Group events let dozens of people book the same slot. Availability polls, class timetables and waitlists are a different product — here is the line, drawn honestly.
“Scheduling for a group” means two completely different things, and the software that does one is usually bad at the other. Work out which one you are before you shop.
| What you mean | What you need |
|---|---|
| Many people attend the same session. A workshop, an info evening, an open house, a group class, a demo webinar. One time slot, lots of attendees. | Group event scheduling. This is what Bookafy does, on the Pro plan. |
| Find a time that suits several busy people. Six colleagues, one meeting, everyone’s diary is a mess. | A poll-style tool (Doodle and friends), or multi-user appointments — see below. Bookafy does not run availability polls. |
Most people arriving at a page like this want the first one. If you want the second — the “pick three options and let everyone vote” flow — Bookafy has no poll feature and won’t pretend otherwise.
A group event in Bookafy is an appointment type that many customers can book into. Instead of the slot disappearing when the first person takes it, it stays open and collects attendees. Everyone gets their own confirmation, their own reminders, and their own reschedule link.
This is the right shape for:
Group events are on Pro, $7/user/month billed yearly — the Free plan doesn’t include them. Pro also brings the two things that make a group event survive contact with reality: two-way calendar sync so the host’s own diary blocks the slot, and SMS reminders, which matter far more for a group than for a 1:1. Nobody feels personally responsible for attending a webinar with forty other people.
The inverse case is common and easy to miss. Multi-user appointments schedule one customer with several staff members in a single slot — the interview panel, the joint medical consultation, the sales call that needs an engineer, the committee. It looks at everyone’s availability and offers the times that work for all of them.
That’s the closest thing to “find a time for the group”, and unlike a poll it doesn’t require anyone to vote. It just doesn’t offer times when someone is busy. It’s also on Pro.
A 1:1 no-show costs you a slot. A group no-show costs you the room. If sixty people register for a session and twenty-two arrive, the problem was never the booking software — it was the six weeks of silence between registering and the date.
Three things fix most of it:
| Not available | What you actually need |
|---|---|
| Availability polls (“vote for a time”) | Doodle or similar. Not a Bookafy feature in any plan. |
| A class timetable — a recurring weekly grid of sessions people browse | A class-management platform (Mindbody, Momence, Punchpass). Bookafy has appointment types, not a timetable. |
| Memberships, class packs, “buy 10 sessions” | Same — a class or membership platform. Bookafy takes payment per booking, not per package. |
| Waitlists — auto-promoting someone when a place frees up | Nothing here does it. A cancelled place simply reopens for whoever books next. |
| Attendee check-in / registers | Not a feature. You have the attendee list; the register is on you. |
| Room and capacity management | Bookafy schedules people, not rooms. If your constraint is which hall is free, this is the wrong shape of tool. |
If you run a studio with a weekly timetable, memberships and a waitlist, that’s four rows of “no” and you should buy a class platform. If you run occasional sessions alongside ordinary 1:1 appointments — which describes most consultancies, clinics, universities and B2B teams — group events do exactly what you need and you don’t have to buy a second system to get them.
Bookafy’s Free plan is $0 for one user with unlimited appointments. The 7-day trial of Pro+ needs no credit card.
Yes. Group event scheduling lets many customers book into one session — a workshop, webinar, open day or one-off group class. It is on the Pro plan.
No. There is no poll feature in any plan. For finding a time across several staff members, use multi-user appointments, which offer only the slots everyone is free for.
Yes — that is a multi-user appointment. It looks at every staff member’s availability and offers only slots that work for all of them. Use it for interview panels, joint consultations and committee meetings.
No. Bookafy has no waitlist. When someone cancels, the place simply becomes available again for the next person to book.
No. Bookafy has no timetable, no memberships and no class packs. If that is your business, buy a class-management platform. Group events suit occasional sessions alongside ordinary appointments.
Pro, at $7/user/month billed yearly. The Free plan does not include group events, calendar sync, SMS reminders or payments.
If you are still working out which tool you need, start with the overview: appointment scheduling software — what it does, what it costs, and when you should buy something else.
Also useful: every Bookafy integration, in three honest lists — what is native, what needs Zapier, and what we simply do not do. And the pricing page, where the feature matrix is the real answer to “is that on the free plan”.
