Two-way sync with Outlook and Exchange, automatic Teams links, and no double-bookings against the meetings already in your diary. Plus an honest note about Microsoft Bookings, which you may already own.
If you are on Microsoft 365, there is a decent chance Microsoft Bookings is already included in your licence. If it does what you need, use it. It is free, it is in the tenant, and nobody has to approve a new vendor.
People move off it, or never adopt it, for a short and fairly consistent list of reasons:
If none of those are your problem, save your money.
| Behaviour | Detail |
|---|---|
| Two-way sync | Outlook and Exchange, plus Google and iCloud. Works both directions: a booking lands in Outlook, and an Outlook event blocks the bookable slot. |
| Privacy | Existing events block time without revealing their contents. The client sees “unavailable”. |
| Teams links | Generated automatically and placed in the confirmation and the reminder. Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting work the same way. |
| Multiple calendars | Each staff member syncs their own. A personal appointment in someone’s own calendar protects their time without anyone in the team seeing it. |
| Plan requirement | Calendar sync is a paid feature. The Free plan does not include it. |
The classic Outlook scheduling failure is not exotic. Someone shares their availability, a client picks 2pm, and by then a colleague has already dropped a meeting into 2pm in Outlook. Now you either move the client or you move the colleague, and both are a small hit to your credibility.
Two-way sync removes the window in which that can happen. The bookable slot disappears the moment the Outlook event exists. It is not a clever feature; it is the whole reason to connect the calendar at all.
If you are wiring Bookafy into other systems through Zapier, note that there is no cancellation or reschedule trigger. A Zap that fires on a new appointment will happily keep running for a client who cancelled. Use webhooks or the API for anything that must react to a cancellation.
Yes. Bookafy syncs two-way with Outlook and Exchange, alongside Google and iCloud. Personal Outlook.com calendars and work Exchange calendars both block bookable time.
Yes. Teams links are generated automatically and included in the confirmation email and the text reminder, the same as Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting. You do not build a Zap for this.
No. Two-way calendar sync starts on the Pro plan. The Free plan is one user with email notifications only. This catches people out, so we are saying it plainly.
Yes, and it does not expose them. A private event blocks the slot; the client sees “unavailable”, not what is in your diary.
No. Microsoft Bookings is Microsoft’s own tool and it is included in some 365 plans. If it does what you need, use it. People move to Bookafy when they need service-specific durations, routing across staff, deposits, or SMS reminders included rather than metered.
Bookafy has a free plan and a free trial of the paid plans — no credit card to start. Start your free trial or see pricing.
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”.
