Tired of paying others to get bookings for you? Looking for an affordable booking solution for your WordPress website? Well, this article on “booking WordPress plugin free” can take you to the rescue!
If you own a WordPress website and offer booking services, you can integrate the best free WordPress booking plugin into your website to streamline bookings and appointments.
Such a solution will help you save a lot of money and time. Plus, it lets you run your booking business online hassle-free. But the problem is which plugin you should pick and why. We’ll answer these questions through this content. So, keep reading.
Why should you use a WordPress booking plugin?
Many reasons can motivate you to use a WordPress booking plugin. First, you want to avoid hiring developers or coding the entire booking system from scratch.
Secondly, you don’t have the time or energy to undertake the learning curve required to build such a system. Thirdly, you want a perfect solution to have everything running on autopilot.
Suppose you run a travel agency. You want to have customers book tours, apartments, and hotels hassle-free. And the best part is that customers don’t need to contact you for manual booking!
Wouldn’t that benefit you in the long run? Of course, and that’s what a WordPress booking plugin does.
Alongside providing all these benefits, such a plugin can help customers make payments straight from your website. That means it saves both you and your valuable customers time.
Lastly, you can customize such a plugin. You can reap the advantages of this plugin’s endless functionalities to ease your business operation.
We hope it’s now clear why you need a WordPress booking plugin to run your business smoothly.
But which one do you use among the various other booking plugins? Or what should you check before opting for one? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, follow along.
Factors to consider while picking the best and free WordPress booking plugin
You can easily find a lot of free and premium WordPress booking plugins. But the problem strikes when you need to choose only one among thousands!
While finalizing one plugin, you might feel confused about deciding on the best one. So, how do you remove this confusion? How can you pick the best one after considering several factors? That’s what we’re about to discuss. Let’s read.
Ease of use
Ease of use should be your first consideration when checking many free WordPress booking plugins.
Regarding ease of use, you need to consider two sides of the plugin: Frontend and backend. On the backend, you need to make sure the plugin has a user-friendly admin dashboard.
Likewise, on the frontend, ensure users can effortlessly and smoothly accomplish all the booking-related tasks.
Customization options
The customization facility is the next factor to consider when choosing a free WordPress booking plugin. The solution should be able to modify the booking experience according to your users’ needs.
Plus, it should let you integrate third-party tools, such as Outlook, iCal, etc, into the plugin for enhanced functionality.
Automation
Everybody, especially techy people, loves automation. You’ll enjoy ultimate comfort if you can automate your booking system with a plugin.
Imagine how fun it would be if your customers automatically got appointment confirmations or reminders upon booking. Therefore, ensure your preferred booking plugin offers automation irrespective of your business type.
Payments
Gone are those days when customers needed to manually pay after booking hotels, rooms, or any services.
Today, they can enjoy the benefit of online payment. Thanks to technological advancements. So, ensure your chosen WordPress booking plugin comes with multiple payment solutions.
These criteria determine the best and most free WordPress booking plugin. You need to remember those factors while narrowing down your top picks.
Best free WordPress booking plugins to look at
Before reading everything about all the plugins, we encourage you to review the table below to get what this article contains.
| Best Free Booking WordPress Plugins | Standout Features |
| Tourfic | Multivendor Capability, Integration with third-party Travel sites, Itinerary Builder, Partial Payment, Advanced Pricing, Trip Reviews, Room Inventory Management and WooCommerce-based. |
| Amelia | Advanced Appointment Booking, Automated Notifications and Reminders and Professional Booking Wizard |
| Bookly | Automated Email and SMS Notifications,Sync with Google & Outlook Calendar, Mailchimp Integration, Zoom and Google Meet Integration. |
| WP Simple Booking Calendar | Unlimited number of booking calendars (premium), Calendar synchronization with 3rd-party websites and User management. |
| Booking Calendar | Intuitive and Powerful Admin Panel, Email Templates, Online Payment andMultiple Bookings. |
| CreativeMinds Booking Calendar | Unlimited Events, Calendar View and Email Notifications. |
| Salon Booking System | Bookings export, Google Calendar synchronization, Advanced discount system and Category grouping. |
| Appointment Hour Booking | Multi Page Forms, WooCommerce Integration, Payment Gateway Integration. |
| Simply Schedule Appointments | Unlimited Custom Email Notifications, Export Appointments, Display the Calendars Anywhere, etc. |
| Appointment Booking Calendar | Email notifications, Multiple calendars, and more. |
1 . Tourfic
Tourfic is a popular travel and WordPress hotel booking plugin. It can be your ultimate solution if you run a hotel or travel booking website.
According to Xavier C, founder of triptohelp.org, “After looking for so many plugins for my travel agency, and after trying a few solutions, I decided to go for this plugin from TOURFIC. It solved my needs plus they are improving the plugin with new features and options, which is positive and makes the plugin better. ”
This plugin has cool features such as Multivendor Capability, Integration with third-party Travel sites, WooCommerce compatibility, Itinerary Builder, Partial Payment, Advanced Pricing, Trip Reviews, Room Inventory Management and so on.
All these features will help you streamline your booking system, effortlessly manage orders, and enjoy a wide array of WooCommerce payment solutions!
Tourfic rocks and exhibits its full potential when you use it with Travelfic, a fast and fully customizable travel and hotel booking WordPress theme. Hence, consider this plugin and Travelfic theme to eliminate all problems in your hotel or travel-related business.
Here is the WordPress hotel booking plugin free download link you may visit.
Pros:
- Multivendor capability
- Integration with third party travel sites (Booking.com, Agoda, Travel Payouts etc.)
- WooCommerce compatibility
- User-friendly interface
- Fast and easy to use
- Affordable
- Offer unlimited customizations
- Offers dedicated customer support
Cons:
- Lots of features might seem a little bewildering first.
Pricing:
Pro plan starts at $69 per year for a single website.
2. Amelia
Next up on this booking WordPress plugin free list, we have another famous plugin, Amelia. It makes online booking so easy that you and your customers can do their jobs hassle-free.
It doesn’t matter what services you offer. You can tailor the online booking to you and your customers’ needs. Not only this, but you can also save a lot of time by keeping appointments and bookings fully automated.
Its free version has some lucrative features to help you get going swiftly. For instance, its calendar view gives you total control over all the appointments and their status.
You can also send email, SMS, WhatsApp notifications, and reminders on bookings to customers with Amelia. This free WordPress booking plugin allows you to track approved appointments and monitor revenue, employee workload, and upcoming schedules.
So, all these features help Amelia secure a top position in the best free event booking plugin WordPress list. It’s a powerful plugin that lets you boost your booking business.
Pros:
- Modern design
- A plethora of features
- Easy to use
- Reasonable
- Highly customizable
Cons:
- Admin dashboard isn’t beginner-friendly
Pricing:
Starter package’s annual price is $49.
3. Bookly
Bookly is another sought-after plugin that many people use to run their booking-related businesses smoothly.
This plugin lets you automate booking calendars and enjoy seamless scheduling. It features a modern-looking and responsive design.
As a result, your booking forms will look great across diverse platforms such as desktops, laptops, and smartphones.
Additionally, this plugin gives you many advanced styling options. So, you can customize your booking forms according to your preference without any coding knowledge!
Last but not least, Bookly lets you integrate many third-party plugins to help you streamline your business operation.
For example, you can add Google Calendar to the plugin. Also, you can integrate multiple payment solutions into the free version of Bookly.
Bookly comes with all the exclusive features you want in a top-grade booking plugin. So, you may consider it.
Pros:
- Allows effortless booking and scheduling
- Simple user and admin interfaces
- Easy appointment scheduling process
- Sleek design
Cons:
- Issues with updates
Pricing:
Regular license comes at $89
4. WP Simple Booking Calendar
WP Simple Booking Calendar is an excellent WordPress booking plugin. It offers a user-friendly interface and lets you create one calendar.
Once you create a calendar, add it to a post or page to help users book an entire day. That means it has no hourly time slots.
So, if you run a business that offers rooms, accommodation, or other per-day services, the WP Simple Booking Calendar is your true buddy. Its premium version will let you do much more, though.
For instance, you can make unlimited booking calendars and sync them with third-party websites like Airbnb, Vrbo, etc. Besides, you can tweak other options like changing the first day of the week, and so on.
To conclude, it’s a simple yet highly beneficial plugin that you can use to make online booking easier and more fun.
Pros:
- Simple and easy to use
- Beginner-friendly interface
- Offers many features in the free version
- Amazing customer support
Cons:
- It could come with more features
Pricing:
Personal (starting package) costs you $39.
5. Booking Calendar
Meet one of the oldest booking plugins for WordPress – Booking Calendar.
The core plugin comes free and offers almost all the features that let you effortlessly run or provide online booking services.
With Booking Calendar, customers can view the calendar’s availability and make reservations for specific days and time slots. Also, they can search for available services on particular dates and times.
Finally, they can even pay online for their bookings with the help of this plugin. That’s what users get from Booking Calendar. Let’s now talk about what you get.
This plugin helps you manage appointments in the admin dashboard. You can approve, decline, filter, and sort bookings.
You can even configure the booking forms’ structure. You can coordinate email notifications and do much more with the premium version.
Pros:
- Import and export bookings to Google Calendar
- Supports unlimited booking resources
- Easy to use
- Affordable
Cons:
- Too simple in design compared to other apps
Pricing:
Premium plan starts at $60
6. CreativeMinds Booking Calendar
The CreativeMinds Booking Calendar plugin secures a top spot on our list of the best booking WordPress plugin free for several reasons.
First, it lets you easily schedule appointments. Second, it enables you to create multiple calendars with diverse time slots.
Third, this plugin allows you to set the number of seats for each event. Fourth, with this plugin, you can customize booking forms.
Last but not least, this plugin can help you create responsive frontend calendars. With a shortcode, you can add these calendars later to blog posts, pages, or anywhere you want!
So, try this plugin and see positive results in your booking business.
Pros:
- Has many features
- Easy to set up
- Customizable
- Affordable
Cons:
- Complex UI.
Pricing:
Available at a $39 price tag.
7. Salon Booking System
The Salon Booking System is an exceptional plugin designed to fulfill the daily needs of salon owners, barber shops, hairdressers, beauty centers, and similar businesses.
This plugin comes with a lot of unique features. For example, it allows you to integrate Google Calendar.
Thus, you can add reservations from your Google Calendar account. Besides, you can also integrate WhatsApp into this plugin to send or receive SMSs!
You can customize the look and feel of the form’s styles. Plus, you can enable a guest checkout option to give users a hassle-free booking experience with this plugin.
Last, you can allow customers to pay online once they book your services. Nonetheless, for that, you need to opt for the premium version.
Overall, this plugin has all the features you can demand in a top-class booking plugin. It can indeed facilitate your salon or similar business types.
Pros:
- Easy to install and use
- Has translation facility
- Equipped with lots of APIs
- User-friendly
Cons:
- Its unlimited plan is pretty expensive
Pricing:
The premium package begins with a yearly fee of $69
8. Appointment Hour Booking
Appointment Hour Booking is another free WordPress booking plugin. It can help you create appointment booking forms with a start time and specific duration.
With it, you can pre-set your working hours so that end users immediately know when you can make an appointment.
Not only this, but this plugin enables you to add third-party plugins for added benefits. For example, you can integrate various payment methods, Paypal, Stripe, Skrill, etc., into this plugin.
Finally, customizing this plugin is a piece of cake as you don’t need to deal with codes to edit or adjust Appointment Hour Booking to meet your business needs.
So, if you have a business where you need to make regular appointments, you can hardly find any better plugin than this one.
Pros:
- Affordable
- Excellent visual layout
- Available in 50+ languages
- Easy to use
Cons:
- No plan offers unlimited website use
Pricing:
The monthly cost of the premium version starts at $6.99
9. Simply Schedule Appointments
The Simply Schedule Appointments plugin is an elegant tool that allows you to manage online appointment scheduling through your website.
This easy-to-use WordPress booking plugin is appropriate for consultants and small businesses who want to make appointments for interviews, calls, and other purposes.
With this plugin, you can schedule your availability for appointments. Also, you can block off dates when you’re unavailable for bookings.
Its free version lets you customize booking forms with different styles to match your website. If you want to dig deeper into complex yet attractive styles, you can embed 3rd-party plugins as well.
To this end, you need to purchase the premium plan. With the premium version, you can integrate Google Calendar, Zoom, Gravity Forms, and various payment solutions!
Hence, considering its features and service, this plugin can definitely help you run your booking business smoothly.
Pros:
- Brilliant setup wizard
- Has unlimited calendars
- Excellent customer support
- Easy to install and use
Cons:
- Its Business Edition is a bit pricey
Pricing:
Yearly subscription fee starts at $99
10. Appointment Booking Calendar
The Appointment Booking Calendar is a feature-rich and free WordPress booking plugin.
People love this plugin for two reasons. One is that it allows users to integrate PayPal for free! The other is its ability to show a set of time slots instead of displaying an entire calendar.
But that doesn’t mean this plugin doesn’t reveal any calendar. You can still cross off unavailable time slots and show available days with time slots.
This plugin’s premium version offers you much more. For example, you’ll get a multi-page calendar, a built-in Captcha, availability verifications, etc.
All said it’s a simple plugin that delivers all the features you require to streamline your appointment booking service.
Pros:
- Free PayPal Standard integration
- Customizable
- Easy to use
- Impressive design
Cons:
- It could come with more features
Pricing:
The professional plan will cost you $53.58
FAQs
Does WordPress have a booking plugin?
WordPress has thousands of booking plugins. You’ve already glanced through the top ones in this article.
All these plugins can automate your booking services and save you more time. With them, you can smoothly run your booking business online.
Can I add a booking system to my website?
Indeed, you can add a booking system to your website. If you’re a WordPress user, you can easily do it with the help of some free or premium WordPress plugins.
If you aren’t familiar with WordPress, you need to seek help from 3rd-party websites and may deal with codes to add a booking system to your website.
How do I add a booking system to my WordPress site?
The first step is to install and activate your chosen plugin. Next, you need to create forms and necessary fields like name, email, date, time, etc., based on your plugin. To know how to add a booking system to your WordPress website, you can go through our official tutorial.
Concluding thoughts
With all the plugins listed in this booking WordPress plugin free content, you can run and offer booking and appointment-related services without paying a single penny!
You can do most of the jobs with these plugins’ even with the free versions.
But it would be wise to pick up any premium plan of your preferred plugin to reap the most benefits and professionally conduct your online business.
That’s all for this article. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to write to us in the comment section below.
