylight-saving math, not the model: 0 errors in 800 random requests across 18 time zones. our test
- No new subscription if you already pay for an agent that runs skills: a skill is a folder of files the agent loads. agentskills.io
- Drafts only: nothing is sent or booked without a person, and adding the .ics file invites nobody. our test
- No booking page: guests can't pick their own time, and offered times aren't held until someone confirms. our test
- A person reviews every reply and adds every event. At $50/h that costs more than the $12 seat unless you'd answer these emails anyway. our test
- Cal.com's individual plan is free forever, with unlimited event types and calendars and email and SMS notifications, so it may already cover you. cal.com
- Calendly's own Free plan keeps a booking page (one event type, one calendar connection) but drops reminders. calendly.com
Compare a specific alternative
Considering a specific destination? Read its checked comparison before deciding what to move.
- Calendly vs Cal.com Checked comparison evidence, migration details, public switching accounts.
- Calendly vs Cal.diy Checked comparison evidence, migration details.
What scheduling costs at 1, 5 and 20 users
Calendly and Cal.com charge per user; free plans are single-user or one-on-one only.
| Option | List price | 1 user | 5 users | 20 users |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendly Standard today | $10/user/mobilled yearly | $10 | $50 | $200 |
| Calendly Teams today | $16/user/mobilled yearly | $16 | $80 | $320 |
| Calendly Free1 event type, one-on-one only | $0free plan | $0free tier | $0free tier | $0free tier |
| Cal.com Free | $0/user/mofree for individuals | $0 | up to 1 user | up to 1 user |
| Cal.com Teams | $12/user/mobilled yearly | $12 | $60 | $240 |
| Rallly Progroup polls, not bookings | $6/user/mobilled yearly | $6 | $30 | $120 |
| Cal.diy (self-hosted Cal.com) | $0 licenseverify the current license | $0+ your server | $0+ your server | $0+ your server |
How people actually left Calendly
3 public accounts of leaving Calendly: 3 switched. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
A UK marketing agency (3SIX5 Digital) switched from Calendly to Cal.com after hitting branding, Webflow-embed and pricing limits; they call the move surprisingly smooth, crediting open-source flexibility, native dark mode and tighter Webflow integration as the main wins. 3SIX5 Digital
Product Hunt poster Matt Carroll compared Calendly and Cal.com and chose Cal.com, citing free pricing for his multi-calendar use case, a UI he preferred for people booking with him, and a less corporate feel. Product Hunt
Juliana Amorim, who said she works with Croct and had previously used Calendly personally, said her team discussed the choice and moved forward with Cal.com, reporting they are happy with the decision. Product Hunt
How to leave Calendly
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
- Before you downgrade, re-share your new booking link everywhere the old one lives: email signatures, your site, templates. recipe
How to leave Calendly
Export first
- Contacts: Contacts page: select contacts and export as a downloadable CSV, delivered via an emailed link (CSV). calendly.com
- Scheduled events / meetings: Filter the Meetings page by status or date range and export; includes invitee name, timezone and contact info, event details, UTM/Salesforce fields, GDPR consent status, and Stripe/PayPal payment data (CSV). help.calendly.com
- Analytics dashboard history: View aggregated booking analytics in-app; not a file export. A Calendly community manager said the Analytics page caps history at 365 days; older data must be pulled via the Meetings page export instead. community.calendly.com
What you lose
- More than 1 event type or more than 1 connected calendar
- Workflows (automated reminders and follow-ups)
- Routing forms, lead qualification and round-robin distribution
- CRM/marketing integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Zapier, Marketo, MS Dynamics)
- Notetaker AI recordings/transcripts and automatic meeting recording
- Callie AI email-scheduling assistant
- Stripe/PayPal payment collection on bookings
- Removing Calendly branding and custom confirmation redirects
- Team scheduling analytics and centralized admin/domain controls
- SSO/SAML (Enterprise) and 24/7 chat/phone support
Cancel
- Admin Center → Billing → Change plan → Upgrade/Downgrade → select the Free plan.
- Takes effect
- At the end of your current billing cycle; you keep paid features until then.
- Refunds
- Payments are generally non-refundable, as Calendly's terms say, though support may review special cases.
- After you cancel
- You land on the Free plan: One event type, one calendar connection, one-on-one scheduling only; no automations or reminders.
Not covered by the paths above, per the recipe: Complex round-robin, Multi-resource scheduling, Enterprise routing, Guaranteed external calendar uptime. If you rely on one of these, keep the incumbent or check the path closely.
Moving your data, destination by destination
What each destination's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Cal.com
Official guide cal.com
Moves: Calendar availability (full). cal.com
Doesn't move: Event type / meeting configuration (no importer; rebuilt by hand); Workflow automations (rebuilt by hand); Payment settings (rebuilt by hand). cal.com
Watch out for:
- No official Calendly-to-Cal.com data importer; event types, workflows and payment settings are recreated by hand. cal.com
Switching help: Cal.com credits 100% of a switcher's current Calendly plan cost during their first year on Cal.com. cal.com
To Cal.diy
Official guide cal.diy
Doesn't move: Event types / booking-page configuration (no importer documented); Contacts and meeting history; Workflows/automations. cal.diy
Watch out for:
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
Open-source and forkable options
- Rallly: For group scheduling polls, Rallly is free and open source. License: open_source
- Cal.diy: License: Current calcom/cal.com repository redirects here. Verify current license, maintenance and hosted-vs-community feature differences; no license certification in this seed.
Open source means no license fee, not free to run: the server, backups and upgrades are yours. Read the license before you fork or resell; several of these are open-core or source-available.
Replace with AI, or hand it to an agent skill
Agent skill Agent skill: propose meeting times by emailTested by Stackcut · Works, with caveats: 1 person who arranges meetings by email. The agent reads your availability rules and your calendar's busy times (an .ics export, a JSON list or a read-only calendar connection). It offers three open times in the requester's time zone, drafts the reply, and writes an .ics event with reminders once a time is agreed. A person sends every reply and adds every event. First year: costs $206 more (modeled, not measured).
Agent skill Google Calendar MCP server: The back-and-forth of finding a time: the agent checks free/busy across your calendars, proposes slots in the right timezone and creates the event with attendees, instead of a booking-link subscription for one person. First year: costs $256 more (modeled, not measured).
Agent skill Google Workspace CLI (gws) and its agent skills: Scheduling and simple forms done by your agent inside the Google account you already have: free/busy lookups and invites (recipe-find-free-time, gws-calendar-insert), and Google Forms created, filled with questions and read back (gws-forms). First year: costs $256 more (modeled, not measured).
Replace with AI Replace with AI: custom scheduler: One user; availability, calendar event creation and reminders. First year: costs $760 more (modeled, not measured).
- The spec says to customize a maintained scheduling foundation and never write calendar sync from scratch for a low-cost solo account. recipe
Tested by Stackcut
Stackcut's own test, not a customer: we ran the path end to end on one of our own products.
Calendly seat → an agent skill that proposes meeting times by email
Question. Can a skill folder (SKILL.md, reference files and a small zoneinfo script) answer meeting requests by email well enough to drop a Calendly Standard seat? It has to offer three open times in the requester's time zone, draft the reply, and write an .ics event with reminders once a time is agreed.
Numbers
- 14 test emails, including clock-change, reschedule, group and day-off cases
- Pass rate by round: 14 of 14 in round 1; independent round (fresh runner, separate grader): 14 of 14
- 0 errors in 800 random requests across 18 time zones
- The checker caught 18 of 18 seeded mistakes
- About 7 minutes of agent time per test round
Verdict
Exact scheduling math and sendable drafts for people who arrange meetings by email, but not a drop-in Calendly replacement. There's no booking page, a person handles every reply, and that time costs more than the $12 seat. An independent round (fresh runner, separate grader) also passed 14 of 14. our test
Good fit when
- You schedule by email anyway (clients who won't use booking links, requests across time zones)
- You don't want a scheduling service connected to your calendar
- One person's calendar, plus a teammate's busy times for group calls
Not a fit when
- Guests should pick their own time from a public page
- Guests need reminder emails or texts
- You book more than a few meetings a week and want it hands-off
- A free booking-page plan (Calendly Free, Cal.com) already covers what you use
FAQ
How do I cancel Calendly?
Admin Center → Billing → Change plan → Upgrade/Downgrade, then select the Free plan. It switches at the end of your billing cycle. calendly.com
Does Calendly give refunds?
Payments are generally non-refundable per Calendly's terms, though its support team may review special cases. calendly.com
What does Calendly's free plan include?
Is Cal.com open source?
Yes, and self-hostable, but the old calcom/cal.com repository now redirects to cal.diy, so check the current license and which features the community edition has before you rely on it. the math
Keep reading
Check your own stack
Get your free stack audit
Stackcut finds every software subscription in your inbox and shows what to cancel, what to pay per use, and what AI can replace, with a spec and a cost for each. Your stack audit is free and takes about 2 minutes.
Or ask your agent
Connect the Stackcut MCP server (https://stackcut.io/mcp, no API key) and ask: “I pay for Calendly Standard for one booking link. What should I do?”
find_alternatives({"vendor": "Calendly", "seats": 1,
"features_used": ["Booking page", "Availability", "Reminders"]})