Guide · Online Booking
For 3 staff who all take bookings, per-seat math beats most flat plans — Picktime lands at $6.75–$9/mo
Multiply a per-seat list price by three before you compare it to a flat plan, and the ranking flips: the cheapest paid tool for a three-person front desk is a per-seat one, not the flat 'team' tiers built to look like the obvious answer.
Ask “which booking tool is cheapest for three staff” and the list price lies to you. Booking software is sold two ways: per seat (you pay for each user who takes bookings) and flat (one fee covers a whole account). A $10 per-seat tool and a $27 flat tool look close — until you remember you have three people, at which point the per-seat one is really $30 and the flat one is still $27. The only honest comparison multiplies every per-seat price by your headcount first. So we did, for exactly three booking staff.
The answer: Picktime, at $6.75–$9/mo for all three
The cheapest paid plan that covers three booking staff is Picktime. Its Pro tier is $2.25/user/mo billed annually, which is $6.75/mo for three; its Starter tier is $3.00/user/mo, or $9.00/mo for three. Both are per-seat figures we multiplied by your headcount, and both undercut every flat “team” plan in this index.
| Tool | Plan | Model | Cost for 3 staff/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Picktime | Pro | per-seat ($2.25/user, annual) | $6.75 |
| Picktime | Starter | per-seat ($3.00/user, annual) | $9.00 |
| Setmore | Pro | per-seat ($5/user, annual) | $15.00 |
| GReminders | Standard | per-seat ($8/user, annual) | $24.00 |
| Acuity | Standard | flat (up to 6 staff) | $27.00 |
| Appointlet | Premium | per-seat ($9/member, annual) | $27.00 |
| Bookeo | Small | flat (3 staff logins) | $29.95 |
| Calendly | Standard | per-seat ($10/seat, annual) | $30.00 |
| Square Appointments | Plus | flat (per location) | $49.00 |
Every figure above is the annual-billed rate where the plan offers one; monthly billing is higher (Setmore Pro, for instance, is $12/user/mo month-to-month, or $36 for three — more than double its annual rate).
Why the flat “team” plans don’t win here
The intuitive move is to reach for a flat plan, since one price covering everyone feels like the cheaper structure. At three staff it usually isn’t. Acuity Standard is the textbook example: $27/mo billed annually ($34 monthly), and it covers up to six staff calendars — genuinely good value, and it still costs four times Picktime Pro for the same three people. Bookeo’s Small tier is purpose-built for this size (3 consultants, 3 staff logins, 1,000 bookings/month) at $29.95/mo flat, and Square Appointments Plus runs $49/mo per location. Flat pricing wins when headcount climbs — Acuity’s $27 covers a sixth staffer at no extra cost while a per-seat tool keeps charging — but three is below that crossover for the tools here.
The free tier nobody mentions
There’s a cheaper answer than $6.75, and it’s a real one: several booking tools cover three staff on their free plan at $0/mo. Picktime’s own Free tier includes up to 3 users with unlimited bookings. Setmore’s Free tier covers up to 4 users with a cap of 200 appointments/month. Appointlet’s Free tier allows up to 5 members but throttles you to 25 booked meetings/month — fine for a low-volume practice, useless for a busy one. Doodle’s Free tier even advertises unlimited users, though its group-poll roots make it a thinner appointment tool. So the literal cheapest option for three staff is $0, and whether that’s viable depends entirely on your monthly booking volume and whether you can live with vendor branding on the booking page. Picktime is notable for putting all three of your staff on the free tier with no appointment cap at all.
What the per-seat math hides
Two cautions before you treat $6.75 as settled. First, Picktime’s monthly-billed per-seat rate is JavaScript-gated and not published in a form we can confirm — the $2.25 and $3.00 figures are the annual-billed prices, so the $6.75 and $9.00 totals assume you pay for a year up front. Second, per-seat tools punish growth. Add a fourth and fifth booking staffer and Picktime Pro climbs to $9.00 then $11.25/mo, while Acuity’s $27 flat plan doesn’t move until you pass six staff. The whole point of doing the multiplication is that the right answer changes with headcount — at three it’s Picktime; somewhere past six, the flat plans take over.
How to read this
For three staff who all take bookings, the cheapest paid tool is Picktime at $6.75/mo (Pro) or $9.00/mo (Starter), both annual-billed — and $0/mo if a free tier’s volume limits fit your practice (Picktime, Setmore, or Appointlet). The flat “team” plans buyers reach for first — Acuity at $27, Bookeo at $29.95, Square at $49 — are all more expensive at this headcount, and only start to make sense as you add staff. The lesson isn’t “always go per-seat.” It’s that the sticker price is meaningless until you multiply it by the number of people who’ll actually use it.