Content & Growth · Booking
VanVed vs Acuity
for Booking
Why businesses choose VanVed over Acuity
VanVed is white-label by construction — there is no vendor badge to buy your way out of, where Acuity charges its top tier for that alone — and its whole API is open on any plan rather than gated behind Premium. The Google Calendar work is genuine, creating a real Meet link on the staff member's own calendar and checking free/busy before accepting a slot, and a tenant gets memberships, invoicing and CRM in the same system.
Capability by capability
Every row below is what our 2026 research found — including the rows we lose.
| Capability | VanVed | Acuity |
|---|---|---|
| Client books themselves in | Not possible without a tenant login — there is no self-scheduling page | Client self-scheduling on every tier, including the $16 Starter |
| Intake forms at booking | A survey builder with public links exists, but nothing attaches a form to a booking | Custom client intake forms from the Starter tier |
| Payment when booking | Possible in principle — a paid order can confirm a booking — but it needs an admin to create a catalog product pointing at that specific booking first, so it is not a real pay-at-booking flow | Stripe, Square, PayPal and Venmo at booking, on every tier |
| Reminders | None, despite the platform having working WhatsApp and email senders | Email reminders on Starter, SMS from Standard |
| Timezone handling | An availability schedule carries a timezone field, but no code reads it; bookings are stored and compared as absolute times | Automatic timezone conversion for the client |
| Calendar sync and video links | Real Google OAuth with a genuine Meet link created on the coach's own calendar, and a free/busy check against it | Google, Outlook and iCal sync with Zoom, Google Meet and GoToMeeting |
| Packages and memberships | A full membership module with duration and credit plans, freeze and renewal, in the same tenant | Memberships, packages and gift certificates, from the Standard tier |
| Removing the vendor's branding | There is no vendor branding to remove — every tenant runs on its own domain under its own name | Removing 'Powered by Acuity' requires the $49–61 Premium tier, and the client app is Acuity-branded regardless |
| API access | Every booking operation is a REST endpoint on any tier | Custom API and CSS only on Premium |
Where Acuity is ahead of us today
Acuity's cheapest $16 tier already does the three things VanVed's booking module cannot do at all: a client schedules themselves, fills a custom intake form, and pays at the moment of booking. VanVed requires a login to book, has no form attached to a booking, and its pay-at-booking path needs an admin to hand-create a product for each booking first. Acuity also converts timezones for the client automatically, while VanVed's timezone field is stored and never read, and sends reminders that VanVed does not send at all.
We publish this because a comparison that only flatters us is worth nothing to you. If one of these gaps is the thing you actually need, Acuity may well be the better buy.
What VanVed's Booking module does
- Availability schedules
Define when you are bookable.
- Conflict prevention
A slot already taken cannot be double-booked.