Choosing the right scheduling software is crucial for small and midsize businesses aiming to streamline operations and improve convenience. Scheduling software can save time, reduce administrative burden, and enhance customer interactions by automating appointment bookings, calendar management, and reminders. For busy business owners, the convenience of having a tool that handles these tasks effortlessly is invaluable, allowing them to focus on growing their business rather than managing schedules. At Zatik, we understand how important it is to make the right choice without spending hours researching. That's why, just like we did for Password Managers and Domain Registrars, we used the Zatik SaaS Safety Bar to evaluate the features of five popular SaaS scheduling products to help you make an informed decision.
Calendly: The Best Choice with a Key Caveat
Calendly is the best performing scheduling application in our review of it’s safety features, earning a “Fair” rating. It supports single sign on (SSO), role based access control for users, encrypts customer data in transit, offers an audit trail for administrative actions, and offers data deletion directly in the UI. Of the applications we reviewed, Calendly is our recommended solution as long as you are using it with a Google or Microsoft account that has Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) enabled.
What you need to know about Calendly before making a decision:
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Calendly offers a somewhat complicated approach to 2FA. If you sign up using a Calendly-specific username and password they do not offer 2FA and we would not rate them highest of your scheduling solution options. However, signing up via Google or Microsoft accounts allows you to leverage their built-in 2FA.
Audit Trail: Calendly's activity log feature allows you to view the administrative actions taken inside your account. This feature is necessary to have any ability to track changes and investigate issues in SaaS software. SimplyMeet.me does not mention this feature in their documentation.
While Calendly lacks features like mandatory 2FA for all users and forceful session termination for compromised accounts, its combination of SSO options, RBAC, and encryption ensures that it meets key standards. To maximize security, we recommend that users sign up via Google or Microsoft and ensure 2FA is enabled.
You can see our full detailed analysis of these products in the Show Your Work section below.
Missing Security Features in this Category
Our recommendation of Calendly is not without reservations, as it is missing three critical safety features from the Zatik Safety Bar:
Requiring all users to enable 2FA: Requiring 2FA for all users ensures that every account is protected against unauthorized access, adding an extra layer of security.
Forceful logout capability: Allowing admins to forcefully log out a user can help mitigate damage from compromised accounts and maintain control over active sessions.
Password complexity policy: A password complexity policy adds an extra layer of protection, making it harder for attackers to compromise weak passwords.
Unfortunately, none of the five scheduling products we reviewed as part of this study offer these essential features, highlighting a gap in the overall security landscape of this software category.
Recommendation: Choose Calendly with Google or Microsoft account sign in with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled
For small and midsize businesses looking for reliable and secure scheduling software, Calendly is our top recommendation, provided that you sign up with Google or Microsoft accounts that have 2FA enabled. This approach helps mitigate some of the platform’s security limitations, making Calendly the most secure choice of the five scheduling applications we evaluated.
Final Thoughts
Security is a vital factor when choosing the right software for your business. While all of the applications we evaluated are lacking important safety features, Calendly is the most secure option of the five applications we evaluated.
With tools like the Zatik SaaS Safety Bar, we can help you make informed choices that balance functionality and safety.
Show Your Work
Calendly
Offer Two Factor Authentication: Yes, but with a caveat. If you login with a Calendly username and password it does not appear as if you can require that you use MFA on every login. They use Account Defender by reCAPTCHA to protect accounts which "may" trigger a Two-Factor challenge.
Require all users to use 2FA: No, The Manage Users documentation does not indicated that you can require 2FA for all members of your team
Support SSO Integration: Yes, By default they only offer SSO integration at the Enterprise level which "Starts at $15k". However, you can upgrade the Teams plan to include SSO at $3/user/mo.
RBAC for admin functions: Yes, Calendly supports 5 different roles: Owner, Admin, Group Admin, Team manager, User.
Audit Trail: Yes, The Activity Log alerts you to administrative actions taken in your account
Force Logout: No, Searches for session termination, forced logout, compromised account did not locate any settings that could log out a compromised team account
Password Complexity: No, The Manage Users documentation does not indicated that you can specify a password policy for all members of your team
Encryption in Transit: Yes, Data is encrypted in Transit
Data Destruction: Yes, you can delete your account via the account dashboard
Offer Two Factor Authentication: Yes, they support 2FA using authenticator apps
Require all users to use 2FA: No, There is no results in the documentation for security log, logs, audit.
Support SSO Integration: Yes, They support Okta on the Professional tier
RBAC for admin functions: Yes, they a user can be an Owner, Manager, or Member of an Organization
Audit Trail: No, There is no results in the documentation for security log, logs, audit.
Force Logout: No, there is no indication of this feature on the Create a Team, or Teams support documentation pages
Password Complexity: No, there is no indication of this feature on the Create a Team, or Teams support documentation pages
Encryption in Transit: Yes, data is encrypted in Transit
Data Destruction: Yes, you can delete your account via the user interface
Acuity Scheduling by Squarespace
Offer Two Factor Authentication: Yes, Per their docs they offer Passkey, Authenticator app, and text messaging as second factors
Require all users to use 2FA: No, There is not a way to mandate that your Contributors must have 2FA on their Squarespace account before they can accept an invitation to collaborate
Support SSO Integration: No, Though they support this feature on Enterprise plans (ex Google, Okta) these plans for not have a public price so they do not meet the Zatik SaaS Safety Bar
RBAC for admin functions: Yes, they support the ability to limit a Contributor's access to your site via specific Permission
Audit Trail: No, There is a site change log but this only tracks page contents. There is an Activity Log for site visitors, but does not track account admin activity. Searches for "security log", "logs", "audit trail" did not return results for an Audit Log in their documentation.
Force Logout: No, Though you can view the sessions for your account, and terminate a session if you believe it is compromised. There is no way to do this to a contributor's account. You can remove them as a contributor to prevent them from accessing specific websites, but the attacker will remain in control of the account
Password Complexity: No, There is not a way to mandate that your Contributors must have a specific password complexity on their Squarespace account before they can accept an invitation to collaborate
Encryption in Transit: Yes, TLS protection is in place
Data Destruction: Yes, you can delete your account via the account dashboard
Offer Two Factor Authentication: Yes but only if you use social login. They don't have their own username/password setup and only support login via links sent via email which does not support 2FA. You can use social login and add 2FA on your social login account.
Require all users to use 2FA: No, They don't have a built in username/password login so they cannot offer this feature.
Support SSO Integration: No, They only support Google Social Sign in
RBAC for admin functions: Yes, You can have the role of owner, admin, or member
Audit Trail: No, There is no results in the documentation for security log, logs, audit.
Force Logout: No, You can remove a member from your team but you cannot terminate a session of a team mate
Password Complexity: Complicated, They don't have a built in username/password login so I think this is NA since there's no passwords to have complexity for.
Encryption in Transit: Yes, data is encrypted in Transit
Data Destruction: No, their privacy policy says that they will delete your data if you terminate your account. However, there does not appear to be a way to actually delete the account via the UI. You must email them and they will process within 30 days
Savycal
Offer Two Factor Authentication: No, They have no documentation that they support this feature
Require all users to use 2FA: No, they do not appear to offer two factor authentication so it cannot be mandated
Support SSO Integration: No, They do not support this feature
RBAC for admin functions: No, There are no roles specified in the Teams documentation. There is an ability to delete your account to another user using a pre shared URL, but they have deep access to the account with control of "basic account settings, availability, billing details, and scheduling links"
Audit Trail: No, There is no results in the documentation for security log, logs, audit.
Force Logout: No, Searches for session termination, forced logout, compromised account did not locate any settings that could log out a compromised team account
Password Complexity: No, there does not seem to be a way to specify any password complexity policy
Encryption in Transit: Yes, they specify that traffic is encrypted in transit
Data Destruction: Yes, you can delete your account via the account settings page