Is Setmore Free? Yes, for Up to 4 Users. Here Is What Free Leaves Out

Yes, and it does not run out

Setmore has a permanent Free plan for up to four users with unlimited appointments, and it costs $0 ^[1]. In the vendor's words, "The Free plan is genuinely free with no time limit." ^[2] Pro, at $5 a user a month billed annually or $12 monthly, adds texts, 2-way sync, deposits and more. Many small teams never need it. Free is a full plan with its own feature list, not a reduced copy of Pro. The paid offers on the pricing page are Pro seats, the Live Receptionist add-on and Enterprise, so the free tier is the shop window: generous enough to run a small business, with upgrade prompts at texts, deposits and the fifth calendar.

It is also not a trial. Setmore's llms.txt says it twice: the Free plan has no time limit, and it is not a trial. The llm-info page adds that Free needs no trial period and no card details. A credit card comes in only when you sign up for Pro, so nothing renews or charges at the end of a period, because nothing was bought. New accounts created with an email address after February 23, 2026 must verify that address, while sign-ups with Apple, Google or Facebook are verified automatically. That alone separates Setmore from Acuity Scheduling, which offers only a short trial before you must pay.

What four users and unlimited bookings really cover

Why the user count matters more than the booking count

Free covers up to four users, each with their own login, calendar and Booking Page, and the help center confirms the limit of four team profiles. Setmore counts every staff calendar as a user, even one without a login. Three people plus one room calendar already fill the plan. Four staff seats would cost $480 a year on Calendly Standard and $288 on Zoho Bookings Basic, both billed annually, by our arithmetic. That is roughly what Setmore Free gives a small team before it asks for any money at all. Count calendars, not people.

No ceiling on appointments

There is no cap on bookings on Free, unlike SimplyBook.me's free plan, which stops at 50 bookings. A practitioner who sees three clients a day for 22 working days books 66 appointments a month, by our arithmetic. That would already exceed SimplyBook.me's free limit but stays well inside Setmore Free, where appointments are not capped at all. A busy four-chair barber shop booking forty clients a day can run on Free without hitting a ceiling. The real condition is elsewhere: it has to live with one email reminder per booking.

Getting clients to book, at no cost

The Booking Page, the app and the QR code

Every account gets a Booking Page showing services, availability, team and prices, with a custom URL, and it can work as a standalone website. Each team member also gets a personal booking link. The only branding limit on Free is that the Setmore name stays on the page. Free customers can save the Booking Page to their phone's home screen so it behaves like the business's own app, and a custom QR code opens it in one scan. Setmore's launch checklist suggests printing that code for the front desk, flyers and business cards.

Google, social buttons and your website

Reserve with Google, which puts a Book button on a Google Business Profile in Search and Maps, is listed on Free and Pro. It works in more than 80 countries, though retail businesses cannot use it and financial services can use it only in the US and Canada. Book Now buttons for Facebook, Instagram and websites are also on Free, and so is a customizable website widget for Wix, Weebly and WordPress. A small studio can therefore take bookings from its Instagram bio, its Facebook page and its own site without paying anything.

Services, classes and your policies

Free includes one-on-one services and group classes. Classes run at fixed times with a seat limit and close when full, so a yoga teacher with three weekly classes and private sessions can publish both on the same Booking Page at no cost. Custom booking and cancellation policies are on both plans, and a terms checkbox can make customers accept them before booking. Lead time and cancellation windows live in the booking policies. What Free lacks is a way to enforce the policy with a deposit. That needs Pro.

Taking payments without a paid plan

Four processors, and no cut for Setmore

Online payments, in-person payments, Tap to Pay, the cash register and payment reports are all on Free, and Setmore takes no cut. The pricing grid lists Square, Stripe, PayPal and LawPay on both plans. Several industry pages limit Free to Square, which contradicts that grid, so trust the grid. Square works on every plan with no setup or monthly fee from Setmore. New Square sellers who sign up through Setmore get their first $5,000 of card processing fee-free in selected countries, and Square's own rates apply after that.

Stripe, PayPal and LawPay in practice

Stripe charges 2.9% plus 30 cents a transaction in the US, and Setmore adds nothing. On an $80 service paid online the business keeps $77.38, by our arithmetic, and the result is the same on Free and on Pro. Through Stripe, Tap to Pay turns a phone into a contactless terminal with no extra fee from Setmore, though payment links need Pro. PayPal takes PayPal, Venmo for US businesses, cards and wallets on the Booking Page, but not in-person payments from the calendar. LawPay is open to Free users in the US at 2.95% plus $0.20 per card transaction. A solo attorney who charges $300 for a first consultation pays $9.05 to LawPay and nothing to Setmore, by our arithmetic.

Cash, and full payment instead of a deposit

The cash register logs cash payments against appointments and produces printable and digital receipts, on mobile and on the web app. Because it is listed on Free, cash and card takings end up in the same payment history. Full payment at booking is a reasonable substitute for a deposit on Free. The customer has already paid by the time the reminder goes out, and the business can refund in the processor if its own cancellation policy allows it. Some businesses prefer that to a deposit anyway.

Running the team and the client list

Logins, permissions and Connect

Team profiles, permission levels, individual logins, a team calendar view, working hours and vacation tracking are all on Free. An owner can give a receptionist full access and limit stylists to their own calendars. Connect, Setmore's team messaging, is included too. For a small team it replaces a group chat for questions like who can cover a client at four, kept next to the calendar it concerns. The iOS, Android and desktop apps for Windows and macOS are on Free as well, and the desktop app shows every team schedule at once.

Customers, reports and integrations

Customer profiles, appointment history, notes and labels, customer logins and contact import and export are all on Free, with contacts coming in from Google or a CSV file. Customers who book online cannot see other customers' appointments or details. Reports filtered by timeframe, service or staff download as XLS files from the browser version only. Mailchimp, HubSpot, Google Analytics and the website widget are listed on both plans, and CRM exports to Salesforce, Keap and Clio send new contacts one way. Zapier is the tricky one. The grid lists it on Free, but the Zapier help article says appointment triggers need Pro, so on Free plan on contact-based zaps only.

The same human support as Pro

Free accounts get the same 24/7 human support by chat, email and phone as Pro, with no chatbot in front ^[3]. A quoted review on Setmore's own shout-outs page says live chat replied within a minute on the free plan. Pro adds only a priority place in the queue. In practice, a Free account can phone a person at three in the morning about a payment that failed. Few free plans offer that.

Reminders, sync and video: where Free gets thin

Email confirmations and updates go to staff and customers for every new, rescheduled or canceled appointment on all plans, and customers can reschedule or cancel from the email. Reminders are thinner. Free sends one reminder email per appointment, Pro two. For most bookings one well-timed reminder the day before is enough, and because clients can cancel straight from it, the slot still frees up for someone else. A clinic booking patients a month ahead may want both a week-before and a day-before reminder, and that takes Pro.

Calendar sync is one way on Free. Setmore exports appointments to Google, Office 365 or Apple calendars, but events in those calendars do not block Booking Page slots. That takes Pro's 2-way sync, which imports Google events in real time. In practice a stylist who adds a dentist appointment to Google Calendar will still look available on the Booking Page at that hour. Either block the time in Setmore as well or plan on Pro for anyone who lives in Google.

Video is where Setmore's pages disagree. The help notice on retiring Teleport says Google Meet is now free, with Zoom on Pro, while the pricing grid marks video appointments as Pro only. Both cannot be right. Check this one first. Test on a Free account, or ask support, before promising online sessions to clients. A tutor or coach who works mostly over video should treat it as unconfirmed.

What Pro adds, and when it pays for itself

The Pro-only list

The pricing grid marks these as Pro only: branding removal, custom availability per service, recurring and video appointments, 2-way sync, Google review requests, deposits, blocking customers, a signed BAA, API access, SMS reminders, multiple reminders and the priority support extras ^[1]. Promo codes are Pro only too. Text reminders are the big one, with 500 credits per team member a month on Pro. For a clinic whose patients rarely check email, a single text the day before is often the difference between a full schedule and two empty hours in the afternoon. Recurring appointments matter next, because a weekly physiotherapy patient or piano student has to be booked visit by visit on Free.

Health practices should not start on Free

HIPAA-covered practices need Setmore Health, which requires Pro and a Business Associate Agreement chosen at account creation ^[4]. Existing accounts cannot be turned into Setmore Health later. There is no conversion path. So a clinic should not start on Free and switch over. It should open the account on Pro with Setmore Health from day one, even if the first weeks would have fit inside the free plan.

The fifth user, and what upgrading costs

Four is the ceiling. The fifth staff calendar, even one with no login, means Pro for everyone, not just for the newcomer. A team that hires its fifth stylist goes from paying nothing to $300 a year on annual billing, or $720 on monthly billing, by our arithmetic. Plan the upgrade with the hire, and budget for it before the new person's first day.

Totals computed from $5 and $12 a user a month. At $60 a user a year on annual billing, one saved appointment a year usually covers a seat. For a team of four the comparison is $240 a year against the appointments that texts and deposits save. A salon with an average ticket of $60 needs to prevent only four no-shows a year to break even. Our Setmore pricing guide walks through every plan in more detail.

Trying, upgrading and downgrading

There is no free Pro trial in the usual sense. Instead, new Pro members get a 30-day money-back guarantee if they downgrade and ask within 30 days, which the pricing page presents as trying Pro risk-free. The guarantee covers only upgrades made in the web app, not through the App Store or Google Play. App-store prices also cost more for one or two users, for example $99.99 a year for one user against $60 on the web. Upgrade in the browser.

You can cancel Pro at any time, and the account returns to Free as long as it fits within four users. On Android a downgrade bought in the app applies immediately, on iPhone at the end of the period. One thing is never free: Live Receptionist is a separate plan at $99 a month for US businesses. Do not confuse it with the free 24/7 human support that every plan includes.

How Setmore Free compares with other free plans

Calendly's free plan allows one event type and one calendar connection with unlimited one-on-one meetings. It suits a single consultant booking calls, but it cannot hold four staff with their own pages. Zoho Bookings Forever Free is closer: one user with online meetings, notification emails and two-way calendar sync. That sync is something Setmore keeps for Pro, so a solo user who lives in Google Calendar may prefer Zoho's free tier. SimplyBook.me Free covers 50 bookings, one custom feature and one provider, with no time limit but a monthly renewal. YouCanBookMe Free gives one calendar connection and one booking page with its branding required, and Cal.com Free is for one user. Both are built for individuals booking meetings.

Square Appointments is the closest match for a counter business. Its free plan has no subscription cost and no limit on staff calendars, but it binds every card payment to Square, at 2.6% plus 15 cents in person and 3.3% plus 30 cents online on that plan. Setmore lets the same business switch between four processors without changing plans. Acuity Scheduling has no free plan for new accounts, and its cheapest plan costs $16 a month billed annually. Even after paying, a single user costs $192 a year on Acuity Starter against $60 on Setmore Pro, a $132 gap by our arithmetic. Our Setmore alternatives guide covers the paid rivals.

Who should stay on Free, and who should not

Free is enough for a team of up to four that takes bookings online, collects payment upfront or at the counter, and whose customers read email. A tutor, a two-chair barber shop, a small yoga studio with classes or a US law office that uses LawPay can all run on it. That covers many small businesses. Upgrade the day you need texts, deposits or a fifth calendar, and not before.

Free is the wrong starting point for medical practices that handle protected health information, since a Free account cannot become Setmore Health later. Businesses that depend on texts, recurring weekly clients or 2-way sync with personal calendars will also hit Free's limits within weeks. For them, the honest answer is to budget for Pro from the start and use Free only to test the Booking Page.

The bottom line

Setmore is genuinely free for up to four users, with unlimited appointments, payments, classes and 24/7 human support. Among the schedulers we compared, it is the most capable free plan for a small service team. The limits are real but specific: one email reminder, one-way sync, no deposits, no texts and a hard stop at four calendars. Pro becomes worth $5 a user a month once texts, deposits or a fifth calendar matter. Until then, there is little reason to pay.