Acuity Scheduling, now part of Squarespace, is one of the better appointment tools available — flexible availability rules, intake forms, packages, and a booking experience clients complete without help. Mako is the business platform underneath a service company: booking, payments, memberships, staff pay, retail, and profit reporting. The price gap is large and mostly justified, so the useful question is which one your business actually needs.
Acuity Scheduling: Published. Starter at $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly), Standard at $27/month annually ($34 monthly), and Premium at $49/month annually ($61 monthly).
Mako: Pulse is free. Basic at $139/month — the complete operational platform with three team members. Team at $249/month — fifteen team members, extra locations at $75/month each, advanced reporting, QuickBooks sync. Enterprise at $999/month. Roughly 20% off annually, no contract.
Acuity is substantially cheaper and we are not going to dress that up. At $16 to $49 it costs a fraction of any business platform. If scheduling is your requirement, pay the $16 and stop reading.
Acuity handles the appointment. A service business eventually needs more than the appointment, and the signals are specific:
None of that is an Acuity shortcoming. It is a scheduling tool being a scheduling tool. It is a signal that the business has outgrown the category, not the product.
$16 to $49 against $139. For a solo practitioner that difference is real money every month.
Availability rules, buffers, time zones, appointment types and intake forms are genuinely well built.
If your site is already on Squarespace, the booking flow drops in without work.
You can be taking bookings the same afternoon.
Card on file, deposits, packages, decrementing class credits, invoicing, and a customer portal — one system, one customer record.
Profit per service after staff pay and consumables, cash-flow forecasting, unit economics, LTV.
Commission splits by service and staff member, tips, timesheets and payouts — native and historically accurate.
Stock levels, low-stock alerts, consumables tied to services, margin per product.
Automated win-back journeys and free Pulse benchmarking that compares your repeat-booking rate against market averages and names who has gone quiet.
Pick Acuity if:
Pick Mako if:
Your business is a business. Not a hobby, not a side project, not a calendar with a cash register. It deserves software that treats it accordingly. If your platform cannot tell you whether you are financially healthy, it is not doing its job. And in 2026, you have better options.
See Mako in action — no sales call required
Mako is built for independent business owners who would rather spend their time on customers than on demo calls. Open the live demo, poke around, and see exactly how booking, payments, and financial intelligence come together in one place.
Try the demo: https://app.makocrm.so/demo
Self-serve. Instant access. No forms, no calendars, no "talk to sales."
