Guide · Online Booking
The cheap trades scheduler is the one that sends the reminder — and that's a $5-to-$39 decision
Mobile trades need reminders and a way to take payment in the field, not a calendar with a paywall. Here's what reminders actually cost across the booking tools that ship them.
A booking page is the easy part. For a mobile trade — the plumber, the mobile mechanic, the electrician driving between jobs — the scheduler earns its keep on two things the customer never sees on a calendar: the reminder that stops a no-show, and the payment you can take standing in someone’s driveway. Sticker price barely matters; whether those two features are in the plan you’re paying for matters a lot.
So sort by that. Here is what the reminder-capable tier actually costs across the tools built for this buyer, cheapest first.
| Vendor | Plan | Price | Reminders included | Take payment in the field |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square Appointments | Free | $0 (solo, per location) | SMS/email reminders | Yes — mobile + in-person |
| Setmore | Pro | $5/user/mo annual ($12 monthly) | SMS reminders | Yes (Square/Stripe/PayPal) |
| Picktime | Pro | $2.25/user/mo annual-billed | SMS | Yes (Stripe/PayPal/Square) |
| Bookeo | Solo | $14.95/mo flat (1 staff) | via SMS credits add-on | Yes (Stripe/Square/PayPal) |
| GReminders | Professional | $39/user/mo annual ($47 monthly) | 640 email + 320 SMS/phone credits | via Stripe/Square |
The honest cheapest answer is $0, then $5
If you work alone, Square Appointments Free is genuinely $0/mo — single location, and per Square’s own pricing page it bundles online booking, appointment reminders, unlimited staff calendars, and payment processing in the same app. For a solo trade that already wants to swipe a card or take a tap-to-pay on a phone, nothing here is cheaper, because there is no plan to buy. The cost moves to per-transaction processing, not a subscription. Square’s paid tiers (Plus $49/mo, Premium $149/mo) are billed per location, not per user — so adding a second van doesn’t add a seat fee the way per-seat tools do.
Once you have a crew and want unlimited staff logins, Setmore Pro is the value pick: $5/user/mo on annual billing, or $12/user/mo month-to-month. That buys unlimited users and appointments, SMS reminders, two-way calendar sync and recurring appointments — the exact short list a dispatch-style trade needs. A two-person outfit on annual billing is $10/mo. (Picktime Pro lists even lower at $2.25/user/mo, but that’s the annual-billed figure the live page renders; its month-to-month per-seat rate is gated and not published, so treat the headline as the floor, not the everyday rate.)
What the extra $34 at GReminders actually buys
The angle here is reminders, and GReminders is the only tool in this set that sells a dedicated phone number — its own provenance is explicit about it, and no other vendor in the dataset advertises one. Its Professional tier is $39/user/mo annual ($47 monthly) and includes 640 email reminders plus 320 SMS/phone credits a month built in, with HIPAA-grade BAA coverage on the same tier. Additional crew seats are cheaper than the first at $15/user/mo annual ($18 monthly), so a three-person team lands near $69/mo annual rather than $117.
That is roughly eight times Setmore’s per-seat price, and the gap is the product. Setmore reminders go out from a shared system; GReminders gives the customer a real number that texts and rings back, which is what you want when a “your tech is 20 minutes out” reply needs to reach a human. If reminders are a nicety, Setmore wins on price. If reminders-with-a-callback-number are the job, GReminders is the only one that ships it without an add-on.
The flat-rate alternative for a small fixed crew
Per-seat math turns against you fast once you have staff. Bookeo Solo is a flat $14.95/mo for one consultant and one staff login, with no per-seat charge and no annual discount — and its ladder climbs by capacity, not by seat ($29.95 for three staff, $39.95 for twenty). SMS lives in an add-on credit pack (from $0.09/credit), so reminders are pay-as-you-go rather than bundled. For a fixed three-or-four-person shop that wants one predictable line item, a flat plan starts to pull even once you drop the annual discount: three Setmore seats month-to-month ($12 × 3 = $36/mo) is already above Bookeo’s three-staff tier at $29.95. On annual billing Setmore stays cheaper, so the flat plan’s pitch is predictability, not raw price.
How to read this
For a mobile trade the cheapest working scheduler is $0 if you’re solo and want payments in the field (Square), $5/user/mo if you want a real multi-seat tool with SMS reminders (Setmore Pro, annual), and $39/user/mo if the reminder needs its own callable phone number (GReminders Professional). Those are three different products, not three prices for the same thing. Decide which of the two invisible features — the reminder or the field payment — you’re actually buying, and the price sorts itself. Every figure above is the vendor’s own published rate on the date we checked; change the seat count and the flat-versus-per-seat order flips, which is exactly why we show the workload, not just the sticker.