Setmore vs Acuity Scheduling for Tutors, Coaches, Trainers and Consultants

Prices and features below were checked on setmore.com and acuityscheduling.com on October 2026. Both change their plans; confirm before you buy.

Setmore is the budget pick: a genuinely free plan with payments through four processors, and a $5/user/month Pro tier. Acuity is the loaded pick: no free plan, $16–$49/month, but packages, memberships, gift certificates and subscriptions built in. The short version — Setmore takes money on day one for nothing; Acuity sells repeat business, for a subscription.

If you're a tutor, coach, trainer or consultant, the decision usually comes down to one question: do you sell single sessions, or blocks of them? This comparison walks the pricing, then the repeat-business features where the two tools genuinely diverge. We build Calfrenzy, so it appears as a third column throughout — not because it beats either on their own ground (it doesn't, and the table says so), but because it's built for the one case neither of them is: blocks of sessions where the client picks every date and pays once.

Setmore vs Acuity at a Glance — With Calfrenzy Alongside

Setmore and Acuity verified on their pricing pages, 29 Sep 2026. Calfrenzy column reflects the live Calfrenzy pricing page; plan named, no price.

Setmore and Acuity hold the first two columns — they're the comparison you came for. Calfrenzy, which is ours, sits in the third, because the rows where the three differ most are exactly what this guide is about: packages, payments, and how repeat business gets sold. Where Calfrenzy loses a row, the cell says so.

Setmore and Acuity verified on their pricing pages, 29 September 2026. Calfrenzy column reflects the live Calfrenzy pricing page on the same date.

Pricing Compared

Verified on vendor pricing pages, 29 Sep 2026

Setmore: free is the plan, Pro is the upgrade. Free covers up to four users with unlimited appointments, a branded booking page, email reminders, group classes, social and Google booking, and — the standout — payments through Square, Stripe, PayPal or LawPay at $0. Pro is $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 monthly) and adds SMS reminders, recurring appointments, two-way calendar sync, deposits, branding removal and a HIPAA BAA. Watch the per-user model: every staff calendar counts as a user even without login access. Add-on: Live Receptionist at $99/month (US).

Acuity: no free plan, three loaded tiers. Starter $16/month billed annually gets one calendar with payments, deposits and intake forms; Standard $27 adds six calendars plus the selling layer — packages, subscriptions, memberships, gift certificates, SMS, waitlist; Premium $49 adds 36 calendars, HIPAA, branding removal and the AI assistant. Monthly billing runs $20/$34/$61. Full breakdown in our Acuity pricing guide.

The yearly math for a solo operator taking payments: Setmore $0 (or $60 on Pro); Acuity $192 minimum, $324 if you sell packages. That's not a like-for-like gap — Acuity's $324 buys selling features Setmore doesn't have at any price — but it is the gap, and for a per-session business it's hard to argue past free.

Selling Repeat Business: Where They Genuinely Diverge

Booking one appointment, both tools do well. Selling the next ten is where they split.

Setmore's answer is the recurring appointment (Pro): the same client, the same slot, repeating weekly or fortnightly. It's a schedule, not a purchase — each session is paid individually, there's no package to buy, no session count, no prepaid balance. For a standing Tuesday client who pays per visit, it's exactly enough. For selling "10 sessions" as a product, Setmore simply has nothing.

Acuity's answer is the prepaid package (Standard+): the client pays once for a set number of sessions, receives a code, and redeems it one appointment at a time while Acuity tracks the balance. Add subscriptions, memberships and gift certificates and Acuity is clearly the stronger tool for productising repeat business — it's the reason to pay $324 a year instead of $0.

What both miss: in Setmore, the schedule commits but the money doesn't; in Acuity, the money commits but the schedule doesn't. Neither lets the client pick all ten dates and pay for them in one checkout — the version where the calendar and the payment are settled together at the moment of yes.

/uplo

That's The Version Calfrenzy Is Built for — Every Date Chosen In One Cart, One Checkout.

No card required, or read the full three-way comparison below.

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Which Should You Pick?

• Per-session business on a budget — charging per visit, wanting payments, classes and social booking at $0: Setmore, without much debate. Upgrade to Pro at $60/year when SMS or recurring matters.
• Selling prepaid packs, memberships or gift certificates, use-them-whenever style — Acuity Standard. The prepaid-balance model is genuinely good when scheduling flexibility is the point, and nothing at Setmore's price competes with it.
• Need HIPAA — both offer a BAA, at very different prices: Setmore Pro ($5/user/mo) vs Acuity Premium ($49/mo). If HIPAA is the deciding feature, that comparison deserves its own scrutiny of what each BAA covers.
• Selling blocks with fixed dates — a term of lessons, a 12-week programme, an eight-pack with the schedule as part of the product: keep reading — this is the case neither tool's model fits.

Industry-specific versions of this decision: tutors, coaches, personal trainers, consultants.

The Third Option: Fixed-Dates Packages

We build Calfrenzy, so weigh this section accordingly. It exists for the gap named above: the client picks every date in the block on your booking page and pays for the whole thing in one checkout — ten Tuesday lessons as one purchase, an eight-pack with all eight slots chosen in the cart, recurring series and one-off dates mixed in the same order. A client whose diary isn't settled can pay now and pick dates later, and both sides watch "3 of 10 completed" as the block runs.

Setmore and Acuity verified on their pricing pages, 29 Sep 2026. Calfrenzy column reflects the Professional plan.

Setmore and Acuity columns verified on their pricing pages, 29 September 2026. Calfrenzy column reflects the Professional plan.

The booking experience is part of the argument, since a package is a bigger decision than a single slot: the Calfrenzy booking page is built around that decision — the client sees the package, the calendar, your intake questions and one price on a page designed to be clean at the moment of choosing (premium booking page design is a Professional-plan feature), and the distance from yes to paid is one screen. Packages and payments are on the Professional plan, through Stripe.

Where the other two stay stronger, plainly: Setmore's free plan takes payments and Calfrenzy's doesn't — per-session at $0 is Setmore's game. Acuity keeps subscriptions, memberships, gift certificates, the waitlist and four processors — recurring revenue products are Acuity's game. Calfrenzy's game is the block with the dates in it.

Start a free 14-day trial — no credit card required — if that's the game you're in.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Setmore or Acuity better?

Setmore for per-session businesses that want a free plan with payments, classes and social booking; Acuity for businesses selling prepaid packages, memberships or gift certificates and willing to pay $16–$49/month for it. For blocks of sessions where the client picks every date and pays once, neither — that's the fixed-dates case covered above.

Is Acuity better than Setmore for packages?

Yes — Setmore has no package feature at all, while Acuity sells prepaid packages from its Standard plan ($27/month billed annually). Acuity's packages are balances redeemed one appointment at a time; the client doesn't choose their session dates at purchase.

Does Setmore have a free plan and does Acuity?

Setmore: yes — up to four users, unlimited appointments, payments included. Acuity: no free plan, a 7-day trial without a card, then plans from $16/month billed annually.

Which is cheaper, Setmore or Acuity?

Setmore, at every tier: free vs no free plan, and $5/user/month vs $16–$49/month. Whether cheaper is better depends on whether you need Acuity's selling features (packages, memberships, gift certificates), which Setmore doesn't offer at any price.

Do Setmore and Acuity both support HIPAA?

Both offer a signed BAA — Setmore on Pro ($5/user/month annually), Acuity on Premium ($49/month annually). Review each BAA's scope before deciding on price alone.

Let Clients Book the Whole Block — Not One Session at a Time

Clients pick every date and pay once. Free 14-day trial, no card required.

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