Does Lemcal have a better free plan than Cal.com ?

If you’re looking for an online booking system for your business, you’ve probably come across the Lemcal vs Cal.com debate.

Lemcal is a popular option for solo professionals who need basic booking functionality, like 1 calendar connection and 3 event types. But as your scheduling needs grow, you'll quickly discover its limitations, including no paid bookings, limited embeds, and English-only support.

Cal.com offers everything Lemcal does, plus powerful features many platforms can't match. From unlimited calendars and event types to advanced workflows, routing forms, and 65-language support, Cal.com delivers the scheduling software businesses actually need to scale.

In this comparison, we'll show you exactly how these two calendar platforms stack up across features, pricing, and use cases.

Introducing the 2 Contenders: Lemcal vs. Cal.com

Get to Know Cal.com

Cal.com is a people-focused scheduling infrastructure product. It has been built to accommodate humanity's ever-changing calendar scheduling needs. This means we've designed a product that's not only highly customizable but also affordable. We know that human interaction, especially in meetings, is essential to societal and cultural growth and economic stability.

From parents and students to working professionals and retirees, the only way a great idea becomes a finished product is when people can communicate the steps needed to realize that transformation. To ensure as many people as possible can benefit from genuinely transparent, customizable, and privacy-friendly scheduling, Cal.com offers a free basic plan available to everyone. This is regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status, or cultural background.

Key Features

• Open-source scheduling infrastructure: Customize every aspect of your scheduling experience for a more personalized, tailored approach and custom scheduling solutions.

• Round-robin and group scheduling: Distribute meetings evenly across team members or find common availability for group meetings.

• API-first architecture: Full API access enables custom integrations, workflow automation, and embedded scheduling experiences tailored to your business.

• Smart routing: Cal.com’s routing forms collect customer information and direct clients to the right team member or service automatically based on their needs. 

• Workflow automation: Easily automate confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups to reduce no-shows.

• Payment collection: Accept deposits or full payments through Stripe and PayPal when clients book. 

• AI-powered scheduling: Use AI to handle inbound phone calls to book appointments, ensuring no lead is lost.

• Multi-location support: Manage bookings across multiple service areas (even across time zones) from a single dashboard. Each location can have its own calendars and booking rules for smoother coordination.

• Multi-language support: Cal.com detects time zones and browser languages, making it ideal for multi-time-zone/multi-language businesses with clients who prefer different languages.

• App store: The app store makes it super easy to integrate Cal with your favorite tools, including conferencing, analytics, and automation tools.

Users love Cal.com because it's easy to use yet offers so much more functionality than most scheduling tools. Here's what a G2 user said,

I love Cal.com's high level of customization. It allows me to control almost every part of the booking experience, including meeting types, availability logic, integrations, reminders, and branding. I use it along with several other tools to streamline my workflow. It connects smoothly with Google Calendar to sync my availability in real time, and I also use Zoom for automatically generating meeting links. The integration helps reduce manual work and makes scheduling more reliable. I would rate it a 9 out of 10 as it is a powerful and flexible scheduling tool with great customization and solid integrations.

What is Lemcal?

Lemcal is a lightweight scheduling tool built by Lempire, a French startup best known for products like Lemlist, Lemwarm, and Lempod. Lemcal is designed primarily for solo founders, freelancers, and creators who want a simple way to let others book time on their calendar without dealing with complex setup or advanced workflows.

On its free plan, Lemcal focuses on doing a few things well rather than offering broad flexibility.

Here’s what you get for free with Lemcal:

• 1 calendar connection: You can connect a single calendar (typically Google Calendar) to avoid double bookings.

• Up to 3 availability schedules: This allows basic separation of working hours, for example, weekday vs weekend availability.

• 3 bookable event types: Suitable for users who offer a small number of meeting formats, such as intro calls, check-ins, or consultations.

• Basic customization: Lemcal lets you add custom booking questions so you can collect information before meetings. The platform is also experimenting with profile customization features, such as introductory videos.

• Core integrations: Free users can connect Zoom and Google Meet for video calls and use Zapier for simple automation between tools.

For individuals with very simple scheduling needs, Lemcal’s free plan can feel approachable and easy to adopt. There’s minimal setup, a clean interface, and no immediate pressure to upgrade if all you need is a few booking links. Here's what a G2 user says:

Lemcal has revolutionized my appointment scheduling. Simple, smooth, ultra-professional: my clients book in a few clicks, without friction. The integration with my calendar is perfect, and the customization of time slots has saved me a lot of time. It has become a pillar of my daily organization.

A small suggestion to make the tool even more powerful: it would be great to be able to offer multiple meeting locations to choose from (e.g., video call, café, office...) and to have the ability to import your own banners for an even more personalized experience. The lack of customization in the free offer.

However, that simplicity is also where the limitations become clear. Lemcal’s free plan does not support paid bookings, website embeds, CRM integrations, white-labeling, or multilingual scheduling. It’s also English-only and doesn’t offer enterprise-grade security or compliance options.

In short, Lemcal’s free plan is best suited for a basic personal booking link, not a scalable scheduling system. As soon as you need monetization, advanced automation, international support, or deeper integrations, those constraints become hard to ignore. This is especially evident when you compare it to Cal.com’s unlimited free plan.

Lemcal vs. Cal.com: Feature Comparisons at a Glance

Lemcal vs. Cal.com: How Do They Compare?

At a high level, Lemcal and Cal.com are built for very different stages of growth.

Lemcal is optimized for individuals who want a simple booking link and don’t expect their scheduling needs to change much. Its free plan covers the basics: one calendar connection, a small number of event types, and lightweight integrations for video calls and automation. For freelancers or solo creators who only need a few booking links, this can be enough.

The challenge is that Lemcal doesn’t clearly document its limitations in one place. Information about feature caps, missing functionality, and upgrade paths is scattered or implied rather than explicit. That makes it harder for users to evaluate whether Lemcal will still work once their needs expand beyond personal scheduling.

In contrast, Cal.com is upfront about what it offers at every tier and deliberately removes artificial ceilings from its free individual plan. Rather than limiting growth, it’s designed to scale with you.

Where Lemcal Falls Short

Lemcal’s simplicity comes with trade-offs that become more visible as soon as scheduling becomes part of revenue, operations, or team workflows.

Key limitations of Lemcal’s free plan include:

• No paid bookings, deposits, or monetization

• No website embeds for seamless booking experiences

• English-only interface, limiting international use

• No CRM or advanced workflow integrations

• No white-labeling or self-hosted option

• No enterprise-grade security or compliance certifications

If you only need a personal scheduling link, you may not need these advanced features may not really matter. But for businesses, agencies, or global teams, they quickly become blockers.

How Cal.com Is Different

Cal.com’s free individual plan removes the idea of “outgrowing” your scheduler.

Instead of limiting core functionality, Cal.com allows unlimited:

• Calendar connections

• Event types

• Availability schedules

• Workflows and routing forms

• Integrations via the app store, webhooks, Zapier, and more

On top of that, Cal.com supports paid bookings, multiple embed options, and 37 languages out of the box. It also meets serious security and compliance requirements, including ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA, and more.

When teams are ready to scale, Cal.com’s paid plans extend the same foundation to support round-robin scheduling, collective events, marketplaces, and large organizations.

Final Verdict: Lemcal vs. Cal.com

Lemcal is a solid option for individuals who want a basic booking link and don’t expect to scale.

Cal.com is built for people and businesses who want scheduling that grows with them, without hitting artificial limits, losing monetization options, or switching platforms later.

If you’re choosing based on long-term flexibility, global support, and true freedom on a free plan, Cal.com clearly pulls ahead.

FAQs

1. Is Lemcal completely free to use?

Yes, Lemcal has a free plan, but it’s limited to one calendar connection, three event types, and basic scheduling features with no monetization or embeds.

2. Does Cal.com really offer unlimited features on its free plan?

Yes. Cal.com’s free individual plan includes unlimited calendars, event types, workflows, routing forms, integrations, and paid bookings.

3. Which tool is better for paid bookings or selling appointments?

Cal.com is the better option. Lemcal doesn’t support paid bookings, while Cal.com lets you accept payments via Stripe and PayPal.

4. Is Lemcal suitable for teams or growing businesses?

Not really. Lemcal is best for solo users with simple needs. Teams and businesses typically outgrow it quickly due to feature limits.

5. Why does Cal.com offer so much for free?

Cal.com funds its free plan through paid team and enterprise plans, allowing individuals to access unlimited scheduling without artificial restrictions.

Cal.com is now FREE for individuals - sign up here