Booked vs Google Calendar and a form
A form plus a calendar collects requests. It does not know your hours, your service durations, or that the 2pm is already taken — so you confirm every booking by hand and eventually two clients arrive for the same chair.
Side by side
| Google Calendar and a form | Booked | |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | You work it out per request | Computed from hours, durations, buffers and existing bookings |
| Double-booking | Prevented by you, manually | Prevented by the database. Two overlapping bookings cannot be written |
| Reminders | Whatever you remember to send | Automatic email, and text on the SMS add-on |
| Card processing | Bundled with the booking product on most plans | Optional. 3.75% + 45¢ per successful charge, all-in, and only if you turn it on |
| Leaving | Export what the platform chooses to export | Export customers and bookings as CSV, any time, without asking support |
Choose Google Calendar and a form when
- You take a handful of appointments a week and enjoy confirming each one yourself.
- Your schedule is irregular enough that no rule would describe it.
- You are testing whether people will book at all before paying for anything.
Choose Booked when
- You have been double-booked, or you check the calendar before every reply.
- You want the slot gone the moment someone takes it.
- You want reminders to go out without you remembering to send them.
Questions
- Can I keep using Google Calendar?
- Yes. Subscribe to your Booked calendar feed and confirmed bookings appear in Google alongside everything else. Booked stays the place bookings are made.
- Is a form really that risky?
- The failure is specific: two people submit for the same slot before you read either one. A form has no way to stop that. Availability checked at the moment of booking does.