tilkbook vs Setmore — free booking software comparison

tilkbook vs Setmore: the quick answer

Setmore and tilkbook are both online booking tools aimed at service businesses, and both have generous free tiers. The sharpest differences lie in what the two products consider “free,” and in a handful of appointment-specific workflows. Setmore’s free plan caps team size at four staff seats and gates payments and video integrations on paid plans. tilkbook’s booking product has no subscription tiers at all: unlimited bookings, unlimited staff, and the full admin feature set are free from day one, with online payments as an optional Stripe add-on. On top of that, tilkbook adds no-show and late-cancellation fees, a FIFO waitlist with emailed claim links, and a slot-hold during checkout — all workflows built for businesses that cannot afford empty chairs. Setmore’s honest strengths are a broader integration catalogue and multilingual booking pages, which are real advantages for the right buyer.

How does pricing compare?

tilkbook’s booking product has no pricing tiers to navigate: the whole platform is free, and the only paid option is the Stripe payments add-on, which lets you collect deposits, full payments, tips, and no-show fees. Exact add-on pricing is still being finalised, but the core booking product — unlimited bookings, unlimited staff, calendar sync, a REST API, and outbound webhooks — costs nothing.

Setmore offers a free plan that supports unlimited bookings and up to four staff seats. Above that, Setmore’s Pro and Team plans gate payments, two-way Teleport video, and advanced integrations behind a monthly fee per user. Setmore pricing was last verified 2026-06-26 — always check setmore.com/pricing for current rates before quoting.

For a solo practitioner or a small team where all admin features matter equally, tilkbook’s no-tier model means you do not have to calculate whether a feature is on your plan. Everything is on.

Which has a better free tier?

For service businesses, tilkbook’s free tier has no artificial ceiling. Setmore’s four-staff cap on the free plan is a real constraint for a salon with five stylists or a clinic with five practitioners: the fifth person either goes unpaid or the whole account steps up to a paid plan. tilkbook has no such seat cap — you add every staff member with their own services, availability, and time-off, all free.

Setmore’s free tier does cover a meaningful set of features, and for a very small team it compares favourably on seat count per-dollar. But the moment your team grows past four, the calculus changes.

Which handles no-shows better?

No-show protection is one of the areas where tilkbook diverges most from Setmore. Setmore has no native mechanism to charge a no-show or late-cancellation fee — if a client ghosts a booked appointment, the chair sits empty with no financial recourse built into the booking platform.

tilkbook treats no-shows as a first-class problem. With the payments add-on enabled, you can charge a no-show or late-cancellation fee off-session against the card the client used at booking. The system supports retrying a failed charge, Stripe 3-D Secure re-authentication when a charge requires it, and the ability to excuse a no-show when a client had a genuine reason — so you preserve the relationship with loyal clients while protecting revenue from habitual no-shows. Pair this with deposits collected at booking time and the financial sting of empty slots drops sharply.

Which handles payments and deposits better?

Both tools support online payments, but the models differ. tilkbook’s payments are built around service-business transactions: when the payments add-on is enabled, you connect Stripe (via Stripe Connect Express) and can take a deposit, full payment, or a tip at booking time, issue refunds, apply discount codes, and manage disputes — all inside the booking flow. When payments are not enabled, the booking page degrades gracefully to pay-on-site, so the flow never breaks.

Setmore supports payments via Stripe and Square on paid plans, which covers the standard collect-at-booking use case. What Setmore does not provide is a no-show fee charged off-session after the appointment — payments for Setmore are forward-looking (collect now), while tilkbook’s model covers the full lifecycle (collect now and charge a fee later if the client does not show).

Which is better for managing a waiting list?

Setmore does not have a built-in waitlist. tilkbook’s waitlist is a fully automated, FIFO queue: when a client cancels or reschedules, or when a booking is marked no-show, the system automatically emails the next matching waitlisted client an offer to claim the freed slot. The claim is atomic — if two clients try to take the same slot, only the faster click wins and the other sees a clear “already taken” state. There is no manual admin step required. For a service business with popular slots that fill quickly, this turns a cancellation from lost revenue into a filled appointment.

Which prevents double-booking better?

tilkbook adds a slot-hold during multi-step checkout: when a client selects a time slot, it is held for a short window while they complete the booking form. A second client browsing simultaneously will not see that slot as available. Setmore does not offer a slot-hold mechanism, so two clients could theoretically select the same slot and the second booking would conflict.

For a low-volume business with infrequent concurrent visitors, this rarely matters. For a popular salon or clinic with many people browsing the booking page at the same time — particularly around schedule openings — the slot-hold prevents the awkward double-book and the customer service effort that follows.

Which is better for per-staff scheduling?

Both tools give each staff member their own calendar and individual availability — this is a genuine shared strength. Where tilkbook goes further is the depth of staff-level customisation: each member has their own service menu (only the services they offer are visible to clients booking with them), their own working hours, their own time-off and holidays, and a per-staff Google Calendar sync toggle.

tilkbook also ships workflows for team changes: when a staff member leaves, you can bulk-reassign all of their upcoming bookings to a replacement with substitute-staff suggestions and a conflict-preview step before you commit.

Which has better calendar sync?

Setmore offers two-way calendar sync with Google Calendar, Office 365, and Outlook natively. tilkbook offers two-way Google Calendar sync — it reads a staff member’s Google Calendar to block busy slots and writes confirmed bookings back, with push webhooks for near-real-time updates and automatic Google Meet links on virtual services. For Outlook and Apple Calendar, tilkbook uses read-only ICS feeds: paste your calendar’s public ICS URL and its busy events block your tilkbook availability, covering the most common need without a two-way write.

For teams embedded in Microsoft 365, Setmore’s native Outlook two-way sync is a genuine advantage tilkbook does not match today.

Which has more integrations?

Setmore, clearly. It has a wide native integration directory and 90+ documented app connections. tilkbook’s confirmed integrations are Stripe for payments, two-way Google Calendar, read-only ICS for Outlook and Apple Calendar, outbound webhooks to push booking events to any endpoint, and a REST API with API keys for custom integrations. If your stack relies on a specific third-party tool that Setmore connects to natively, that is a real point in Setmore’s favour.

If you need a CRM push, analytics feed, or custom automation that tilkbook does not cover natively, the REST API and outbound webhooks handle most real-world cases, but you will need to build the connection rather than click through a native setup screen. See the API and webhooks integration page for a full description of what the developer surface supports.

Which is better for teams?

Both tools support team management well for their target audience. Setmore’s free plan accommodates teams up to four; tilkbook has no seat cap at any level. tilkbook’s team features include email-based staff invitations with role assignment, the ability to revoke all of a member’s sessions, reassignment of a departing staff member’s bookings to a replacement (with bulk-reschedule support and substitute-staff suggestions), and per-staff service menus. Setmore offers comparable team scheduling but does not support bulk-reassignment on a departure or slot-holds during checkout.

For a team of more than four, tilkbook’s free-for-all-staff model avoids a tiered upgrade and keeps every member on the same feature set without a seat-count calculation.

Which is easier to set up?

Both tools run a guided onboarding flow. tilkbook opens with a business-name-first signup wizard, moves through a guided post-signup checklist (add a service, set hours, add a staff member, go live), and ships pre-built setup templates for 30 business verticals — hair salon, barbershop, dental practice, massage therapy, nail salon, yoga studio, personal training, and more. Pick your vertical and you start with a sensible service list and category structure rather than a blank page.

Setmore’s onboarding is similarly guided and fast for its target audience. The two tools are comparable on setup speed; tilkbook’s vertical templates give a slight edge for the 30 covered business types.

Where Setmore wins

Being honest about Setmore’s genuine advantages matters:

• Integration breadth is Setmore’s clearest strength: 90+ native app connections versus tilkbook’s focused set. If you depend on a specific integration today, check whether tilkbook’s REST API covers the use case before switching.
• Multilingual booking pages — Setmore supports English, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese natively. tilkbook currently offers only English. For businesses that serve clients in multiple languages, this is a real differentiator.
• Teleport / video meeting integration — Setmore can auto-attach a Teleport video meeting link to a booking for virtual appointments. tilkbook auto-attaches Google Meet links on virtual services via the Google Calendar integration, but Teleport is not supported.
• Established track record — Setmore has been in market longer and has a larger documented user base, which can matter for enterprise procurement decisions.

Which should you choose?

Choose tilkbook if you want every booking feature free from day one — no seat cap, no tier calculation — and if no-show fee protection, an automatic waitlist, and slot-holds during checkout are important to your business. These three workflows, built natively into tilkbook, are the most common pain points for service businesses that run appointment-based revenue and cannot afford empty chairs.

Choose Setmore if your team is four people or fewer and needs multilingual booking pages today, if you depend on a specific integration from Setmore’s wide catalogue, or if a built-in Teleport video link for virtual sessions is a requirement.

For a broader comparison, see how tilkbook stacks up against Calendly and Acuity Scheduling — both of which target a similar service-business audience. For the full picture of what tilkbook includes free, see the features overview and pricing. If you run a hair salon or barbershop specifically, the hair salon booking guide and barbershop booking guide walk through the exact setup.

Ready to take client bookings for free? Claim your tilkbook page — no credit card, unlimited bookings, unlimited staff, live in minutes.