SimplyBook.me Reviews

I conduct digital research with psychiatric populations and I am the principal investigator of a NIH funded study that is evaluating the feasibility of delivering group therapy using mobile platforms. SimplyBook.me is an amazing solution to schedule visits with research participants. Our research participants can now book sessions with different members of our team (program coordinators, assessors, therapists). This has greatly accelerated the operationalization of our study procedures.

Honestly I cannot think of any flaws. Maybe the admin portal can be initially intimidating, but one easily learns how to navigate it and customize the experience.

I like the adaptability. Even though it has a learning curve, once I understand how to do something, it does it well. It does most things that I need it to do. Clients can book easily, the reminders go out without me checking on them, the product is definitely well priced, and it just works. I think I have a semi-complicated set up, but was able to make it all work (with some help from their excellent live chat agents). The widget codes work on my website, payments integrate with it, it's all just one great package for my needs.

There are still some things that I would like it to do that it doesn't do. The example would be too long, but I have worked around it. It has to do with the ability to book kids/adults/how many at a time of each, for a certain time frame. I also don't like that once I make a change, it is retroactive...I would really like the ability to change something for the future, and have it set up to go on a certain date, without the changes going live right away.

Allows for a degree of automation to my business.

I can show images and descriptions for my categories and services which a lot of other systems do not.

Like the drag a slot function in calendar.

Like the SMS and email reminder system (but could be better!)

It adapts to most types of business which many others do not.

Very expensive for what it offers.
It costs a lot of money to get a reasonably functional system by paying for all the add ons and extras.
If the core was better then I would be happy to pay for my business specific add ons.
Customer service is more of a cut and paste script routine.
There is no place other than sending via customer service to place suggestions. It needs a dedicated place to post suggestions so that all other users can vote on them.
The company just say that they look at all suggestions. The problem with that is no one else gets to see those suggestions and thing Oh thats a great idea.
Plus it does not provide real life feedback doing it their way.
I made these in the very first day of use
Suggestions /Requirements for SimplyBook.me

1) Email templates should have a WYSIWYG editor
2) There should be a Block Out option when making a booking on the calendar (admin only)
3) Emails should be sent in HTML not plain text. At least an option should be available.
4) There needs to be a “Pending Booking” email template.
5) It should be possible to switch on and off any email or SMS rather than all on or all off.
6) This booking software really would benefit from and APP the website as it stands doe not even work/view properly on mobile.
7) There should be multi buy option. Customers may want to book 1 or 10 or 100 of the same service. It should be easy to add a figure for quantity required.
8) There should be a multi cart function

I love that the program is easy to use and patients find it easy to hook themselves, even the older generation.

It’s a little unclear on check out for patients when it tells them that they have payed when they have selected pay later.. it should also be able to have two currencies showing on the prices. As I have one part of my business in France and one in UK.

Had the required appointment booking, allowing different types of appointments to be booked, but also had the added benefit of being able to sell products alongside the booking which was a requirement for this particular client. Trial allowed which was good for testing features fully.

Obviously would be great if everything was free, you have to pay for certain products. It can be a little confusing as to how the extra features are charged for.

The app for me is what makes a difference in terms of accessibility as owner of a charter company with different boats.

A bit difficult to handle widgets on my website and some translation, a mid-long job which needed to be done anyway. THe Customer Service team helped me out.

I like that I am able to schedule my consultants.

It is not very intuitive to find the location of certain fonctions

The booking calendar allows my clients to book my services directly via the calendar, linked from my site. This is a handy feature and a selling point in my business, where people want easy ways to make appointments at times of their choosing. I can customise the forms to suit my own specific needs.

The features are not always intuitively set out, so it has taken a while to find out what can be done. When I get a mail infpoming me of a booking, it would be good to get either, 1. a direct link to the new booking or the day of the booking, or 2. all the details of the booking in a mail. I would also like to be able to synchronise the booking calendar with the offline calendar in my mail client, but I have not found out how, if it even is possible.

What I like most about the product is how it has helped a lot in time management and also the ability of catching up with potential leads. I also like how the app make one look busier it's a good business strategy.

I think the app could improve more on its functionality add more cool features to the software.

The features that is impactful is when you have your confirmation of your appointment and you have the calender to make sure you choose the right date and it's just very helpful and convient.

No I love this site.I love the fact that the time and dates is listed and very helpful.

Simplybook.me is affordable and features convenient alacarte style add-ons.
This is perfect for users who don't need some of the features, or don't need them as often.
The ability to add a questionnaire for clients is wonderful.
Appointments can be downloaded as a CSV file.
Reminders and email confirmation is available.

I did not like the technical issues and inconveniences that we have encountered using Simplybook.me.
Our clients often report that they were not able to schedule an appointment.
The pricing setup is a double edged sword, if you want to try different options to see which ones are the most helpful, you're simply out of luck if you've already exceeded the limit for the free version.

I love how you can basically create your own website for your booking system and customize it to suit your brand. I love the added custom features. The fact that you can choose what to enable and what to disable based on your business’s needs is amazing! And the annual price for the Basic plan so great! Definitely most cost effective than other scheduling systems I’ve used in the past.

I feel like they should include more than just 3 custom features on the basic plan. “Accepting payments” & “Accepting deposits” are 2 main features that most businesses require, & without a doubt should be included for free. It’s kind of a no brainer. Or both of these features should be 2 in 1 because they go hand in hand. Having to enable both of them then leaves you with only 1 more custom feature to select.

Other than this, everything else is great!

It is a very simple scheduling site. Not many customer don't know how to navigate around the site.

The system has little niggle points that need improving such as drop downs for quantities/options where at the moment single widgets can only be selected. My business sometimes multiple events are needes but simply book it only allows the customer to book one event at a time, can be frustrating to the customer and also coats me extra with having 2 transactions.

Very easy to setup and all accessed from a single Admin site which is cloud based so I can easily roll out the system to other staff across several sites.
I found the initial setup very straight forward and adding further complexity to the system was easy to do too once I got the basics right.
I can easily add multiple sites providing many different services all from the Simplybookme Admin site.
Great value for money. I'm running almost a 100 different sites (service providers) providing our customers with over 30 different services.
Superb email and SMS notification setup. I have a bespoke booking confirmations go out from each of my sites or service providers as they all have a different setup.
The system is jam packed full of really great Custom Features many of which I use. Such as Book Soon Notification System, Intake Forms, Service Categories, Group Bookings, Flexible Notifications, Terms and Conditions, Products, Booking Status. That's only about 15% of all the Custom Features available!

Can't add single Special Days (e.g. for a one off holiday) without having to move away from the easy to use "slider" schedule I use for opening times.
No "Sand Box" site for testing setup or training.
The dates/days in the front end Calendar for customers (when using a phone) are not locked which means if you scroll down the screen it's very difficult to keep track of which day/date you are selecting.

SimplyBook.me is the ONLY "booking engine" which had the capability to integrate "same day book & play" online booking with our in-house "walk-in's" ticketing system. Not only does it "work", but it's a "near perfect fit!" (Largely due to the custom feature "add-ins.") I had done extensive research & tried them all.... Simplybook.me is in a class of it's own. Surprisingly, customer support is also truly "world-class!" Having a fair amount of coding & web design experience, I dug in a lot deeper than the average user. In doing so I uncovered several bugs. Not only was the support phenomenal, but most of the fixes came FAST!

Booking is fast, easy & designed to work well with smart phones. (Really well for the most part with proper setup, selecting the right "timeline" & adding the CSS custom feature add-in.)

"Power comes at a price": Monthly fees are based on "custom feature add-ins." IMO, their tiered pricing needs more flexibility. Pricing model is also based on # of bookings & # of SMS messages (if you use them.) This is not a big deal and actually favors "low volume users." (There is even a 100% free plan that comes with 1 custom feature of your choice.) BUT: If you need more than 3 custom features, monthly fees triple to get to the next tier which is 8 features. (So for a business that only does a few bookings a month but need more than 3 features, SimplyBook.me may be too expensive to use.) ~ However: If you do enough volume", your bringing in enough sales to "more than justify" using the best booking system on the planet!

"Custom CSS" custom feature: Had to use the "Weekly Classes" timeline ALONG with this custom feature ("CSS custom feature) to avoid/minimize potential user mistakes in booking. The combination of these two work OK. With a few "simple" modifications to the other timelines, those should work well too. Hopefully the engineers will make two (2) very slight "navigational" & "display" modifications to correct these issues when using the other timelines.

"Group Bookings" custom feature: When using "group billing custom feature" (one booking for a group of participants): A default quantity of 1 always displays. (Making it too easy for user to forget to select the correct quantity. And on the review screen, this quantity does not appear.)

Easy to use, almost trouble free (works almost every time). Interface is appealing, and customers can access site very easily.

1. My customers frequently complain that they cannot book an appointment. This is because it is not very clear that a time slot has already been booked and they need to try and search for another one that is not.

I think to overcome this, a pop-up message should appear at the booking site every time someone tries to book a time slot that is taken already. The message could read "This session is already booked or there is insufficient time available to book this time slot. Please try another time slot". The little red sentence that currently appears on your system is rarely seen by my customers nor is the dimmed grey lettering of the time slots evident enough for customers to realize the slot is taken already.

In addition, you can provide a week or month-at-a-glance view of the time days/time slots already booked and those available so customers can easily see which ones to select.

2. It would be great if I could add a link from my Simplebookme webpage so customers can click on to view more information about a service or product than what is allowed from your site.

Accepts online payments even on a free account
30 days Free Trial which is long enough to try all of the costum features. It actually helped me decide to upgrade when my free trial is over.

Poor customer support. I signed up for the Free account. After logging out, I couldnt log in. Tried "forgert password/forget company login" but no email has been sent to my inbox. Tried chatting with their live chat, but it wasnt so "live" after all. I left a message but I didnt get any message in my inbox from them. Tried sending a message via their Facebook page which says "typically replies within a few hours" but until now there was no response. So I signed up again using a different email. This time, I screen shot my login details. I set up Simplybook according to my company's needs etc. When I tried logging in again after a few hours, I couldn't login using the login details I used (which I have screen shot earlier).Went through the same steps mentioned above to retrieve my login details (just in case I have the password wrong) and to no avail. I didnt get any email to reset password nor to find my company login. How can I use the system if it wont let me log in.

SimplyBook.me allows users to accept payments through Stripe and apply membership scheduling and payments (two major pluses for me). Furthermore, SimplyBook.me allows me to customize (within significant limits) the look and feel of the platform to more-or-less conform with the look and feel of my website. It has an easy to use and intuitive user interface (not being very tech savvy, for me this is a very important feature). Within twenty to thirty minutes you can have a subscription, a customized interface, and have the platform embedded (or otherwise set up) on your website. Additionally, for those who need it, SimplyBook.me is HIPPA compliant. For most people (myself included) the free subscription will be all you need.

I like this platform and can see very few cons with it. But I'll do my best to come up with a few (or at least one). Here it is, and although it might seem insignificant, success is in the details: SimplyBook.me does not have a "look busy" feature. Meaning, it doesn't automatically allow for a certain percentage of time slots to appear full. The result is if you are just beginning your business and have a lot of "empty time" you (in this case me) end up looking rather pathetic. But with a "look busy" feature a certain percentage of time slots are automatically filled allowing the service providing (in my case as a mental heath therapist) to appear busy and in high demand. The higher the demand appears to be the more willing the potential client is to book. The lack of this feature is the difference between a B+/A- and a solid A+.

I love the fact I get a custom URL to send my clients to. The tight integration with Google calendar is a huge time saver. The reviews tool is awesome because they encourage reviews after a meeting and give me a dedicated page for reviews SimplyBook.me also maintains an exportable database of client contact info (which has been a lifesaver on more than one occasion).

The software has so many features, it can be a little daunting to find what you need in the admin panel. For the most part, I've figured it out. I look forward seeing new themes made available. I would love to see integration with a reliable and cost-effective (or free) web conferencing tool or screen sharing client support tool.

I have used this software for close to 5 years and it's still simply the best in the industry for my needs. There are plenty of scheduling solutions out there but this platform is easy and flexible and consistent. I have never had a problem with implimentation and the developers are SO accessible that even if I did, they would be right on a solution. They are constantly adding value for the user and this value translates into satisfaction in our client's experience. Value for the cost is the best perk. You would be hard pressed to find another product that does as much for as little.

One limitation is the lack of a merge feature. Because users input their data anew, there is the potential to have multiple entries for the same client in the client database.

I was first attacted to the look and the ease of programming what I needed for my clients site. I still think all of that works well. The Live Chat is a God send, and the help is very helpful and friendly. I also like very much all the YouTube videos on EVERY page. Some of the videos could go into more detail...but then I am a beginner so...maybe one Video that takes you through the Additional Options a little more clearly as I missed a few things.

When created the Booking widget it doesn't save your color settings and I also didn't realize that you can't change the background. Also, I wanted the Facebook widget and it was never working properly. It wasn't Simplybook.me problem but FACEBOOK. Facebook doesn't allow the widget unless you have over 2000 likes. Something maybe SB could mention. It took me a few days to figure it out and I almost cancelled my subscription but the LIVE CHAT gave me a great solution. I also really wish that I can keep the backend language in English, but my Frontend (what the customers sees) in German. The main problem is that you can't change the Timeframe of the booking once you set it the first time. Crazy! I had it on 5 min, now I wish it was 15min. My site would look cleaner because I am using the "Flexible" Calender.

Patients say that it is very easy for them to schedule appointments.

SimplyBookMe adds upgrades which then require a higher priced subscription to maintain the prior level of service. I was having some problems changing my email address, so customer support instructed me to delete a plugin and then reinstall it, so I deleted it. But then told I needed to purchase a higher level of subscription in order to reinstall the plugin. If I hadn't deleted the plugin based on their instructions, I would not have had to upgrade my subscription. Blocking or changing dates/hours of service is cumbersome.

I love this booking tool compared to every other one out there, but it isn't as great as it could be. It is the easiest tool to use with the most features that I need available, but you give up certain flexibility when you have an all in one tool like this.

I wish the service providers could see the sessions in their timezone just like the clients can, but the system only allows you to show the company timezone and I have providers working all across the United States. I also wish the packages and memberships were more flexible. My packages page is super crowded because for example I have to set 3 different high school 10 hour tutoring packages for different sessions durations (i.e. 30 min, 45 min, 60 min) when other systems have the ability to have me put this all in one package where the client picks the duration. I also don't like how if they cancel a package session then it takes away the credit even though I setup a 24 hour cancellation policy. Even if they cancel in time, the session credit disappears. I also wish the packages had a service filter like the memberships do.

I love how easy it is to set up. My clients can easily book appointments and write reviews for my business.

I wish there was a better option for automatic reminders. I was paying for the text messages but they stopped working after a while and I could never get it fixed.