WordPress’s ability to make everything simpler is the main factor causing it to retain its market share as the leading CMS. It makes no difference whether it’s a plugin that can give your website additional functionality or a theme that can handle a variety of business-related tasks. If you’re thinking of a particular feature, there’s a good chance that someone has already created a plugin for it.

And in today’s WordPress Wednesday, we’ll concentrate solely on booking plugins. If your business is structured around appointments, having the ability to onboard new users and schedule appointments directly from your WordPress website is essential. But in addition to appointments, other bookings include those for events, specialised services, and hospitality offerings like hotel stays.

You do have the choice to select a theme specifically suited to your business type (it could be related to travel or food), but the majority of such themes depend on third-party plugins in either case.

Finding the right plugin for you and your business.

A booking system is used in more than a dozen different fields and service types, so it will be helpful to understand the organisation of this collection. So, let’s assume that you need functions like a booking calendar, payment integration, customer onboarding, and direct customer interaction.

Going to take into account things like whether the specific booking plugin is compatible with page builders like Elementor, WP Bakery Page Builder and others. Additionally, since all of the plugins in this collection have a free version, I will take the plugin’s cost into account if you decide to upgrade. In the majority of cases, you’ll also want to upgrade to get a management experience that is more streamlined.

So, let’s begin with the 5 best booking plugins for WordPress.

1. Bookly

The first plugin in this list is Bookly. It has both free and a single paid version. The free version of Bookly is a basic booking tool. Unfortunately, you don’t get support for online payments and the use of having an unlimited number of staff users. Therefore, you can only use this plugin if you are accepting free bookings.

The front and back end of Bookly has a modern look. Also, you can customise many areas of the booking form without knowing how to code.

As hinted above the booking form is entirely customisable and is responsive. You have multiple views for both as an admin and customers.

Bookly has a module for you when you are in the need to create an unlimited number of staff members. You can create unique pricing and availabilities for each of your members. This module is great for those who run a gym with groups of personal trainers.

There’s also Google Calendar integration which supports multiple calendars from all of your workers. With additional add-ons which are sold, such as one for coupons or one for adding extras to your services. Also, you can send out automated email notifications, but it has an SMS system is built-in as well.

This plugin is a complete booking package you can find on the market right this moment. So, in short, the plugin is an excellent tool for those that may not be wanting to hire a developer. As it should provide you with most of the features that you need to run a booking system yourself.

Price: Free and $89.00 (for lifetime license)

2. Amelia

The Amelia plugin is a simple and powerful automated booking that can work 24/7. This is great as it makes sure that your customers can make appointments and pay online or offline.

This plugin is free and is suitable for smaller businesses. But for larger businesses, I would recommend you to use the version as it comes with a lifetime license, also with 6 months of remarkably responsive support be included. You can extend the support for a small fee.

Choose this plugin if you want all your employees, types of services, extra services with integrated paying methods in one place.

Amelia has various built-in functions, such as SMS notifications that allow you to be in instant touch with your customers and employees. And with its Google Calendar Synchronisation, it lets your staff keep track of all appointments within their own Google calendar.

Both front-end and back-end have a nice modern design, the design can be customisable so it can match with your site design. It has WooCommerce integration, Graphs and diagrams for business performance KPIs.

Price: Free and from $59.00 for 1 domain/year

3. Booking Calendar

Booking Calendar is probably the oldest booking plugin for WordPress. And The ratings show that it hasn’t slowed down the quality of the plugin. after many years. The core of the plugin is free and it comes with most of the features that an average/small business would need.

Like many other booking plugins, there is a paid version that starts around $60 for a single site, but after that, the pricing is confusing to be mention here, but I would recommend that if you decide to use this plugin and purchase a “premium” version to research the other plans first.

Let’s get back to some of the features that you expect from this plugin. It includes automated email notifications, for letting your customers about their bookings. Additionally, the plugin integrates with tons of outside sites and calendar apps, it works in widgets for easy placement in sidebars, has multiple languages for reaching out to customers in various countries to some simple customisation.

Price: Free and $60.00 for a single site

4. MotoPress Hotel Booking

Booking Plugin specifically for Hotels. The MotoPress Hotel Booking is a compelling reservation system. It allows accepting online reservations, creating real-time availability calendars for each accommodation. It also handles online payments, automatically synchronising booking calendars.

MotoPress Hotel Booking allows admin to handle incoming reservations on the back-end. And set preferable confirmation mode for them. While you can either confirm the bookings manually. Or accommodate the guests to confirm their reservations via email or payment. There’s payment gateways from PayPal, 2Checkout, Stripe, Braintree that can be added into the plugin.. While you can integrate it with WooCommerce.

Along in this plugin you can list and describe your accommodations or rooms. Optionally add extra service packages or facilities that will be available for reservation as well. Establishing flexible price rates such as seasonal prices or refundable/non-refundable rates, weekly or monthly rates and variable pricing.

If you like to use this plugin but wanting some previews of this plugin you can use the Demo that are available to test both the backend admin area and front-end performance.

Price: Single Site $89.00 to Unlimited Sites $199.00

5. Simply Schedule Appointments

Simply Schedule Appointments is an easy-to-use scheduling plugin for WordPress. Offers within a free version but also three premium versions of their plugin. Get access to more advanced features and individual integrations. Their premium editions include features like Google Calendar sync, custom fields in your booking form, integration to Mailchimp. And with the ability to book classes and group events.

Also, this plugin provides WordPress sites with a simple way to add and manage their online appointment scheduling. Each of their versions integrates with popular page builders like Elementor which allow you to simply drag and drop. But as well as style and customise their booking form to match your site.

Price: Free and Starting at $99.00