Find your fit
Who it is for
It is a practical fit for a small service team, venue or class organizer that wants clients to book online without calling. A bookable resource can be a staff member, room, court or equipment, so buyers should count what must be independently available rather than count only login users.
Teams needing a branded public booking flow can use the Makeplans site alone or place it with their own website. Organizations with a specialized CRM, invoice or marketing process should verify that the named integration or API carries the fields and updates they need.
The work it supports
Core capabilities
Set up services and opening hours, then let a client select an available appointment time. For a class or seminar, publish a set date and time for event registration instead. That distinction matters when choosing between one-to-one capacity and a scheduled group signup.
Staff can work from a shared calendar to view future reservations, add notes, make changes and add an appointment manually. Regular availability can be adjusted for specific dates, and repeating appointments cover standing sessions.
A booking can be verified by SMS or email, through Facebook Connect, by staff approval, or with verification disabled. Manual confirmation is a separate control. Decide which check belongs in the flow before inviting real clients, especially when appointments are scarce or sensitive.
Makeplans sends booking confirmations and reminders through email or SMS. Message templates can adjust content and timing, including pre-appointment follow-ups. Test the chosen wording with fictional details before switching on live messages.
The booking site can carry the business’s styling, and reservation forms can ask for additional information through custom fields. Keep that form limited to information needed to schedule the service, then preview it on a phone before publishing.
The customer record shows past and future reservations, while booking reports help staff inspect when appointments are made. These are useful for planning hours, but the vendor’s marketing claims about reducing missed visits are not treated as measured outcomes.
For prepaid services, a business may require card payment for every booking, selected services or busy periods. Makeplans says Stripe or Braintree processes the payment through the business’s own connected account. Confirm the provider, country, refund process and full transaction cost before using it.
Makeplans lists integrations that can send booking data to CRM, mailing-list and invoicing tools, plus an API for custom work. Test one fictional booking and a change or cancellation in the intended destination so customer data and statuses do not drift.
Understand the offer
Pricing and getting started
The viewed official pricing page displays USD $10 per bookable resource each month. A resource can be an available staff member, room, court or piece of equipment. It says bookings, services and user logins are unlimited, so the meaningful first estimate is the number of resources open for booking.
Optional SMS messages and third-party authentication are displayed at USD $0.08 each, with volume discounts; email confirmations and reminders are free. The page also lists a 2% application fee on Stripe transactions and extra charges for custom sender or domain services. Ask for a current local cost estimate, including separate payment-processor fees.
Makeplans advertises a 14-day full-feature trial without a credit card and says there is no lock-in contract, with cancellation and data export available. Larger organizations can ask about its enterprise support, onboarding, DPA and SLA terms. Confirm the current agreement and data-export format before committing.
Look a little closer
Before you choose
Start by mapping each offered service or event to its duration, capacity, staff or room, opening hours and confirmation rule. Then test the public booking and staff calendar using fictional details before collecting customer information. This checks the central workflow without assuming a particular industry setup.
Cost depends on bookable resources and usage-based extras, not merely the number of employees with logins. If SMS verification or reminders, prepayment or a branded sender is important, request a written quote for that exact configuration and market.
The public pages describe available capabilities, but an official feature list does not prove how a chosen integration behaves with the buyer’s data or whether a payment provider is available in every country. Verify the exact connector and processor with a fictional test before moving a live schedule.
7 distinct sources behind this profile. Research observed Oct 26, 2026. Features and offers can change.
View sources and research →
