Appointment Reminders
Text Reminders
Calendar
Appointment Confirmations
Appointment Booking
Text Blasts
Accept Deposits & Payments
Home Services
Construction & Contractors
Medical & Dental
Wellness & Beauty
Insurance Agents
Real Estate
Professional Services
Automotive & Boat
Education
All Industries
Case Studies
Blog
Integrations
Ask us a question
Help Center
About UsVery easy to use, and customizable. Also, GoReminders has the best customer service and really listens to our needs.
Try GoReminders free (no credit card needed)
If you’re a small business owner in an appointment-reliant industry, you have a lot to manage. Whether you work in beauty, finance, physical training, insurance, real estate, chiropractics, or the health field, ensuring that customers keep their scheduled appointments is vital to the success, productivity, and profitability of your business.
Luckily, small businesses no longer have to do all the heavy lifting with appointment scheduling and reminders. Technology has removed the tedious work and increased business profitability thanks to automated appointment reminder software. With a reliable appointment reminder app, you can decrease no-shows and free up time for your staff to do more important tasks.
With all the options on the market today, what’s the best choice for an appointment reminder app? We did the hard work and research for you. We ranked the 8 best automated appointment reminder applications and explain how they can be vital to the success of a hardworking small business. Some apps are better suited for specific niches, but we are confident there is an app that will fit your needs no matter what industry you work in.
Consistently keeping track of appointments for several customers isn’t easy. It’s even harder to make sure everyone shows up for those appointments. By sending text or email reminders to customers before their scheduled session, users can decrease no-shows by 80%. Instead of sending these important reminders manually, appointment reminder apps can automate this process for you.
Most of these apps allow customers to easily reschedule or cancel the session if that’s something you want to offer. They also streamline the scheduling process and help drive higher engagement with new and existing customers.
Business owners may see several benefits of implementing this type of business software, such as:
The most significant benefit of an automated appointment reminder app is reducing the number of customers who don’t show up for their appointment, also known as no-shows.
No-shows not only lose your businesses revenue, but waste time for business owners and their staff. These apps send reminders to customers before their scheduled appointment and help keep them accountable for showing up.
Everyone is busy. A chiropractor or hair appointment or sales call could easily get overlooked during a hectic week. As a fail-safe, automated appointment apps can alert customers weeks, days, or hours before their scheduled time without manual effort. Getting customers through the door (or on a Zoom call) is a must for all businesses, and these apps help do the heavy lifting for you.
Automated appointment reminder apps help improve efficiency for small businesses. Automation frees up time so that business owners can focus on other, more pressing tasks. This also helps you keep your business organized, further driving efficiency and productivity.
Some automated appointment reminder apps also feature automatic rescheduling or canceling features. These help to keep business operations smooth and punctual, which means putting your time, resources, and talent where they are most valuable.
If you’re scheduling appointments and sending reminders manually, you may forget to send them at the right time or fail to include certain details. Automating this process helps reduce human error and ensure that your messaging is consistent. The best reminder apps keep track of all your appointments in a central calendar and send custom appointment reminders automatically. This way, when you schedule a new appointment, you can be sure the software takes care of the details.
By making sure your customers keep (or at least reschedule) their appointments, you can boost your revenue by 12%-28% on average. Instead of losing profits due to missed appointments, you gain back more of your full revenue potential by filling your time slots.
This also plays into your ability to make money in the long term. You are for more likely to lose a customer completely if they miss an appointment (especially their first one). In other words, the lifetime value of that customer is at stake here. Making sure they show up to experience the quality of your service can increase customer retention and secure that revenue for years to come.
Automating the scheduling and reminder process can also help reduce labor costs needed to manage your appointments. When your staff is working, they’re doing more than providing a service — they’re building relationships with people who may become long-term customers. Why have your valuable hair stylists or personal trainers waste time sending reminders on their own when they could be doing the work that generates the most money?
70% of people report that text messages are a good way for businesses to engage with customers. Appointment reminder apps help you engage with your customers effectively by enabling personalized reminder messages and follow-up messages, easy access to your booking form, and text message blasts to promote sales and premium offers. While you can send reminders via email as well, taking advantage of SMS alerts can help you reach your customers immediately.
We used real user feedback and reviews from software ranking websites like Capterra to generate a list of the top 8 automated appointment reminder applications for small businesses.
GoReminders offers a highly customizable and multilingual appointment reminder application and scheduling service. Its main advantage is that it’s easy to use and even easier to implement. Setup only takes 30 seconds, and you’re ready to start managing your appointments and sending automatic appointment reminders all in one place.
GoReminders is unique in that it was built out of necessity with business owners in mind. Both co-founders have personal experience with the frustration of no-show appointments. Their family-run practices in the medical, financial, and IT industries were plagued by a problem that wasted entirely too much time and energy: no-show appointments. GoReminders was developed specifically to solve that problem for people who actually use it.
GoReminders can work for almost any small business. Lawyers, doctors, salon owners, financial advisors, dentists, tattoo artists, insurance agents, and personal trainers alike all benefit from this app. GoReminders has also made an impact on thousands of businesses, small and large, including Aflac, Guitar Center, Equinox, Lowes, and many more.
GoReminders offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Once you see the full capabilities of this software, you may find everything you need in an appointment reminder app.
The Starter plan starts at $25/month (only $300/yearly), and includes these core features:
The Business and Premium pricing plans offer more robust features and more appointments/reminders per month, providing everything needed to maximize efficiency and drive ROI.
Interested in a free trial with zero risk? Sign up for a free trial of GoReminders and learn for yourself why this app is the best choice for a variety of industries.
GoReminders is easy to set up and even easier for small business owners to use. Users love how highly customizable the text and email appointment reminders are compared to other apps. With a variety of template tags at your disposal, you can easily personalize your message templates to include information relevant to your customers.
In addition to appointment reminders, GoReminders also allows you to send custom follow-up messages after the appointment is over. These post-appointment reminders allow your customers to leave a review, book another session, or purchase other services. You can create custom message sequences that best speak to your customers needs (and possibly upsell them).
Users also love the simple API and Zapier integrations, with the option to use third-party calendars as well. Beyond that, GoReminders is excellent for multiple locations and teams, with no limit on user devices for Business and Premium plans. If you want, clients can schedule group appointments 24/7, depending on your availability, which you can customize.
Plus, the GoReminders customer support team is very active. With a median response time of 19 minutes, the team is always trying to help users make the best use of all the features the software has to offer.
While GoReminders is very easy to use, it isn’t optimized for incredibly large teams with complex staffing needs. Large corporations using GoReminders for internal meetings may not be a great fit. Most customers like it because it is quick and easy, with powerful functionality under the hood to manage appointments for a small-to-moderate size business.
Schedulicity is an all-in-one scheduling software that promotes itself as “your new personal assistant.” It also functions as an online marketplace, where you can list your business on their search engine and attract new customers.
It offers many capabilities, including appointment booking, class management, digital marketing, and built-in payment tools that allow users to accept payment (in person or online), sell products, and send bills by text.
Schedulicity is best for small-based businesses operating via appointments, classes, and workshops. Common business types for this app include hair stylists, massage therapists, nail artists, chiropractors, spa workers, yoga instructors, personal trainers, and more.
Schedulicity Free offers up to 10 bookings per month, provider notifications, email reminders for clients, free business and client apps (available on iOS and Android), basic marketing tools, and email support. However, this tier doesn’t include access to automated text reminders, customizable packages and discounts, or re-engagement/”time to book” emails. For those features, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid tiers.
Schedulicity Unlimited starts at $34.99/month for one provider or user. From there, you’ll have to pay $10.00 for every new user or provider you add (up to 7+ users at 94.99 per month). The Unlimited plan offers everything available in the free version, plus unlimited appointments and classes. This plan also offers more elaborate marketing tools that include email and text reminders, personalized emails, and automation.
User reviews mostly recommend Schedulicity’s payment processing features and its affordable price. Some reviewers also comment on the fact that Schedulicity also has good customer service, usually responding within a couple of hours.
One of the users’ biggest complaints about Schedulicity was that some features required additional add-on pricing. Other reviewers noticed bugs with scheduling and text reminders, lack of advertising options, non-customizable reports, and the need to have multiple accounts for different locations and calendars.
Beyond that, the appointment reminder functionality is limited an not very flexible. In order to send appointment reminders, you’ll need to select which service you’ll be providing for each appointment. Even if you only offer once service, users are unable to send appointment reminders without creating and selecting this first. In addition, users are limited to one text reminder and one email reminder per appointment with only select intervals. These aren’t customizable either. With that, if you create the appointment reminder less than 26 hours before the appointment time, Schedulicity’s policy is to not send any reminders at all, which is very inconvenient.
Square Appointments is designed as a minimalist appointment scheduling software, touting itself as “The all-in-one point of sale for booking, payments, and more.” Its goal is to simplify scheduling for its users, allowing small businesses to put customers first and do more of what they love.
Square Appointments can work seamlessly for those already using Square for payment processing. This makes it more appealing to users who want to unify their business platforms. It is also connected with Square messaging to keep email and text conversations in one place.
Square Appointments is great for service-based businesses, like barbers or personal trainers. But it can also be used for niche businesses in high-end retail, such as wedding dress boutiques or personal stylists.
Pricing for Square Appointments includes a Free plan with many features, including unlimited staff accounts, a custom booking website, social media integration, and automated text and email reminders. However, you’ll still need to pay Square’s processing fees for each credit card transaction. Text and email confirmations are also not included with the free plan.
Pricing for the Plus plan is $29/month per location, but this includes customer ability to respond to appointment confirmations, book with multiple staff, and a guarantee of no-show protection.
The Premium plan is $69/month per location, and is considered a complete plan that can meet complex booking and staff management needs. With this plan, you can also offer custom staff commissions.
Users tend to enjoy the “free plan” to start, and many new business owners saw a serious benefit (especially if you are already using Square’s POS functionality). Business owners also have the ability to manage their employees and teams on the platform, which makes running payroll and managing labor hours easier.
Square appointments also offers an automated “assistant” that responds to text messages. When a customer responds to an appointment reminder text, the assistant will automatically take action on their request and respond to them. However, this does come with some unfortunate limitations.
While Square Appointments has some significant benefits, many users had complaints that kept it from being higher on this list.
When a customer responds to your appointment reminder text, they always have the option to confirm, cancel, or reschedule. While you can restrict cancellation and reschedule requests to a certain window of time before the appointment, the settings for Square assistant don’t allow you to completely turn off cancel or reschedule requests from the reply options. While email reminders are customizable, text reminders are not customizable at all as of 2022.
Some business owners reported that they weren’t able to receive personal reminders for their own appointments. Instead, they had to constantly check their schedule to see if clients had booked or confirmed appointments.
Some users dislike being locked into Square’s pricing for payment processing and others complain that the calendar feature isn’t functional enough on mobile. Beyond that, some report that Square Appointments’ customer service is lacking compared to other choices.
Calendly is a powerful appointment reminder software that works as a hub for scheduling meetings in a professional and efficient manner. Its primary selling point is eliminating the hassle of back-and-forth emails so that users can focus on their job and not spend too much time coordinating appointments.
Unlike other software, Calendly is an appointment reminder app designed more for sales teams and recruiters than for service businesses. Calendly is more of a business-to-business platform than the other appointment reminder apps on this list, which are better suited for business-to-consumer operations.
Pricing for Calendly varies per user. All subscriptions start with a free plan that includes some basic functionality. Paid plans come in at $8, $12, and $16 per user each month, providing more features as the plans increase.
They also have an Enterprise plan that likely offers some customizations for large companies, but pricing is determined by their sales team for each use case.
Users rave about the simple and fast design of Calendly. Another significant benefit was its ability to make rescheduling easy for both the user and the client.
The automated appointment reminders (both email and SMS) tend to consistently work well (with some limited functionality). Other pros were the ability to include groups, and easy integration with outside scheduling platforms like Google Calendar and other calendar apps.
Users felt that some things were lacking with Calendly, such as the limited meeting location options, customer service, and issues with the app crashing. In order to gain access to custom user permissions and more than 6 calendar connections, you’ll have to upgrade all the way to the Enterprise plan (with custom pricing that you can only get if you talk to their sales team). Other users commented that the software was very basic and could be improved by additional features.
Text reminders also have limited functionality. If customers reply to text reminders, those replies aren’t sent to the business. Because Calendly’s platform isn’t set up for 2-way conversations, all replies stop at the customer’s device. The customer doesn’t receive any errors letting them know their response wasn’t delivered either. For example, if a customer replies “oh shoot, I need to reschedule” the customer will think that their message got back to the business, but the business will never get their response.
Aside from that, Calendly may take more effort to set up in the first place. Users that want a quick and easy appointment reminder solution may have difficulty getting started.
Apptoto is considered an all-around solid scheduling and appointment reminder application that promotes itself as easy to integrate with all calendar platforms. It also allows for customized appointment reminders and automatic client information extraction for new appointments.
Apptoto is good for businesses that rely on the appointment model, but can also work well for B2B businesses such as sales, marketing, or recruiting. Small businesses that make use of multiple programs like Salesforce and Zoom may also benefit from Apptoto’s wide range of integrations.
While Apptoto does not offer a free version, they do have a 14-day free trial to test out the features. For the U.S. and Canada, paid Apptoto plans start at $39/month and offer unlimited manual messages, 400 auto-message credits, and up to three calendars. Plans increase to $79/month (Plus), $129/month (Professional), and $199/month (Group), offering more robust features at each tier.
Automated messaging with Apptoto is based on credits. With 1 credit, you can send a 300 character SMS message, a 2-minute phone call, or an email. The Starter plan provides users with 400 auto-message credits per month and maxes out at 2,600 credits for the Group plan.
Business owners using Apptoto commented on the ease of customization in sending automated SMS reminders. Apptoto is also relatively affordable for new or small businesses and includes free calendar integrations.
Perhaps the biggest limitation with Apptoto’s appointment reminder functionality is the auto- message credit limit. While manual messages typed out by hand to clients are unlimited, the Starter plan only provides users with 400 auto-message credits. At first glance, this may seem like a lot. However, if you exceed the 300-character limit on text reminders, this counts as two credits. Text confirmations from customers also count as a credit. Follow-up messages count as a credit as well. Users that send several automatic appointment reminders and follow-up messages per month (and receive replies from customers) could reach their plan limit in as few as 33 appointments.
Beyond that, a significant number of users complained about the app crashing or notifications stopping without warning. This is a major concern, as reliability is the #1 factor to consider when selecting an automatic appointment reminder app for your business.
Other users voiced issues with Apptoto’s complex interface, minimal customer support, and lack of flexibility on pricing by usage or business size.
Setmore markets itself as a free online scheduling platform. However, there are paid plans that you’ll need to use in order to gain access to additional users and many necessary features, such as text message appointment reminders.
The platform allows users to organize their business with 24/7 automated online booking, reminders, and payments.
Setmore can work for several types of small businesses, from solopreneurs to multi-person teams or fully staffed service businesses. Because of its well-regarded free offering, Setmore is great for cost-conscious users, such as those tied to nonprofits and community organizations. However, if you need to make use of any features not included in the free plan, you’ll need to be on one of Setmore’s paid tiers.
Setmore offers a Free tier of service with limited functionality. For instance, Free users can only send email reminders (no text reminders) and can’t use 2-way sync with 3rd party calendars. It wouldn’t take long before business owners need to upgrade their plan.
The Premium plan is $12/month ($60/yearly) per user. With this tier, users gain access to 1 text reminder per appointment (with limitations) but can only have 2 users on the plan.
The Pro plan is $9/month (still $60/yearly) per user. However, this plan has a minimum of 3 users, which means you’ll need to pay at least $27/month ($180/yearly) for these features. Setmore describes this tier “Everything from Premium for growing teams,” but it’s unclear exactly how these features are different.
Setmore receives high marks due to its moderately functional free version with many features despite zero cost. Other users mentioned the benefits of easy setup, simple integration with other programs (like pay platforms), and social media connectivity.
While it features a high-quality free tier, Setmore does have some drawbacks. Some users complained about:
Aside from that, how many text reminders you can send with each plan is unclear. Setmore’s fair usage policy on text reminders reads “You can use as many text reminders as needed, up to your plan value. If you hit your plan’s limit, Team Setmore will reach out to you.” In other words, appointment reminder limits may vary based on a number of factors, but you may not know those limits until you reach them. It’s also unclear how you can proceed if you reach your plan’s limit.
Acuity Scheduling is an integrated scheduling and reminder software powered by Squarespace. It markets itself as your personal online assistant, working 24/7 to fill your schedule, allowing customers to book appointments and receive appointment reminders. It also offers payment processing features and integrations with livestreaming platforms.
Acuity is excellent for more established service-based businesses who want a platform tied to everything from marketing to finance. It can be used for growing salons and workshop businesses like cooking classes, wine tastings, personal training, yoga, and more.
Acuity Scheduling doesn’t offer a free plan, but does provide users with a 7-day free trial.
Paid plans come in 3 tiers:
One of the big benefits of Acuity is its high-level integration with other apps, including Paypal, GoToMeeting, marketing apps like Mailchimp and Google Analytics, finance apps like Quickbooks, and others. Users love feeling like their business platforms are connected.
Once users set up text reminders (and customers opt into the service) for new appointments, reminder messages are customizable using template tags. These reminders are also tied to specific appointment types. However, users can only send reminders up to 140 characters with template tags or 300 characters with only plain text.
Since Acuity is effectively a feature of Squarespace (the website building platform), users that don’t need to build a custom website may find Acuity’s setup confusing or frustrating. When using the free trial, new users are sometimes taken to a Squarespace website creation page before they gain access to any of the appointment reminder or scheduling features.
At no point do users gain access to a 2-way conversational interface with customers. When sending text reminders, customers are not able to respond directly to those reminders with custom messages. If they try, the service informs them with an automatic message to contact you by other means.
With the Growing plan, the limit of 6 staff/locations may seem like plenty at first. However, if you have a high staff turnover rate or you deal with several part-time employees, you could end up burning through those limits faster than expected. If this happens, you’ll likely have to spend a lot of time cleaning up your account. Otherwise, you may have to upgrade to the next pricing tier to gain access to new staff members. That said, there is no way to upgrade past the powerhouse tier without contacting their sales department.
Still other business owners reported that Acuity isn’t user-friendly enough for their customers and that higher-tier paid accounts are required to access more in-demand features.
Vagaro is a robust scheduling application made for scalability. Vagaro’s mission is “to help small businesses and independent service professionals reach their objectives by bringing technology solutions that foster growth.” Like Schedulicity, it functions as an online marketplace that customers can use to search for small businesses. The appointment management features are offered to businesses on the backend.
The ideal customer for Vagaro is a service-oriented business with a large team and many locations. Any type of appointment business can use Vagaro, but their target niches are beauty, wellness, and fitness.
Vagaro’s unique benefits for business owners include a customizable website with hosting capabilities, email marketing features, payroll management, and employee time logging capabilities. They also offer appointment email and text notifications that function well enough, with a few limitations.
Vagaro’s pricing model is relatively simple. It starts at $25/month for a single user and increases by $10 with each additional user (with 7 or more users at $85.00/month). This gives users access to nearly every paid feature including appointment reminders.
For features like text marketing, a check-in app, forms, email marketing, a website builder, or an ecommerce platform, you’ll need to pay extra each month. These features may cost anywhere from $10/month to $200/month for each add-on, with some add-ons that scale up in price with usage. Your total price will depend on which add-ons you decide to use.
Business owners love Vagaro’s customizable subscription option and the ability to create a custom website with an ecommerce platform. Overall, the app is considered simple to use with high-level reporting capabilities.
Customers can also receive push notifications about appointments if they install the Vagaro client app themselves.
The biggest complaint among Vagaro users is the lack of Apple Pay as a customer payment method. Users also disliked that the appointment-booking features aren’t as comprehensive for some service businesses. While email messages are lightly customizable, SMS reminders are not customizable at all. There are only 3 options to use use for text reminders (appointment details, confirmation requests, and general reminders).
Another major drawback? Although Vagaro is a world-class booking software, it only allows one reminder per appointment. Ideally, users should be able to send reminders at multiple points before the time of an appointment to decrease the likelihood of no-shows.
While you can list your business on their marketplace with any subscription tier, that may not give you the best visibility for potential customers. In order to “get noticed” by more local leads, users have to pay an extra $10.00 each month.
When looking for an appointment reminder app to meet your needs, there are a lot of choices on the market.
So which one is right for your business? That choice depends on:
If you’re looking for a highly customizable yet easy-to-use appointment reminder app with powerful texting capabilities, GoReminders is a great option. You can manage your entire appointment schedule, staff several appointments, and send automatic appointment reminders easily (via email or text). It doesn’t take long to set up, and there’s a lot to discover and customize in the settings, if you choose. Plus, you don’t have to allow customers to book their own appointments if you don’t want to, but that feature is robust in case you do need it later.
But you don’t have to use every feature within GoReminders if you don’t need them. GoReminders is designed to be an easy solution to a very frustrating problem: customers missing appointments. Our customer support team is available to help you make the best use of all the software has to offer.
Just keep doing your best work and let GoReminders keep your customers and staff on time. Before you know it, you’ll watch your show rates (and your revenue) start climbing.
Ready to give GoReminders a try? Sign up for your 14-Day Free Trial to see how easy it is to save time and money by increasing your appointment show rates.
Very easy to use, and customizable. Also, GoReminders has the best customer service and really listens to our needs.
As a very busy mom, wife and business owner, GoReminders has been a game changer. Our days feel less chaotic, more productive and business is up!
I tried another system, but there were too many goof-ups so I went back to pen and paper. Until I foundGoReminders! I love how simple it is on my iPad, and I do a week’s worth of scheduling in the time it took me for one client! Now I can focus on making my clients beautiful!
I use this to keep my appointments and remind my customers for my grooming business. My customers love it and it saves me time!
Try GoReminders free (no credit card needed)