Acuity Scheduling Buyer's Checklist: 66 Checks Before You Pay

How to use this checklist

Work through the checks in order, because the early answers decide which later ones matter. The first group sizes your plan, the middle groups test services, forms, reminders, payments and integrations, and the last group covers compliance, data, billing and the trial. Most owners can answer the first 20 checks in an hour with a staff list and a price list in front of them. Write your answers down. A written list turns the trial into a test of specific things rather than a tour. If more than five checks fail, compare alternatives before you buy.

Start with calendars, because they pick the plan

Acuity prices by calendars, not users. A calendar is a set of times that clients can book, usually one per staff member, room or location, and the caps are fixed: one on Starter, six on Standard, 36 on Premium and unlimited on Enterprise ^[1]. Staff who only answer the phone or check the schedule join as contributors instead, and a standalone account allows unlimited contributors. So a practice with three therapists, one treatment room shared by two of them and a front-desk manager needs three calendars, not five. The room becomes a resource. The manager simply logs in.

• Count calendars. Write down the number you need today. That number picks your plan.
• Map locations. Calendars with the same address group together on the scheduler, but Reserve with Google connects only one Google Business Profile per subscription. Enterprise adds a dashboard across locations.
• Plan the next two hires. A seventh stylist moves you from $324 to $588 a year on annual billing, by our arithmetic. Above 36 calendars you need Enterprise, which has no published price.

If you expect a seventh hire within a year, paying monthly on Standard keeps the move to Premium flexible. An annual Standard plan bought today would be upgraded mid-cycle at a prorated difference rather than refunded, so the cheaper rate buys you less freedom than it seems. Growth decides the plan more than features do, which is why this check comes before any of the feature checks below.

Map your services, classes and schedule

Services, add-ons and classes

Write every service clients book, with its length and price. Acuity has no limit on appointment types, durations run from 1 to 1,440 minutes, and leaving the price blank lets clients book for free. Add-ons change price and duration and can even be negative to shorten or discount a service. If several clients share one session, you need classes: a class has a maximum number of participants, eight by default, and can be free or paid. Multi-week courses sell as a class series, but canceling one class removes the client from all of them. Check that rule against your refund policy.

• Recurring appointments. Staff can schedule up to 52 recurring appointments for a client, and clients only 24 themselves, so set up long programs from the admin side.
• Time windows and multi-day bookings. Time-window, multi-day and overnight types exist for home services, groomers and sitters. Rentals longer than a day are out of scope. Check your longest service.

Hours, limits and padding

Availability is always set in Acuity, not in Google or Outlook, so each staff member's hours live on their calendar. Then come the limits: how far ahead clients can book, how much notice you need, and how late they can cancel or reschedule. Limits exist for the whole account and per calendar, and calendar limits win. Write your policy first. Then set the limits. For a 24-hour notice policy, set the calendar limit to 24 hours and require the policy checkbox on the form, so the scheduler stops late changes and the checkbox gives you a record if a client disputes a fee.

Padding blocks time for cleanup or travel. With a 30-minute appointment and 15 minutes of padding, Acuity blocks 45 minutes, and padding is not sent to synced calendars. A mobile massage therapist with 60-minute sessions and 30 minutes of driving padding fits five clients into an eight-hour day instead of eight. If two services need the same room or machine, use resources, which cap bookings on it across calendars. Finally, decide on look busy and minimize gaps before launch: one hides open slots at random, the other shows only slots next to existing bookings, and clients notice sudden changes.

Decide where clients will book

Acuity works on its own, with a Squarespace site, or embedded on almost any other site. At signup you choose standalone or attached, and that choice cannot be changed, so settle it first. Elsewhere you can embed the scheduler or add a booking button. One trap catches a lot of small businesses: "You can embed your scheduler on sites built using WordPress, but not on sites hosted by WordPress.com". Check your host before buying, and then test the monthly, daily and classes layouts on a phone, because the daily layout shows only two days there.

• Links and QR codes. Brand your link with a stem ending in .as.me. QR codes for the page or any service arrived on July 17, 2026, on all plans. Print one for the front desk.
• Languages. The scheduler can show in one of 12 languages, but only one at a time, so bilingual businesses need two accounts or careful wording.

Check forms and consent before the first visit

List what you ask before a visit. There is no limit on questions per form, and different forms attach to different services. A groomer who asks for breed, weight, age, allergies and vaccination records before the first visit avoids most surprises on the day, and a quick nail trim booked later does not have to repeat the long intake. File upload questions accept one file up to 5 MB each. Clients can be required to tick a box accepting your policy, but Acuity does not capture electronic signatures, so signed waivers and consent forms need a third-party tool.

Internal forms stay hidden from clients and are filled in by staff, health professionals can add SOAP notes that are internal by default, and private client notes are visible to staff only. These are not clinical records. Clinics should check whether they need a full EHR before they treat Acuity as their only system for client files. For most salons and studios, though, intake forms plus internal notes cover everything they ask today.

Test reminders, texts and the waitlist

Clients get a confirmation and up to three reminder emails, and templates can be customized per service, but not during a trial. Texts need Standard or Premium: one text reminder per appointment, up to 300 characters, sent from 15 minutes to 14 days before, with no additional fees for sending them ^[2]. Clients must opt in for each appointment. A salon booking 400 appointments a month sends 400 text reminders at no extra cost on Standard. That is why a business that relies on texts to cut no-shows should treat Standard, not Starter, as the real entry price.

• Start text verification on day one. Texts go out from a general number until your business is verified, and verification can be pending for several weeks.
• Check the countries you text. Texts reach more than 180 countries, but Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines and several others are excluded.
• Plan the follow-ups. Follow-ups go out up to 365 days after the visit. Starter allows one per appointment, Standard and Premium up to six. Use them for reviews and rebooking.
• Weigh the waitlist. It needs Standard or Premium. Clients pick a slot or any opening in the next 14 days and get a text when one frees up. If cancellations hurt, this alone pays for Standard.

Choose how you get paid

One processor, chosen early

Pick one processor. Stripe and Square cannot be connected at the same time, though PayPal pairs with either, and only Stripe and Square store cards, sell subscriptions and take Apple Pay or Google Pay. Switching later breaks active client subscriptions until each client re-enters a card, which can mean dozens of awkward messages for a busy studio. PayPal adds Venmo for US businesses taking dollars, but it cannot store cards, it redirects clients off the scheduler, and pay-what-you-want pricing is unavailable with it. Add it for convenience only.

Deposits, saved cards and tips

Decide whether clients pay in full, pay a deposit or leave a card. Acuity's blog suggests a deposit of 20 to 50% of the total appointment cost; on a $150 color service, a 30% deposit collects $45 at booking. With Stripe or Square as the only processor, Acuity can save card details and you can charge a no-show later, up to 150% of the price for tips or fees. This is your strongest no-show tool. Tips default to 18% on the web and 0% in the mobile app, so on a $90 facial the web adds $16.20 while a client in the chair may tip nothing. Match the two settings.

Packages, memberships and the money gaps

• Packages sell prepaid bundles on Standard and above. Set an expiration in days, because a blank one means the codes never expire. Deleting a package invalidates codes already sold.
• Memberships need Stripe or Square and run up to 23 payments or until canceled. If a scheduled payment fails, the subscription is canceled.
• Gift certificates and coupons sell and apply from the booking page; gift certificates need Standard, and only one coupon code applies per appointment.

The money side has clear gaps. Invoices allow one email address and one tax line and send no overdue reminders. Acuity cannot calculate tax, so you set prices to include it. Refunds happen in Stripe, Square or PayPal and never show up in Acuity's reports, so a month with $500 of refunds looks $500 better in Acuity than in your bank. Reconcile in your processor. The point of sale, launched November 5, 2025, works for US businesses with Tap to Pay, Stripe M2 and Square readers, but Square Terminal and Register do not work.

Connect calendars, video and your other tools

Two-way sync covers Google, iCloud, Office 365, Exchange and Outlook.com. Microsoft and iCloud take up to 10 minutes, and free events and many all-day events do not block time, so ask staff to block personal time with real start and end times and test a booking against it. Outlook and Office 365 sync now runs through Cronofy, after Microsoft retired EWS on October 1, 2026, and Cronofy may need Microsoft admin approval in company tenants. Ask IT before the trial. It can stall setup.

• Video. Zoom, Google Meet and GoToMeeting create a link per booking, with one provider per calendar.
• Accounting. QuickBooks and FreshBooks sync clients, invoices and payments. Xero no longer accepts new connections.
• Zapier and webhooks. Webhooks work on any plan; each contributor gets up to 25 zaps, which count toward the webhook limit.
• The API. API access and custom CSS need Premium. No rate limits are documented.

Settle HIPAA, AI and staff access

HIPAA needs Premium and a signed BAA for each account ^[3], and you stay responsible for the third-party tools you connect. HIPAA mode also switches things off: Zapier, invoices, Squarespace Email Campaigns and Reserve with Google stop, and Office 365, Outlook.com, Exchange and iCloud sync is blocked. Accounts log out after four hours idle. Check each disabled feature against your workflow. The AI Booking Assistant also needs Premium. It recommends services and times to clients, but it cannot book classes or sell packages and replies only in English or Spanish.

For staff, contributors can be View Only, View and Edit, or Scheduling Administrator, and you can block staff from exporting clients. Assign the lowest level that works. Ask for Enterprise if you need more than 36 calendars, single sign-on, an organization dashboard, custom contracts or a dedicated account manager. Get the quote in writing, because Enterprise has no published price to hold the vendor to later.

Plan the move, the billing and the trial

Getting your data in and out

Clients and appointments import from CSV files, with a hard cap: "If you try to import a spreadsheet with more than 500 rows, Acuity will reject your file". A business moving 1,800 past appointments needs at least four import files, by our arithmetic. Packages, gift certificates and subscriptions cannot be imported at all, so keep package balances in a spreadsheet and honor them by hand. Going the other way, appointments export to CSV from Reports, and the client export includes names, contacts and notes. Run a test export in the trial. Leaving later depends on it.

Billing, refunds and support

Most accounts are billed by Squarespace. Annual billing saves about 20% ^[4]: $48 a year on Starter, $84 on Standard and $144 on Premium, by our arithmetic. Over two years on Standard, monthly billing costs $816 against $648 on annual billing, a $168 difference. Switching from annual to monthly later can cancel client subscriptions you sold, so start monthly if unsure. An annual plan canceled in the first 14 days from purchase is refunded in full, and the mobile app subscription costs more than the web one. There is no phone support, only email and weekday live chat.

Run the trial with a plan

The trial lasts seven days, or 14 with a Squarespace site, and sends no emails or texts. Build services and hours first, start text verification, connect a processor, then book test appointments from a phone and run a $2 test payment. Upgrade before it ends. Because reminders stay off during the trial, the only way to check their wording is to upgrade, send yourself a test booking and read the messages, ideally inside the 14-day refund window of an annual plan.

The final decision

Pick Starter for one calendar, Standard for two to six calendars or for texts, packages and the waitlist, and Premium for HIPAA, AI, the API or seven to 36 calendars. Ask for Enterprise beyond that. If more than five checks failed, compare the options in our Acuity alternatives guide first. Otherwise, buy. Most businesses land on Standard, and our Acuity pricing guide walks through the plan math before you commit to annual or monthly billing.