By the end of this comparison you will know the advertised price of all three tools, the three different things they actually charge for, why a five-person Hong Kong salon can pay anywhere between HK$2,340 and HK$7,488 a year for what looks like the same product, and which one to buy for your situation.
All prices below come from each vendor's own pricing page and are converted at the pegged rate of about HK$7.8 to the US dollar.
How much does online booking software cost in Hong Kong?
Entry-level paid plans run from about US$5 to US$25 per month. Setmore Pro is US$5 per user per month on annual billing, Calendly Standard is US$10 per seat per month, and SimplyBook.me Standard is US$24.90 per month for the whole account. Those three numbers are not comparable, because each one meters something different.
This is the single most useful thing to understand before you compare anything else.
--- Calendly charges per seat. Every person who hosts bookings needs a paid seat. Invitees never do.
--- Setmore charges per staff calendar. Its own pricing FAQ states that each staff calendar counts as a user even if that person has no login permission. A six-chair salon is six users whether or not anyone else logs in.
--- SimplyBook.me charges per booking, and separately per feature slot. Headcount barely matters. Volume and the number of optional features you switch on do.
So the first question is not "which tool is cheapest". It is "which meter fits the shape of my business".
What does each plan actually include?
Here are the published plans as of August 2026, taken from each vendor's pricing page. SimplyBook.me states on its page that pricing was last updated in May 2026.
Calendly (calendly.com/pricing)
--- Free: one event type, one calendar connection, customisable booking page.
--- Standard, US$10 per seat per month billed yearly (save 17%): unlimited event types, multiple calendars, automations and reminders, Stripe and PayPal.
--- Teams, US$16 per seat per month billed yearly (save 20%): round-robin, lead routing, centrally managed event types, Salesforce.
--- Enterprise: from US$15,000 per year, minimum 50 seats, quoted in US dollars only.
--- The add-on that catches people: Notetaker and Callie, the AI assistant that schedules over email, are shown as not included on Standard and Teams. Calendly's own page states that Notetaker and Callie are only available in English at this time.
Setmore (setmore.com/pricing)
--- Free: up to 4 users, 200 appointments per month, email confirmations and one email reminder. No SMS reminders, no two-way calendar sync, no recurring appointments, and Setmore branding stays on your booking page.
--- Pro: US$5 per user per month on annual billing, or US$12 per user per month billed monthly. Unlimited users, unlimited appointments, SMS and email reminders, two reminders instead of one, two-way calendar sync, branding removed, API access, and a signed HIPAA business associate agreement.
--- Live Receptionist add-on: US$99 per month, and Setmore's page states the service is available in the US only. For a Hong Kong buyer, the feature that would replace a receptionist is the one feature you cannot buy.
--- Pro can be tried risk-free for 30 days with a refund on request.
SimplyBook.me (simplybook.me/en/pricing)
--- Free: US$0, 50 included bookings, 1 custom feature, 1 provider.
--- Basic: US$11.90 annual or US$13.90 monthly, 100 bookings, 3 custom features, 5 providers.
--- Standard: US$24.90 annual or US$29.90 monthly, 500 bookings, 8 custom features, 15 providers.
--- Premium: US$49.90 annual or US$59.90 monthly, 2,000 bookings, unlimited custom features, 30 providers.
--- Metered extras: 100 SMS credits US$8, 100 WhatsApp credits US$8, 100 AI Voice Booking credits US$8, 100 extra bookings US$4, custom domain with three years of SSL US$119, guided full setup US$499.
--- 14-day trial with no credit card, and a Chinese interface is published alongside English.
What does a five-person Hong Kong salon really pay?
Take a Tsim Sha Tsui beauty salon with five staff calendars and 400 bookings a month, which wants a WhatsApp confirmation and a WhatsApp reminder for each booking. That is 800 outbound messages a month. Annual cost, cheapest billing option for each:
--- Setmore Pro, annual: US$25 per month, HK$195, or HK$2,340 a year. Five users at US$5.
--- SimplyBook.me Standard, annual: US$24.90 per month, HK$194, or HK$2,332 a year. 400 bookings sits inside the 500-booking allowance.
--- Calendly Standard, annual: US$50 per month, HK$390, or HK$4,680 a year. Five seats at US$10.
--- Calendly Teams, annual: US$80 per month, HK$624, or HK$7,488 a year. Five seats at US$16.
Then the same salon adds the WhatsApp reminders, and the ranking changes.
800 WhatsApp messages a month bought as SimplyBook.me credits is 8 blocks at US$8, so US$64 a month, HK$499, or HK$5,990 a year. The messaging now costs 2.6 times the software.
The same 800 messages billed at Meta's Hong Kong utility rate of US$0.026 each, which rose to that level on 1 July 2026, works out to US$20.80 a month, HK$162, or HK$1,947 a year. Buying the identical message through the booking vendor's credit system costs roughly HK$4,000 a year more for the same delivery.
One dated warning, because it lands in six weeks. From 1 October 2026 Meta begins charging per message for service replies and for in-window utility messages that have been free since July 2025, and Meta confirms final October rates for all markets by 1 September 2026. So treat every message figure above as a planning estimate, and read the WhatsApp cost breakdown in this hub before signing anything with a messaging component.
The other trap: billing frequency and feature slots
Setmore Pro is US$5 per user annually and US$12 per user monthly. For the same five people that is HK$2,340 a year versus HK$5,616 a year, a 2.4-fold difference decided by a radio button, not by anything you receive.
On SimplyBook.me it is the feature counter, not the booking count, that usually forces an upgrade. A salon wanting WhatsApp notifications, deposits, intake forms and a loyalty scheme has already asked for four custom features, and Basic includes three. The 400 bookings would have fitted; the fourth feature is what moves you to Standard.
Where does each competitor beat the others?
A comparison in which one product wins every row is an advertisement. These are the rows each vendor genuinely wins.
Calendly wins one-to-one professional meetings. If a booking means a 30-minute call with a client, Calendly handles calendar conflicts, round-robin and lead routing better than the other two, and invitees never consume a seat. For a three-partner consultancy it is the right buy and the other two are the wrong shape.
Setmore wins on price at scale and on regulated work. US$5 per user per month with unlimited appointments is the cheapest per-person cost of the three, and Pro includes a signed HIPAA business associate agreement, which matters to a clinic. Its free plan also includes 24/7 human support, which neither of the others matches at zero.
SimplyBook.me wins on language and on flat pricing. It is the only one of the three that publishes a Chinese interface alongside English, which for a Hong Kong booking page is not a nice-to-have. Because it charges by booking volume rather than by seat, a 12-person team costs exactly the same as a 3-person team, and it publishes an ISO 27001 certification page plus a choice of data location on Enterprise.
Where UD is the wrong thing to buy
UD sells AI Chatbot Master, and it is important to be clear about what it is not. It is not a calendar. It does not hold staff rosters, it will not stop a double-booking, and it does not take deposits. If what you need is a booking calendar, buy one of the three tools above and stop reading.
UD becomes relevant only when the expensive part is the conversation before the booking: the twelve WhatsApp messages a day asking whether you are open on Sunday, what a treatment costs, and whether there is parking. Published plans are HK$298 per month for 1,000 conversations, HK$498 for 10,000 and HK$988 for 50,000, with a one-off setup of HK$1,000 on Startup and HK$3,000 on the two tiers above, waived on a yearly subscription. There is a minimum six-month subscription, and Meta's per-message charges sit on top of any subscription, as they do with every vendor. The full breakdown is in the AI Chatbot Master pricing page in this hub.
Two further honest points. First, none of the three global vendors publishes evidence on how well its booking flow reads in Cantonese, so test that yourself during the free trial rather than trusting a language list. Second, Hong Kong has local options that a global roundup usually misses, including BookingEasy from digiEasy, built for salons here, so a local shortlist is worth ten minutes before you commit.
Which one should you buy?
A solo consultant or a firm of one to three people booking meetings. Calendly Standard at US$10 per seat, or Calendly Free if a single meeting type is genuinely enough. Do not pay for booking volume you do not have.
A four-to-fifteen person service business on a tight budget. Setmore Pro on annual billing, US$5 per user per month. Check the feature list first, because the free plan's 200-appointment cap and missing SMS reminders are what usually force the upgrade.
A team that wants a Chinese booking page and predictable cost as it hires. SimplyBook.me Standard at US$24.90 a month. Count the optional features you need before choosing the tier, not after.
A business where bookings arrive mainly by WhatsApp. Do not buy reminder credits from your booking vendor at US$0.08 a message. Connect WhatsApp directly, and count your outbound messages per booking before 1 October 2026.
Under 50 bookings a month. Buy nothing. SimplyBook.me Free or Setmore Free covers it, and no paid plan repays itself at that volume.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my quote higher than the advertised price?
Three reasons, in order of frequency: the plan is per seat or per staff calendar and you counted the business as one user; the advertised figure was the annual rate and you selected monthly; or the reminders you need are metered credits sold separately from the subscription.
Is a free plan enough to run a real business?
It depends which cap you hit first. Calendly Free allows one event type, Setmore Free allows 200 appointments a month across up to 4 users, and SimplyBook.me Free allows 50 bookings and one custom feature. A consultant with one service can live on free indefinitely. A salon with twelve services cannot.
Do these tools send WhatsApp reminders in Chinese?
SimplyBook.me publishes a Chinese interface and sells WhatsApp credits at US$8 per 100 messages. Calendly's AI features, Notetaker and Callie, are English-only according to its own pricing page. In all cases Meta's per-message charges apply on top of the subscription from 1 October 2026.
Which is cheapest for a five-person salon?
Setmore Pro on annual billing at US$25 a month for all five people, with SimplyBook.me Standard within a few dollars at US$24.90. The decision between them is not price. It is whether you need a Chinese interface, and whether your headcount is about to grow.
Can I move later without losing my bookings?
Assume you will re-enter your services, staff hours and client list by hand, because that is the normal outcome. Ask each vendor in writing what it exports and in what format before you enter twelve months of client history.
The one number to work out first
Before you open any pricing page, write down two figures from your existing diary: how many bookings you took last month, and how many messages you sent per booking. The first number tells you whether you are buying seats or volume. The second tells you whether the software or the messaging is the real bill.
Most Hong Kong owners discover the second number is the larger one, and that it was never on the comparison table they were looking at. We understand AI. UD stands with you.
Reviewed by the UD AI team.
If the enquiries are the expensive part, start here
A calendar handles the booking. It does not handle the twenty questions that come before it. If that is where your hours actually go, UD will walk you through it step by step, from counting your real message volume to putting an AI assistant on your WhatsApp and website, with 28 years of Hong Kong experience behind the setup.
