Bookly Reviews

Decent online booking solution for WordPress

Pros:

Wide range of add-ons to achieve the functionality required for almost any use case.

Cons:

Add-ons are all separate purchases, which can add up to quite a bit for small and medium businesses.

Good product backed by poor support model

Comments: Great product when it works but as mentioned above, plugin updates which break existing functionality should not be the customers cost to fix. I would rather an annual charge for using the plugin which includes support rather than this after purchase support at twice the price annually.

Pros:

Ease of use, ease of setting up. Nice interface. Good workflow. Fit for purpose.

Cons:

The worst part of this business model is having to pay for support to fix bugs in the software. Updates are regularly released which break the product but Envato expects you to pay over $100 AUD for them to fix their bugs. I don't mind paying for support regarding customisations or lack of user knowledge but to charge a support fee to fix the bugs they introduce in plugin updates just stinks. We wont be buying this product again or recommending it to our clients.

Regarding Service

Comments: Worst ever experience I purchased a license to use Bookley plug in to my website, however I purchased for 12 month it work only 3 months it got cancelled after that. I was not sure what’s the reason. I tried to contact the customer service regarding this issue while I was doing that I did not want to my booking system to be down, I purchased another one. It didn’t work either because it was registered under different domain company. I’m not sure how they sell a code when it’s already registered under different company,
almost 2 weeks going back and forth with Customer Service never got any result. When I send an email to Customer Service they get back to me the next day asking me for stupid things never answering my question or resolved my problem , finally I give up I purchased different plug in company never again. This is a scam company.

Pros:

I like the platform, but it’s a scam. It’s not working. It’s only work for short time.

Cons:

Never like anything Worst ever experience I purchased a license code to use Bookley plug-in to my website, however I purchased for 12 month is work only 3 months it got cancelled after that. I was not sure what’s the reason. I tried to contact the customer service regarding this issue while I was doing that I did not want to my booking system to be down, I purchased another one. It didn’t work either because The code they sell it to me it was registered under different domain company. I’m not sure how they sell a code when it’s already registered under different company almost 2 weeks going back and forth with Customer Service never got any result. When I send an email to Customer Service they get back to me the next day asking me for stupid things never answering my question or resolved my problem , finally I give up I purchased different plug in company never again. This is a scam company.

Best option for online booking service on WP

Comments: We've installed it on a subdomain. Required to install WP first. Ease to set up for a WP user. May be complicated for those unfamiliar with Wordpress.

Pros:

If you run Wordpress website - this plugin is the best option. Bookly offers one time purchace for the pro version which is rare these days (everyone uses subscription plans).

Cons:

There is no option to book several time slots a a time. You have to push book more button each time, which is not that user friendly.

A Powerful Booking Solution For Business

Pros:

I like that there is a customer database which makes booking easy It comes with features that makes mobile booking easy Online booking and rescheduling is super easy

Cons:

Well, with Bookly, there hasn't been any major issue to complain about.

Bookly

Comments: Bookly Pro helps my business to professionally communicate our services and keep in touch with our clients, every time, every day.

Pros:

An online booking option is part of our web design proposal. This works best for most contracts because 60% of our clients find it extremely useful to include an on-site appointment booking option for their customers. The bookly online appointment plugin is the only plugin we use, trust, and can recommend so far.It's unique in design, and functionality and meets all our requirements. From the form design layouts to HTML & CSS light-weightiness, the bookly plugin for WordPress is good. The features are quite simple to understand (it's pretty much like a survey builder) with nice fonts and beautiful textures.Appointment scheduling or re-scheduling is pretty straightforward and very effective when setup is done properly.Bookly PRO helps to minimize client loss in many ways, for example, the SMS notification feature directly sends an SMS reminder about the appointment I'd scheduled with a customer. This keeps me in line with important events.The tool is affordable (With a low fee lift-time payment).

Cons:

There is nothing to criticize with Bookly Pro, It's over two years now that I've been using it for both personal and client projects and It works well.

A Rare Plugin

Comments: Overall, the experience has been decent. Our team implemented the plugin in a unique way and were able to get about 80% of the way there. Some questions remain that we tried to address with the customer support but couldn't get a response many times. Sometimes they were very responsive. So it was hit or miss.
Another important thing to point out is that they do not have a way to use the plugin on a staging server unless your site uses the same domain. This isn't explicitly an issue but our sites are set up on WP Engine often times. When you spin off a staging server with WP Engine, you get a different domain so the plugin won't work anymore. We were forced to create local installation and run the stating server there when setting up or testing out new implementations of the Bookly plugin. They claim that this is something that simply can not be helped because of the rules of the Marketplace they sell on (Envato) but of the dozens of plugins I've used that I've purchased from Envato, Bookly has been the only one to have rules so strict, it was impossible to use the plugin even on a staging site.

Pros:

The best part of Bookly is that if you're using it for putting together a site that books people for services, very much like the plugin is intended for, it works really well. The way the plugin allows you to change so much of the functionality through their WYSIWYG editors, the reports provided in calendar form and list form, the relative ease of connecting the plugin with payment processing... It really does almost always just work the way you need it to which is rare. One really nice feature is the ability to pretty seamlessly change the Booking Form from the backend. I'm no stranger to needing to change these things as needed through code but when you have the option to make the changes directly through the plugin, that's a bonus.

Cons:

The way the pricing structure is set up. We purchased the plugin about 10 months ago and within a month, there were changes to the plugin. Features we'd purchased had been removed from the plugin into separate plugins. Due to a mistake on the end of the developers, our plugin's purchase code wasn't grandfathered in so we would make updates to the plugin and then lose functionality we'd implemented in the installation. This was eventually resolved but then again, couldn't it have been avoided in the first place? On one hand, it can be a benefit to purchase plugins for the functionality you want. A lot of developers do that and it makes sense. On the other hand, some of the plugins offer very limited and seemingly basic functionality that were once part of the plugin.

Avoid Bookly Unless You're Highly Technical

Comments: Exceptionally poor. After several weeks of use, we realized that Bookly was not going to work.
After purchasing the Pro version and several add-ons (all of which cost $39 or $49, Envato, the parent company, refused to refund my purchase. I disputed the decision, and after many weeks of arguing back and forth, Envato agreed to repay the original Pro purchase but refused to refund the add-ons. They gave me a credit.
They were simply difficult to work with, obstinate, and have terrible management service.
How is it that we can use a product for three weeks, realize it doesn't work, then refuse a refund when the project DOESN't WORK! The management hid behind a very restrictive return policy that can be interpreted in many ways on their end.
The bottom line is that Bookly and Envato may have a product that works for many people. However, it did not work for me, and I simply want my money refunded.

Pros:

The only thing that was helpful with Bookly was one customer service person who tried valiantly to help me make the plugin work.

Cons:

I purchased Bookly to schedule clients for my coaching and personal training business. I purchased it because of the reviews. I get along pretty well with WordPress and using plugins, but I am not a coder or developer. Despite help from the tech person, we could not make Bookly work with WordPress. It was complicated, the directions left out giant chunks of information, making assumptions about my understanding.

The reading app that pushes you to read harder

Comments: The Bookly app has helped me to solved my issue of not being consistent in reading, since I started using the application, I have been reading at least one book in two weeks and that is a big improvement from where I used to be.

Pros:

After setting your daily , weekly and/or monthly goals as the case may be, the timer countdown helps you to stick to reading alone. Another beautiful feature about the application is the choice of sounds to be played while you read - the sounds ranges from a running stream to a rainy day, it is so soothing.

Cons:

A gentle reminder by the application when my phone is idle can really help me in achieving my goals as the app is really lifeless if the user doesn't open it.

Best WP plugin for booking management

Comments: Overall, Using this tool was one of the best decisions. It never disappointed me. It is easy to learn and use, a very simple and very powerful tool. I'm very satisfied with this tool and recommend everyone to use it for booking and appointment management.

Pros:

This is the complete system for booking and appointment management. Its primary dashboard provides every information like total appointments, approved appointments, pending appointments, revenue etc. You can also view filtered appointments on this dashboard. The calendar is designed very beautifully and helps in understanding the information very easily. Here you can see the appointment information in detail and you can also filter the data by employees. Its other features like payment method integration, SMS notification, email alert etc. are very useful. You can also integrate other tools such as Google Calendar, WooCommerce, and Zoom, etc. There are tons of personalization and customization settings in this tool. In short, it is a complete system and after that you do not need any booking management tool.

Cons:

There is absolutely nothing to write here. This is an all-in-one plugin.

Booking Software That Works

Comments: I have had great success with Bookly as a product and definitely recommend it to the point that there is no other product on the market that I bother to look at. Bookly works. Bookly is flexible for most business situations where booking appointments is important.

Pros:

I have been using Bookly with multiple licenses for myself and clients. It has been a highly successful booking product. The integration with my Google calendar has been the key to its success for me. Especially as I have clients all over the world in multiple timezones.

Cons:

Unfortunately, like most booking software providers they have split the product into individual features that are being charged for. This makes an otherwise value packed product, now more expensive for the average consumer.

Not sure what people are thinking by recommending this software

Comments: Bottom line. Bookly is no where near 100%. It fails a lot and you never know. If you want to lose money like we have over client not booking then Bookly is great. If you want to book appointments and run a business I would stay away and look for another Wordpress scheduling plugin. There are many other better ones. And cheaper.

Pros:

It was easy to setup. That's about it. Had to write 40 characters.

Cons:

It just stops working. We have used it for 2 years now. It just stops. No warning or log to tell you. When Wordpress updates, and it updates a lot, Bookly stops. It fails in some way. So to keep secure you need to update Wordpress. Bookly fails in some way. You call or email to get it fixed. They are not helpful at all. They ask for a purchase code. We have one. Then they say it's expired. We get another. Then they can't get things fixed. A year later Bookly fails again. Need to buy support again. It's their fault that they can't keep it going after a Wordpress update. My developer is frustrated with it and so are we. STAY AWAY. Plus if it is a main way you book your clients and it goes down. There is no way to no. You can go weeks without knowing that your clients are just stuck at a screen. YOU WILL LOSE MONEY.

Hidden Costs, Poor Support & Lack of Features

Comments: Overall unprofessional and not helpful. They are more interested in selling to new customers and answering pre-support questions with yes, yes and yes even though many yes's come at an additional cost. No after sales support and all round a very unethical company

Pros:

Super easy to install and explain to front end users and people of limited technical knowledge.

Cons:

Where do we start... Firstly, paying for Pro has sooo many hidden costs. Anything you want to do beyond the very basic level they charge you another $30 for another addon. Staff can't even edit their own bookings without an addon...! Secondly, the support is sooo slow and not in the slightest bit technical. You ask them a question, they take two days to look through their own documentation (which you have done already) then come back and can't give you an answer. If you are lucky (!) you might get through to someone technical but often not and even then it takes another two days! The worst thing is if you are on the calendar overview and you have multiple staff you cannot see who is working and who is not working!!! They are all the same colour no matter which view and there is no way of telling! Raised this with 'support' numerous times and their excuse is it is outside of the Envato terms to help with this as it isn't listed as a feature!! Just to show holidays in a different colour for when people aren't working!! Madness.

3 Year User

Comments: I really like the simplicity and ease of use for any user, both frontend and back. My main niggle is the calendar for day to day use.
I would suggest looking at some of the good (Property Management Softwares) for an example of how calendars can be clear with lots of information at a glance and on hovered states etc.

Pros:

I like the ease of use, the UI is very inutive.

Cons:

I don't like the calendar, it's hard to see at a glance what on.

A very frustrating and stressful waste of time

Comments: No customer service, no accountability taken for a shoddy product that does not deliver what it says it is going to. Support will help you with a simple issue, but do not expect any help with high end issues that do not work, as soon as these arise, support just disappear and go silent. I am not sure how Envato can even associate themselves with this shoddy product

Pros:

Bookly promises many features that the other online management systems do not offer, such as unlimited practitioners and available rooms with the collaborative services add-on. We were also happy to see that we could sync Bookly to our Google calendar

Cons:

NOTHING WORKS! if you just want a simple booking system to take online bookings for one practitioner at one venue - I am sure this system will work for you. But if you trust everything that Bookly promises to deliver and you spend the money purchasing all the add ons - then spend and enormous amount of time setting everything up according to the tutorials and instructions but things do not work as they say they will. And then support tells you that - the add on doesn't actually work as it is supposed to. A very expensive waste of time.

Best Booking Addon For WordPress Ever!

Comments: Their training is phenomenal! This WordPress addon for appointment scheduling is the best offering we had ever found in the market. Once you had bookly you never go back! =)

Pros:

The appointment scheduling process was easy for my clients to understand. The ability to collect payment and integrate with my client's calendar was awesome! I purchased over a dozen addons. It was well worth the investment!

Cons:

I didn't find a way to manage staff payouts. Additional BIO about each staff member would be nice.

Review for Bookly

Comments: Massage and coaching. I have used it for two years and I could give it overall rate 9,5/10

Pros:

Clear design. On both: backend and frontend. Most plugins are clear with frontend with horrible backend usability.

Cons:

Most of extra features are chargeable. It may cost a lot to get lots of features.

Confusing and unreliable

Comments: I was so unsatisfied with Bookly that I switched software companies.

Pros:

Client profiles were very convenient. I signed up for this for the automatic scheduling and calendar sync options, which sound great in theory.

Cons:

The automatic scheduling and calendar synch features never worked properly and negatively impacted my business

Time to Book with Bookly! Easy to set-up and use

Comments: Bookly has allowed us to start our business with the online booking feature at a relatively low cost, and has allowed our clients to reserve appointments at anytime and receive confirmation emails with all the booking information. Many other booking plugins are complicated to set up and start, you will not have that problem with Bookly. Highly Recommended.

Pros:

What makes bookly stand out from other booking software is how easy it is to set up on your website and input service and staff member information into the plugin. Although the free version has limited functionality, it can still be used and be useful to a certain point before buying the full version. It was a big help when we were just starting out as a small business.

Cons:

What we did not like about the software was that once there was a problem or once it stopped working, it was a bit tough to figure out and get it running again. On the other hand, we had amazing technical support and customer service from the Bookly Team, who took it upon themselves to resolve the issue and did not give up no matter how long it took.

Great investment for my business

Comments: Online booking has really helped cut down on admin time for my business.

Pros:

The ease of use and the improvements throughout the years. The beautiful front-end on my website looks very professional and I love how it's customizable.

Cons:

Some issues with email notifications at times.

Bookly is highly configurable and is easy for clients to understand

Comments: The overall experience has been good. Sometimes it does take some creative thinking to do what I want, but I've always managed to get it figured out.

Pros:

Once set up, Bookly just works. We've had very few problems with it in many years of use.

Cons:

It is a bit complicated in the back end. When I've suggested it to others, I get feedback that it is too complicated.

Would rather build it myself

Comments: Support team is extremely unresponsive, in some cases taking days to reply to an email. Could not get started with the service without minimum a dozen emails to the support team, also requiring an escalation to a Senior technician. Also don't expect more than 1 email per day, and it definitely won't be hitting your email inbox during normal business hours. Expect notifications at 11pm or 7am EST. Service does not support Multi-Url without multiple licenses on top of an Add-On. So cost on top of cost for something that should be supported out of the box. Cannot de-register the license to use on another site, as the UI shows. Instead the codes are registered in the Bookly Cloud, where only support technicians can change which URL the license is registered. So I can't develop the site locally, then de-register the key and re-install on the production site when it's time to launch. Not without the "help" of the support team. Any feature actually valuable to a booking service is an additional add on, which immediately drives up the cost, in some cases monthly/annually. I will never recommend Bookly to anyone. I would probably rank it 0 or 0.5 stars. If I ever hear anyone mentioning they use Bookly, or ask questions, I will make sure to explain my last experience and recommend we build something from scratch, instead of ever going with Bookly. At least building it from scratch we know it will suit the clients needs and it will likely be finished in a shorter amount of time then

Pros:

It's nice that I can update the plugin via Wordpress. Nothing else.

Cons:

Pretty much the entire process. Install process, customizing CSS, deploying to production website, dealing with the support team, requiring plugins for LITERALLY everything, data entry, product setup, connection to Zapier(Bookly Pro feature), adding funds, and more.

Complete, flexible booking solution

Comments: Bookly is a great solution for us that helps us a lot in managing our bookings.
It is very complete, flexible and Bookly listens to their customers in terms of newly developed functionality.

Pros:

The Google Calendar integration is great, Ease of use and fully customizable Responsively designed

Cons:

Every extra costs money (plug-in-model) ;-) Support is very limited if you did not buy a support package.

Best Booking Plugin for Wordpress!

Comments: Bookly has mad in website client booking a fun and thoroughly met experience!

Pros:

It's solution simply. There is not more feature rich plugin that offers this solution. I like it's Google Calendar 2-way Sync. And I like it's feel to the end user (person booking an appointment) most.

Cons:

My only issue is setting the emails in the admin. It could be better to have a 2-column layout because there are so many email templates to set up. When having to toggle between each in a purely vertical format, the experience becomes daunting quickly.

Great appointment booking system!

Comments: Overall, we are very happy with Bookly and look forward to using it for the foreseeable future.

Pros:

We've been using Bookly for our appointment management for the past year and we have nothing but positive things to say about it. Most importantly, its ease of use, customizability and flexibility were the things that stood out to us most when deciding between Bookly and other platforms.

Cons:

While Bookly is extremely easy to use, customizable and flexible; there are a few minor features missing that we fill would benefit the platform greatly. Namely, the use of Coupons and other entry level features being tied behind additional purchases are a bit inconvenient.