Guide · Online Booking
Yes, you can run group classes and a multi-staff calendar for $0 — but only on a handful of free tiers
Most booking tools give away a free plan; far fewer let more than one person share it, and fewer still let you book a class. Here's which free tiers actually do both.
Ask whether you can run group classes or share a calendar across staff without paying, and the honest answer is: yes — but the free tier you pick decides whether you get one seat, three, five, or unlimited. “Free” is nearly universal in booking software. Multi-staff free, and group-class free, are not. Ten vendors in our index publish a $0 plan, and they disagree sharply on what that $0 includes.
Here’s what each free plan actually gives a team, ranked by how many people can share it.
| Free plan | Staff on the free tier | Group classes free? | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doodle | Unlimited users | No class booking — group polls + sign-up sheets only | Polls and one booking page, not a staff-calendar booking system |
| Square Appointments | Unlimited staff calendars | Multi-staff booking is Plus ($49/mo) | Single location; payment processing baked in |
| Appointlet | Up to 5 members | No class booking on Free | 25 booked meetings/mo |
| Setmore | Up to 4 users | Yes — 1-on-1 and group classes | 200 appointments/mo |
| Picktime | Up to 3 users | Yes — unlimited classes | None on seats or volume |
| Calendly | 1 (single calendar connection) | No | 1 event type only |
| GReminders | 1 user | No | Email reminders only, no booking depth |
This is the multi-staff subset of the ten $0 plans — Cal.com, TidyCal and YouCanBookMe also publish free tiers, but each is single-user on Free, so none adds a seat to share.
The two that do both: Setmore and Picktime
If your real question is “classes and more than one instructor, for nothing,” only two free tiers clear both bars outright.
Setmore’s free plan gives you up to 4 users, both 1-on-1 and group classes, a branded booking page, and in-person and online payments — capped at 200 appointments a month. For a two- or three-person studio that runs a manageable class load, that cap is the only thing standing between you and a $0 bill. When you outgrow it, Setmore Pro is $12/user/mo billed monthly, dropping to $5/user/mo on annual billing for unlimited users and appointments.
Picktime’s free plan is arguably the looser of the two: up to 3 users, and unlimited bookings, appointments and classes — no monthly volume cap at all. The trade is one fewer seat than Setmore and a thinner feature set. Picktime’s paid Starter tier is $3/user/mo and Pro is $2.25/user/mo, both billed annually (the month-to-month per-user rate isn’t published on the live page), with “up to 25%” annual savings advertised.
So the cleanest free pick depends on shape: pick Setmore if you want a fourth seat and don’t book 200+ slots a month; pick Picktime if you have three or fewer people but high volume.
The most staff for $0 doesn’t do classes
Two free tiers tie for the widest seat count, and neither books a class. Square Appointments advertises unlimited staff calendars at $0, and Doodle’s free plan is unlimited users too — so “most staff for free” is a two-way tie, not a Square exclusive. Both put the catch exactly where a class business cares. On Square, multi-staff booking features (and tooling like waitlists) live on the Plus plan at $49/mo per location, not on Free; the free tier is built for the solo professional who happens to want every calendar visible, not for a class schedule split across instructors. Doodle’s free plan welcomes unlimited people, but the product is group polls, sign-up sheets and a single booking page — there is no bookable group-class object and no per-instructor calendar at all, so its unlimited seats don’t translate into a class schedule either. Appointlet sits a step below — 5 members free, more seats than Setmore or Picktime — but it’s a meeting-scheduling tool with 25 booked meetings a month on Free and no class-booking concept.
The single-seat free tiers
Two of the better-known names are explicitly one-person-only when free. Calendly’s free plan is a single calendar connection and one event type; sharing across a team starts at its Standard tier, $10/seat/mo on annual billing. GReminders’ free Basic plan is 1 user, one calendar, email reminders only — a reminders tool first, with team scheduling reserved for its $10/user/mo Standard plan. Neither is a way to run a multi-instructor class for free; they’re personal scheduling links.
How to read this
If you need both group classes and more than one staff member at $0, the field collapses to two free tiers that book a class for an instructor team: Setmore (4 users, classes, 200-appointment cap) and Picktime (3 users, classes, no cap). If you only need many calendars and not classes, two free tiers go to unlimited seats — Square (unlimited staff calendars) and Doodle (unlimited users) — so seat count alone is a tie; just remember Square’s real multi-staff booking is a $49/mo feature and Doodle’s unlimited seats sit on polls and sign-up sheets, not a bookable class. And if a vendor’s free plan is single-seat — as with Calendly, GReminders, Cal.com, TidyCal and YouCanBookMe — no amount of configuration changes that: the second person is a paid upgrade. The dollar figure to watch isn’t the free price — it’s the one you’ll pay the day you add a seat or cross a cap.