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What to look for in a free booking system: limits, costs, boundaries
In short
A free booking system can be one of three kinds: a limited plan with no time limit; a trial of a few weeks that then becomes paid; or a marketplace where the software is free, but a commission is deducted for the clients it brings. For a sole trader, the limited plan is often enough to start with, if your services and your monthly bookings fit within it.
Four things set the boundary: how many services, how many team members and how many bookings a month the plan allows, and whether it includes reminders. Besides the monthly fee, count the SMS, the card payment fee, the commission and, if you are exempt from VAT, the 27% VAT. It is worth switching to a paid plan when you regularly hit the limit, when you hire a team member, or when many clients forget their appointment. FoglalGo’s Start plan costs HUF 0: 1 team member, 3 services, 30 online bookings a month, with no commission. When you change plans, your link and your client list stay.
What does “free” mean?
A free booking system can be one of three kinds. The first is a limited plan that can be used with no time limit, but allows fewer services, team members or bookings. The second is a trial that becomes paid after a few weeks. The third is a marketplace where the software is free, but a commission is deducted for the clients it brings.
Examples from the public price lists, as of 12 October 2026: Minup’s free plan allows one service, SimplyBook.me’s Free plan at most 50 bookings a month, and Salonic gives a 14-day trial. The detailed comparison is on our comparison pages.
Before you sign up, check which kind it is. When the trial ends, your clients are already using your link, so switching is harder.
The limits you may run into
- Number of services. Some free plans allow a single service. For a hairdresser that is too few; for a trainer it may be enough.
- Bookings per month. If the limit is 30 bookings, that is one or two clients a day. Enough to start with, too few for full-time work.
- Team members. The free plan is almost always for one person.
- Reminders. The confirmation email is usually included; the reminder and the SMS are often paid.
Also ask what counts towards the limit. It makes a difference whether a cancelled booking also uses it up, or whether appointments arranged by phone and added by hand count too. It also matters what happens when the limit is reached: whether the booking page stops, or the system automatically switches you to a paid plan and bills you.
Costs that are not in the monthly fee
In most systems, SMS is paid per message. Card payments have a transaction fee. Some providers charge a commission on new clients from the marketplace. Add these up for an average month before you compare prices.
VAT matters too. The rate of value added tax in Hungary is 27% (section 82(1) of the VAT Act). If you are exempt from VAT, you have to add it to software advertised at net prices, and you cannot reclaim it.
How to work out the real monthly cost
Take an average month from your calendar and count how many bookings you had. Then go through this list for every system you are considering:
- The monthly fee, and whether it is gross or net. With a net price, add the 27% VAT if you cannot reclaim it.
- The fee per team member, if there is one. Multiply it by the size of your team.
- Notifications: if you would send SMS, the price per message multiplied by the number of bookings, for each reminder.
- Commission: the expected number of new clients from the marketplace multiplied by the commission.
- Payment fees: if clients would pay online, the fees on card transactions.
The total is the real monthly fee. It often turns out that a system advertised as free costs more with SMS and commission than a plan with a fixed fee.
When is it worth switching to a paid plan?
When you regularly hit the monthly limit, when you hire a team member, or when many clients forget their appointment and you want to send reminders. Then the fee of the paid plan is usually less than the price of a single missed client.
Work out the price of a missed appointment: the fee for the service, which you can no longer sell to anyone else that day. If a reminder can prevent one or two of these a month, the paid plan pays for itself.
What happens when you outgrow the free plan?
It is best if switching does not mean moving. Check in advance whether your booking link, your client list and the bookings already recorded stay when you change plans. If your clients have used one link for months, many of them will get stuck because of a new address.
It also matters whether you can step back. With seasonal work, for example court rental in summer or the beauty season in winter, you may need the bigger plan for a few months, and then the smaller one is enough again.
Finally, ask whether you can take your data with you. If you ever switch to another system, an export of your bookings and your client list saves you retyping them by hand.
How does this work in FoglalGo?
FoglalGo’s Start plan costs HUF 0, with no time limit: 1 team member, 3 services, 30 bookings a month, your own link, a QR code, a widget and a confirmation email. We charge no commission. The Pro plan is HUF 3,990 a month, with no VAT added. The details are on the pricing page, and the limits of the Start plan on the free booking system page.
Only clients’ online bookings count towards the limit of 30 a month. A cancelled booking does not use it up, and neither do appointments you add by hand in the dashboard. If the limit is reached, the booking page asks clients for the rest of that month to contact you directly. There is no automatic switch to a paid plan. Your bookings and your client list can be downloaded as CSV.
Sources
- Act CXXVII of 2007 on value added tax (National Legislation Database, in Hungarian): the 27% VAT rate: section 82(1)
- Minup pricing (in Hungarian): a free plan with one service
- SimplyBook.me pricing (in Hungarian): the Free plan, with a monthly booking limit
- Salonic pricing (in Hungarian): a 14-day trial
Last checked: 12 October 2026