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Best WordPress Calendar Plugins Compared

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Best WordPress Calendar Plugins Compared 

WordPress calendar plugins help to list bookings, appointments, and other events on your site. We spent seven days reviewing over 30 WordPress plugins to determine the best of the best. We concluded that Booking Calendar is the best for most people due to its adaptability, ease of use, and customization options. 

The Best WordPress Calendar Plugin for Most 

Booking Calendar Logo

Booking Calendar

Best for Most

Booking Calendar is a responsive, easy-to-use, and flexible WordPress calendar plugin. It’s quick to integrate into your site and offers a range of customization options. Easily view and manage your bookings in a few clicks with a one-time cost that starts at $79.

The best WordPress calendar plugin for most needs is Booking Calendar. It’s an easy-to-use and flexible calendar plugin that can be adapted and used by a wide range of businesses. It offers a responsive front-end and back-end design, a simple but effective admin panel that displays and lets you manages bookings, and it’s quick to install and integrate into a site.

We like the booking calendar blocks that can add booking forms into pages without hassle, and the customization options provided are convincing enough to fit a variety of site designs. It’s a worthy consideration for most.

The Best WordPress Calendar Plugins To Consider 

·        Booking Calendar – Best for Most

·        The Events Calendar – Best for Scheduled Events

·        Timetable Responsive Schedule – Best for Weekly Time Schedules

·        Salon Booking System – Best for Appointment-Based Businesses

·        EventOn – Best for Eye-Catching Event Calendars

When It Makes Sense To Invest Into WordPress Calendar Plugins

You may be thinking about when it makes sense to invest in a WordPress calendar in the first place. After all, you don’t want to invest in one if it’s unnecessary for your situation.

There are some key scenarios in which investing in a WordPress calendar makes the most sense. For example, if you’re a growing small or medium-sized business that needs to showcase upcoming events or shows on your site, then a calendar plugin is a good idea.

Or perhaps you run a hotel and need to be able to accept bookings on your site. You may have used a more traditional method before, such as a phone system, but now you want to adapt to a more modern online approach. You might also have found out that your customers prefer to book online and need to keep up with the trend.

You could be a salon owner or a barbershop that requires a faster and easier way to book appointments. Most now offer a simple booking system that’s both convenient and transparent for clients.

If these scenarios sound like you, then a WordPress calendar plugin would be a solid investment.

#1 – Booking Calendar – The Best for Most

Booking Calendar Logo

Booking Calendar

Best for Most

Booking Calendar is a responsive, easy-to-use, and flexible WordPress calendar plugin. It’s quick to integrate into your site and offers a range of customization options. Easily view and manage your bookings in a few clicks with a one-time cost that starts at $79.

Booking Calendar is the best WordPress calendar plugin for most businesses. It’s a plugin that has been around for a long time, launching way back in 2009. Most surprisingly, consistent updates have allowed it to remain one of the best WordPress calendar plugins around.

The plugin allows people on your site to easily view slots and book appointments or services when they like. For instance, visitors can check the availability of property, multiple services, and specific time slots.

Your customers can choose days in the customizable calendar, select an available slot to book, and fill in booking form fields configurable as you wish.

One of the key strengths of the plugin is the ability to customize it for a variety of different purposes. The design and look of the calendar are adaptable to match the look of your business.

What’s more, under the settings option in the WordPress dashboard, you can easily view, manage, and customize all of the bookings you received.

You’ll be able to add booking forms to specific pages on your site by inserting the booking shortcode into the post or page as required.

If you’re a fan of Google Calendar, you can even import your events straight to your booking admin panel. For quick manual adding to Google Calendar, you click on the export button near each booking.

With continual updates, it’s a well-maintained plugin that’s a great choice for most overall.

The Booking Calendar WordPress plugin is free to download, install and use, but for more features, there’s a one-time cost that starts at $79 and goes up to $899 for up to five websites. The one-time fee opens up more advanced booking configurations, supports payment gateways, and more.

#2 – The Events Calendar – The Best for Scheduled Events

The Events Calendar Logo

The Events Calendar

Best for Scheduled Events

The Events Calendar is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin that excels at displaying events on your site. Customizable code lets you tweak your calendars exactly how you want. Not to mention the handy import and export functionality that saves you a great deal of time. The best part? You get all that for an annual cost of $99.

The Events Calendar is the best for any type of event, as the name suggests. Restaurants, churches, and non-profit organizations will feel right at home with the plugin. The best part is how easy everything is to use. You’ll be up and running within minutes.

Users that like to tweak things on the back end will be happy to hear the plugin’s code is entirely customizable, allowing you to create the specific calendar you want.

The import and export functionality is more than welcome, too, enabling you to import events from other calendars with a dedicated CSV importer or export events for use in iCal or Google Calendar.

Shortcodes handily allow you to embed a calendar or event wherever you like on your site, and you can display event countdowns, and highlight featured venues as you desire.

We like the ability to showcase featured events with the plugin—these are special events that stand out amongst others with an enlarged and highlighted design, increasing your engagement with the event.

Recurring events, for example, monthly, weekly, and custom events, are easily switched on and activated through the plugin.

The Events Calendar is free to get started with and use. For extra features and support, including Elementor integration and additional calendar views, there’s an annual cost of $99.

#3 – Timetable Responsive Schedule – The Best for Weekly Time Schedules

Timetable Responsive Schedule Logo

Timetable Responsive Schedule

Best for Weekly Time Schedules

Timetable Responsive Schedule is the ultimate plugin for displaying weekly time schedules. The simple shortcode generator is easy to insert on your site, and you can adjust the colors and layout exactly how you want. Custom CSS options and Google fonts help to sweeten the deal further. It costs $35 for a regular license.

Timetable Responsive Schedule is the best WordPress calendar plugin for weekly time schedules. It might not have the catchiest of names, but the plugin can display a selection of event calendars, schedules, and availability information.

You’ll be able to quickly add a new event to your calendar and name it as well as alter the settings, event hours, event frequency, and set dates. The plugin is ideal for the weekly time schedules found in gym classes, schools, medical departments, clubs, pubs, and meal plans.

The WordPress plugin comes with a dedicated events manager, shortcode generator, and upcoming events widget. You can even generate full PDFs from your timetable view.

The shortcode generator itself allows you to build your timetable or edit your current one, and you can select events, categories, and timetable columns to be displayed. Other options include the ability to choose the time format, layout for the event block, and you can define colors, Google fonts, and even custom CSS.

Timetable Responsive Schedule isn’t free to use, and it’ll cost $35 for a regular license. This license ensures future updates are available to you and includes six months of support from the developer QuanticaLabs. You can extend the support available to 12 months for an additional $11.25.

#4 – Salon Booking System – The Best for Appointment-Based Businesses

Salon Booking System Logo

Salon Booking System

Best for Appointment-based Businesses

Salon Booking System is a top WordPress calendar plugin with full Google Calendar integration. If that’s not enough, automatic cancellations for unpaid reservations and a dedicated discount system show it’s not short on functionality. Get the premium version for only $94.

Salon Booking System is the best WordPress calendar plugin for salons and other appointment-centered businesses. Salons, hairdressers, barbershops, and beauty centers will find the plugin provides them with many valuable features—this is especially true for professionals that deliver their services via reservations.

The plugin is integrated with Google Calendar, and reservations received from your site are automatically published on it. Team members are notified of these upcoming reservations via email, SMS, and Google Calendar itself.

We were impressed with the pay later feature, allowing customers to pay at a later stage if they desire. Automatic cancellations for unpaid reservations are also included. It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that all of these features are locked until you upgrade to the premium version.

The discount system that enables the creation of coupon codes and discounts—these are applied when specific conditions are met—is a feature we think salons and beauty centers will find helpful indeed.

You can get started with Salon Booking System for free, but be aware that online payment options and many other features are not available at the free level. To enable them, you’ll need to upgrade, which costs $94 on an annual basis.

#5 – EventOn – The Best for Eye-Catching Event Calendars

EventOn Logo

EventOn

Best for Eye-Catching Event Calendars

Big and beautiful calendars are the aim of the day here. EventOn offers eye-catching designs and highly customizable repeating events. The easy-to-use bulk edit option completes an overall slick package. It’s $25 for a regular license with the option of 12 months of extended support.

EventOn is the best WordPress calendar plugin for dynamic event calendars. We mean slick calendar displays that are colorful, bold, and stand out against the competition. Best of all, these displays can be customized exactly how you want them.

There’s a minimalist yet highly presentable feel to the calendars you can create with this plugin.

You can also create calendar bubbles that open up to display a calendar card with all the details your customers need to know. For the calendar tiles themselves, you can add any number of event colors to each of them. It’s great for modern businesses that want to look the part.

On top of that are highly customizable repeating events, multiple event images, and unlimited event creation. That’s without mentioning the large variety of calendar layout designs on offer and advanced features like multi-data types.

The ability to edit the event status field via quick edit and bulk edit functions is also a time-saver—there’s no need for manual data entry here.

EventOn costs just $25 for a regular license, including all future updates and six months of support. If you need more than that, you can extend your support for 12 months for an additional $7.50.

Methodology for Choosing the Best WordPress Calendar Plugin

Here you’ll find the most significant factors you need to consider when choosing the best WordPress calendar plugin for you.

Calendar Layout

A WordPress calendar plugin must offer a mobile responsive and accessible layout. Your customers need to be able to navigate a calendar and book appointments without issue.

A calendar plugin that looks outdated or overly complicated will turn away potential customers. It’s also crucial that the layout of the calendar is compatible with your site. If you’re not careful, this can break the design of a site.

The best calendar plugins will need to be accessible, easily navigable, and eye-catching, so keep that in mind.

Simplicity

Every calendar plugin offers something a little bit different. Some will boast a vast array of features, while others will offer a more streamlined feature set.

Think about which features your business needs, as plugins with many features can quickly add to the price.

For example, most salons will need a calendar plugin that offers a visually appealing design with the option for customers to book appointments and pay for them.

Advanced features beyond that, such as integrations with other software, might be unnecessary, but this depends on your business and needs, so think carefully.

Booking Options

Similar to the above but with the distinction of booking options themselves. The booking options available via these WordPress calendar plugins vary greatly.

You’ll have some that don’t allow customers to book appointments directly—instead, they let them see the availability and times of events. Some may display the remaining tickets for an event, while others may not.

What you need here comes down to your company and industry.

Take some time to think about this. You don’t want to end up paying for a plugin that doesn’t allow customers to book appointments if you need that functionality to operate.

Booking Calendar Logo

Booking Calendar

Best for Most

Booking Calendar is a responsive, easy-to-use, and flexible WordPress calendar plugin. It’s quick to integrate into your site and offers a range of customization options. Easily view and manage your bookings in a few clicks with a one-time cost that starts at $79.

Summary

The use of calendar plugins provides your WordPress site with essential functionality.

If you need a plugin that gets the job done and is adaptable for a wide range of businesses, Booking Calendar is a top choice.

For a plugin dedicated to displaying events, The Events Calendar is a great option, while the Timetable Responsive Schedule plugin best handles weekly time schedules.

Salons and other appointment-based businesses should download and install Salon Booking System for managing all appointments. For beautiful calendars that catch the eye, EventOn is a solid option.

Be sure to think about the simplicity, booking options, and layout of the plugin before making your decision.


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