Doctors’ offices, dental practices, chiropractors, med spas and wellness clinics all need the same three things from a booking system: patient data handled safely, front-desk time saved on reminder calls, and multiple providers or rooms scheduled without double-booking. Some tools also want to bundle in clinical notes and insurance billing you may not need. Here’s an honest 2026 breakdown, prices checked against each vendor’s own site.
If your practice needs treatment notes, insurance claims and clinical documentation tied to the calendar, you want a clinical/EHR-style platform. If you just need patients to book a real slot, get a reminder, and have their information handled the way HIPAA requires — without paying for charting software you’ll never open — a dedicated scheduler does that job for a fraction of the cost.
| Your practice looks like… | Buy this |
|---|---|
| You bill insurance, write clinical/progress notes, and need treatment plans tied to appointments | A clinical/EHR platform (Shelf 1 below) |
| You need HIPAA-safe booking, reminders that cut no-shows, and multiple providers or rooms scheduled correctly — charting and billing happen elsewhere (or there isn’t any) | A dedicated scheduler (Shelf 2 below) — a fraction of the cost |
Best for: therapists, dietitians, and wellness practitioners who need clinical notes and insurance billing
Price: Starter $49/month, Essential $79/month, Plus $99/month — billed monthly only, no annual discount. Additional team members are $20/month each and only available on the Plus plan. Card processing runs 2.7% + $0.30, and SMS reminders are metered at $0.04/text above the free allotment. Bundles scheduling with treatment/progress notes, insurance claims, client messaging and telehealth. Where it falls short for a plain booking need: if you don’t bill insurance or write clinical notes, you’re paying $49–$99/month plus per-text and per-user fees for documentation tools that sit unused.
Best for: patient acquisition — getting new patients to find you, not running your calendar
Price: No monthly fee for Zocdoc’s own practice tools; the marketplace charges up to $110 per new-patient booking (varies by specialty and location), with no charge on repeat visits from patients who already found you. Practices can cap monthly marketplace spend. Where it falls short as a scheduling backend: Zocdoc is built to bring you new patients from its own marketplace, not to be the appointment system your front desk and providers run on day to day — most practices that use it still run a separate scheduler behind it.
Best for: practices that want HIPAA-capable booking without EHR pricing
Price: Free plan; Pro $7/user/month; Pro+ $11/user/month. Bookafy signs a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) on Pro+ — making it the cheapest HIPAA-capable scheduling tier in this comparison. SMS and email reminders are included on every paid tier (not metered like SimplePractice’s), multi-provider and multi-room routing keeps overlapping schedules straight, and the app runs in 32 languages for practices serving non-English-speaking patients. Where it falls short: no clinical notes, treatment plans, or insurance claims — if your practice needs those tied to the calendar, that’s Shelf 1’s job, not a scheduler’s.
Best for: practices that want intake forms and a BAA, at a higher price
Price: $16 / $27 / $49 per month billed annually ($20/$34/$61 monthly); no free plan, 7-day trial. Will sign a BAA — but only on the top $49 Powerhouse plan. Where it falls short: the HIPAA-capable tier costs more than 4x Bookafy’s Pro+, for a similar core feature set.
Best for: a single provider taking simple consult bookings, no PHI involved
Price: Free; paid tiers $10 / $16 per seat/month. Where it falls short: Calendly’s own customer terms tell users not to put protected health information into it, and there’s no self-serve BAA — that conversation only happens on Enterprise, which Calendly’s own pricing page lists starting around $15,000/year. For a practice handling real patient data, that’s effectively off the table.
Best for: a small solo practice or wellness studio on a tight budget
Price: free for up to 4 users; paid Pro roughly $5/user/month billed annually. Where it falls short: lighter reminder and routing tools than Bookafy or Acuity once a practice grows past a handful of providers.
| Tool | Type | Entry price (2026) | Signs a BAA? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SimplePractice | Clinical/EHR | $49–$99 + $20/extra user | Yes, all tiers | Clinical notes & insurance billing |
| Zocdoc | Patient marketplace | Free tools + up to $110/new patient | N/A (marketplace) | Patient acquisition, not scheduling backend |
| Bookafy | Scheduler | Free / $7 / $11 per user | Yes, on Pro+ | HIPAA-capable booking, lowest cost |
| Acuity | Scheduler | $16 / $27 / $49 | Yes, $49 tier only | Intake forms + BAA, higher price |
| Calendly | Scheduler | Free / $10 / $16 per seat | No self-serve BAA | Non-PHI consult bookings only |
| Setmore | Scheduler | Free ≤4 users | No | Small solo practice, tight budget |
Prices verified in 2026 directly against each vendor’s own pricing page and reflect published rates at the time of writing; tiers and fees change, so confirm the current number before you buy.
Bookafy is a strong, low-cost fit for the booking side of a medical or wellness practice: patients pick a real open slot, get an included SMS/email reminder (not metered per text), and multiple providers or rooms stay correctly routed instead of double-booked. Pro+ signs a BAA at $11/user/month — the cheapest HIPAA-capable tier of anything compared here.
What Bookafy does not do: clinical or progress notes, insurance claims, treatment plans, or patient charting. If your practice needs those tied to the calendar, that’s a Shelf 1 job. And Bookafy doesn’t bring you new patients the way Zocdoc’s marketplace does — it’s the calendar behind your front desk, not a patient-acquisition channel.
See the full HIPAA comparison (Calendly vs. Acuity vs. Bookafy on BAAs) on our HIPAA-compliant scheduling page, or see how Bookafy fits into general appointment scheduling on the appointment scheduling software hub.
Yes, on the Pro+ plan ($11/user/month) — the cheapest HIPAA-capable tier in this comparison. Acuity also signs one, but only on its $49 tier, and Calendly doesn’t offer a self-serve BAA on any plan.
A scheduler like Bookafy books appointments, sends reminders, and routes multiple providers or rooms — that’s it. A clinical/EHR platform like SimplePractice also handles treatment notes, insurance claims and patient charting, tied to the same calendar, at a higher monthly cost.
Not really. Zocdoc is a patient-acquisition marketplace — it charges up to $110 per new patient it sends you, with no charge on repeat bookings. Most practices that use Zocdoc still run a separate day-to-day scheduler behind it.
Yes — Bookafy routes bookings across multiple providers and rooms so two patients can’t land in the same slot by accident, which matters once a practice has more than one provider seeing patients at the same time.
Included on every paid Bookafy tier, with no per-text metering. SimplePractice, by comparison, meters SMS reminders at $0.04/text once you’re past its free allotment.
Bookafy Pro+ at $11/user/month. The next-cheapest option that signs a BAA, Acuity, starts at $49/month for that same capability — more than 4x the price.
Running a medical or wellness practice and tired of no-shows or double-booked providers? Try Bookafy free — HIPAA-capable at $11/user, reminders included.
