Amelia vs Booking Calendar
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| Feature | Amelia v2.4.13 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.6/5 Visit Details | Booking Calendar v11.9.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 90,000+ | 40,000+ |
| Last updated | October 22, 2026 | October 11, 2026 |
| Editions | Amelia Lite · Amelia Starter ($) · Amelia Basic ($) · Amelia Pro ($) · Amelia Developer ($) | Booking Calendar · Booking Calendar Pro ($) |
| Pros | Booking forms for appointments and events via shortcodes, blocks and Elementor widgets; Square payments and email notifications work in the free Lite edition; Customer data stored in dedicated tables, with optional SMS credits service; Usage tracking stays off unless the admin opts in on the free edition | Full-day, time-slot and appointment bookings in one plugin; Booking and inquiry forms with email notices; Elementor widget and WooCommerce compatibility |
| Cons | Most payment gateways, Google and Outlook sync, Zoom and coupons require a paid licence; Very large codebase (over 6,700 files) with dozens of custom database tables; Lite settings for payments and limits are reset to defaults on save | Large plugin with many admin screens to learn; Newer resource and service catalog needs the Pro edition; Payment gateways are not in the free code |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 1 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Booking, catalog and events shortcodes, Gutenberg booking and events blocks, Elementor booking widgets, Email notifications via wp_mail, SMTP or Mailgun, SMS notifications through the Amelia SMS service (prepaid credits), Coupons ($), Recurring appointments and events ($), Custom booking fields ($), Service packages and resources ($), Waiting lists ($), Webhooks ($), MCP server / abilities registration for AI agents | Calendar and booking form shortcodes, Import of Google Calendar feeds into availability, Elementor booking form widget controls, Services and providers catalog (Pro-compatible resources) ($), Dashboard What's New page after activation |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Square, Stripe ($), PayPal ($), Mollie ($), Razorpay ($) | — |
| Mailchimp ($), Mailgun | — | |
| E-commerce | WooCommerce ($) | WooCommerce |
| Plugins | Elementor | Elementor, Polylang, WPML |
| Other | Google Calendar ($), Microsoft Outlook Calendar ($), Zoom ($), Google reCAPTCHA ($) | Google Calendar (iCal feed import) |
| Requires WordPress | 6.5 | 5.3 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4 | 5.6 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | Only if you agree |
| External services | smsapi.wpamelia.com, store.melograno.io, bi.melograno.io, middleware.wpamelia.com, www.iplocate.io, api.mollie.com, exp.host, api-m.sandbox.paypal.com, api-m.paypal.com, connect.squareup.com, graph.microsoft.com, login.microsoftonline.com, api.razorpay.com, auth.razorpay.com, www.googleapis.com, api.stripe.com | wpbookingcalendar.com |
| Blocks | 9 | 1 |
| Shortcodes | 16 | 10 |
| Custom tables | 61 | 3 |