Head to Head: Pricing
Both Acuity and Square Appointments offer free plans with limitations. Paid plans unlock features that most service businesses need. Always verify current pricing on each platform's website before committing, as pricing changes over time.
Acuity Scheduling (as of 2026, check current rates):
- Free plan: limited features
- Emerging plan: approximately $16/mo for one calendar, basic features
- Growing plan: approximately $27/mo for 6 calendars, intake forms, packages
- Powerhouse plan: approximately $49/mo for 36 calendars, advanced features
- Payment processing: via Stripe, PayPal, or Square at standard processing rates
Square Appointments (as of 2026, check current rates):
- Free plan: available for individual users (Square processes payments at 2.6% + $0.10 in-person, higher for online)
- Plus plan: approximately $29/mo per location for multi-staff features
- Premium plan: approximately $69/mo per location for advanced features
- Payment processing: Square's standard rates (hardware required for in-person)
Key cost consideration: Neither platform includes video. If you run online sessions, add Zoom Pro at approximately $13.33/mo to either platform's cost. Acuity sends Zoom links in confirmations via integration; Square Appointments requires manual link distribution or a similar integration.
For a broader look at scheduling tools, see the comparison of Calendly vs Acuity vs Talkspresso in 2026.
Head to Head: Features
Here is a direct feature comparison across both platforms plus Talkspresso as the all-in-one option:
| Feature | Acuity Scheduling | Square Appointments | Talkspresso (Free) | Talkspresso (Pro) |
|---|
| Monthly cost | $0-$49/mo | $0-$69/mo | $0 | $29.95/mo |
| Platform/transaction fee | Via payment processor | Via Square | 10% | 0% |
| Built-in video | No (Zoom integration) | No | Yes (HD) | Yes (HD) |
| Automatic recording | No | No | Yes | Yes |
|
The starkest difference is video: neither Acuity nor Square includes it. For in-person services, that is irrelevant. For online session providers, it means an additional $13+/mo for Zoom and a manual workflow for sharing links.
Where Both Fall Short
Acuity and Square Appointments are scheduling tools, not session platforms. They solve the booking and payment collection problem, but they leave the session delivery to other tools.
For in-person service businesses, this is not a problem. A hair salon does not need video in its scheduling tool. But for coaches, consultants, tutors, therapists, and other professionals who deliver services online, every booking creates an additional step: sending a video link, managing Zoom access, and tracking recordings manually.
The administrative overhead of this disconnect is not trivial. A therapist running 30 sessions per week on Acuity + Zoom spends time each week setting up Zoom links, sending them to clients, troubleshooting access issues, manually downloading recordings (if they remember to record), and tracking session notes in a separate system. None of that is billable time.
For an exploration of what alternatives to Square Appointments look like, that guide covers the full landscape including video-inclusive options.
The Live-Video Third Option: Talkspresso
For professionals who primarily deliver services online, Talkspresso handles booking, video, and payment in one place without the add-on tool stack.
What Talkspresso adds that Acuity and Square do not:
Built-in HD video: Clients book, pay, and receive a single link that opens their video session inside Talkspresso. No Zoom subscription required. No manual link distribution.
Automatic recording: Every session records automatically. You can share the recording with the client, keep it for internal reference, or sell it as a digital product.
Group sessions up to 500 attendees: Run paid workshops, group Q&As, or cohort sessions with per-seat pricing. Acuity and Square have no group session format.
AI session summaries: After each session, Talkspresso generates a summary of key points and action items that you can send to the client as a follow-up.
Digital product sales: Sell recorded sessions, downloadable resources, or course materials from the same profile as your live sessions.
Fee: 10% on the free plan (no monthly fee) or 0% on Pro at $29.95/mo. On 20 sessions per month at $100 each, the free plan costs $200 in fees. The Pro plan costs $29.95 with zero transaction fee. Pro pays for itself at 2-3 sessions per month.
What Talkspresso does not have: Multi-staff scheduling (one practitioner per profile), POS integration for in-person payments, and the Acuity-level complexity for large service operations with many staff calendars.
For coaches specifically looking at their scheduling options, see Acuity alternatives for coaches.
Which Should You Pick
Choose Acuity if:
- You manage multiple staff members with different availability
- You need robust intake forms, package sales, and coupon management
- You use Zoom for online sessions and want the integration
- You bill for a mix of in-person and online sessions
Choose Square Appointments if:
- Your business is primarily in-person
- You already use Square for POS and payments
- Simplicity is more important than scheduling complexity
- You want everything in the Square ecosystem
Choose Talkspresso if:
- Your sessions are primarily or entirely online
- You want to eliminate the Zoom subscription from your overhead
- You want automatic recording without an additional tool
- You run group sessions or workshops alongside 1:1 calls
- You want the lowest possible monthly cost for a solo practitioner
For a broader comparison of how Calendly, Acuity, and Talkspresso stack up in the same comparison, see the full Calendly vs Acuity vs Talkspresso breakdown.
If neither Acuity nor Square is serving your needs and you are looking for other scheduling alternatives, the guide on whether Calendly supports payments covers a related question that often comes up in the same evaluation.
One calculation that most scheduling tool comparisons skip is the true time cost of managing a multi-tool workflow for online sessions.
A service professional running 20 online sessions per week on Acuity + Zoom spends time each week:
- Setting up individual Zoom meetings and copying links into Acuity confirmations
- Troubleshooting clients who cannot find or access their Zoom link
- Manually starting recordings (or forgetting to)
- Downloading recordings from Zoom and storing them elsewhere
- Chasing intake information that Acuity collected but Zoom does not know about
If each of these tasks takes 3-5 minutes per session, that is 1-2 hours per week of administrative work that is not billable. At a $100/hour effective rate, the multi-tool overhead costs $100-200 per week in lost productivity.
A platform that handles booking, video, and recording in one flow eliminates most of this overhead. The recording starts automatically. The client arrives at the session through the confirmation link. Intake answers are visible in the session dashboard before the call starts. The administrative gap between scheduling and delivery disappears.
This is not an argument against Acuity or Square Appointments for in-person or hybrid businesses. For those use cases, the multi-tool overhead is not present. It is a specific argument for why online-first practitioners often find all-in-one session platforms more efficient despite the feature depth trade-off.
The Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling and Square Appointments are both good tools in their lanes. Acuity wins on scheduling complexity. Square wins on in-person POS integration. Neither wins for online session delivery because neither includes the video call.
For service professionals whose work is primarily delivered online, the three-tool stack (Acuity + Zoom + payment processor, or Square + Zoom + manual links) adds unnecessary overhead. An all-in-one platform eliminates the stack at the cost of some scheduling complexity for multi-staff operations.
The right tool is the one that handles what your actual workflow requires. If your sessions are online and your team is small, the complexity of Acuity's multi-staff features is overhead you do not need. If your sessions are in-person and you are already a Square merchant, switching away from Square Appointments creates more problems than it solves.
Related reads:
