Timely Review 2025: Is This Salon Booking Software Worth It? Read Before You Buy!

There are hundreds of offers on the booking and clinic management software market, and choosing the best platform for the job is a quest. Watching endless demos and wasting your time? Not for busy professionals, doctors, and business owners.

Read our review on Timely to save time and find out in three minutes whether this platform is right for you—and it can delight or disappoint, for sure.

! This is a review of Timely appointment management software for services. Not to be confused with the time tracking software of the same name.

What Is Timely and How Much Does It Cost?

Timely (also known as Gettimely) is an online appointment scheduling and project management platform that has gained popularity in many service-based industries like spas and salons. Its promise is simple: make appointment scheduling effortless by offering an easy-to-use online system, automated reminders, and integrated calendar management. For a busy doctor or clinic administrator, this can mean less time spent on paperwork and more time devoted to patients.

Timely offers several pricing plans designed to fit different practice sizes and needs. Let’s break them down.

The Gettimely pricing of use depends on the number of bookable staff, i.e., all the people who conduct the appointments. Even if you or your employees work part-time, you will have to pay as if you were working full-time.

There are three plans in total:

1. Build for £21 per month per person. This is suitable for salons and professionals who need online bookings, appointment management, and an online and in-salon payment solution. It also includes 100 SMS per month. This plan is only available for businesses with 1-7 staff.
2. Elevate for £32 per month per staff member. This tariff will help boost your brand and sync with your business tools. 200 free texts per month are available.
3. Innovate for £37 per month per person. You get 300 free SMS, direct phone support, VIP service, and many other features.

The site has a handy slider for easy costing for all teams. Timely has no free version, but you can click the Gettimely login page and start a 14-day free trial.

We have used Timely for a couple of weeks and can share our subjective opinion on its main functions. Let’s get to the point.

Reduce No-shows with Online Bookings and Scheduling

A streamlined calendar is the heart of any effective scheduling system. With Timely’s integrated calendar, you can:

• Switch between day, week, and month views to plan ahead.
• Use a clear visual display that helps you avoid scheduling conflicts.
• Reschedule or cancel appointments with a few simple clicks.

It makes life even easier to delegate recording to your clients. Imagine offering your patients the ability to book their appointments 24/7 without ever having to call your office. This means you’re not confined to office hours for scheduling.

Timely’s scheduling software makes this possible:

• Patients can easily select an available time slot from your online calendar.
• Say goodbye to endless phone calls and manual appointment entries.
• Automated confirmations let both you and your patients know exactly when the appointment is scheduled.

You can place an online appointment button on your website, newsletters, Facebook, or Instagram. By clicking on it, clients choose a free day and time for an appointment, enter their details, and book an appointment, which is reflected in your calendar.

Set up to accept partial or full prepayments for appointments and reduce the no-show rate. To do this, go to Setup in the menu at the top and select the Online Payments tab. You will be prompted to set up TimelyPay to accept online payments.

! TimelyPay costs an additional 1.95% + 25c per transaction.

An interesting feature that sets the platform apart from its competitors is Minimize Gaps. What it means: your clients only see the time slots that will fill up your calendar without the awkward gaps that can occur when people choose the time themselves. Here is what you can do with this feature:

• Show the last slot of the day.
• Show slots that are adjacent (before/after any existing appointment, break, or busy time).
• Set when Minimise gaps is applied.

As a result, your appointments for the day run one after the other with short breaks, allowing you to release earlier and/or take on more clients—as you wish!

That said, the calendar interface lacks coustomizable tags to visually distinguish patients and special appointments you want to mark out. But it's worth noting that different services are highlighted in different colours.

Timely online booking software has what it takes to suit small businesses in terms of scheduling. For a company size of 20+ staff members, the software may lack customisation.

Client and Patient Management—Keep Everything Organised

Beyond just scheduling, Timely helps you manage vital patient information:

• Easily access past appointment records and patient notes.
• Keep patient data safe while ensuring it’s accessible when needed.
• Tailor the system to match the specific needs of your practice.
• Pull through information about clients and their appointments with Zapier integration.

To open a customer profile, click on the name in the schedule or go to the Customers tab and search by name, phone number, or any other parameter in the customer card.

A customer profile is a history of their interaction with you. It stores information about all appointments, uploaded documents and photos, invoices, and notes.

Speaking about documents and notes. If you have an Elevate plan or higher, you can use the inbuilt Timely Consult app to keep treatment notes. There are 10 templates for different service areas available at the beginning, but you can create your own with the builder. Again, for a beauty business with a few lines of services, this set will be enough. Clinics and multidisciplinary centres need a larger library of templates and forms.

For client retention and better loyalty, Timely offers marketing tools and SMS campaigns. For example, there is a royalty system when clients get points for each appointment. Later, they can exchange the points for a reward voucher or get a promo code.

You can use targeted campaigns to make your existing clients rebook:

• Send them personalised and thank-you messages.
• Inform about discounts and sales.
• Send birthday presents, etc.

After you collect the information, you need to get clear insights of your performance. So we move on to the Reporting feature of Timely. Keep reading, and you’ll understand why it is not the best choice for in-depth analytics.

The Reporting and Analytics Feature Could Do Better

Understanding your practice’s performance is crucial. Timely offers reporting tools that allow you to:

• View a summary of appointments and sales.
• See your overall business client retention rates.
• Get a summary of the total sales value for your appointments, products, and discounts in a selected time period.
• View a list of all your products, including current stock levels.
• See lists of different appointment groups: cancelled, missed, declined, incomplete, and so on.
• Analyse your client's details.
• View the hours worked by your staff and the percentage of time spent on appointments.

All reports are divided into 6 groups: staff, financial, stock, clients, appointments, and business performance. To form a report, click the Reports button and choose the one you need. Edit the date range and staff and see the result. You can download and print any report.

The analytic function, though it has 30+ reports available starting with the free trial, lacks some of the in-depth reports. Timely has a good set of marketing tools, which even includes the possibility of creating your own mini website. However, the platform does not allow you to analyse the customer acquisition channels, how much money each of them brings, and the number of leads for a certain period of time.

Plus, there is no possibility to make graphical reports, which help to visually digest information and are useful for planning meetings. We are not talking about the lack of service quality and system reports.

Timely definitely has a lot to work on in terms of analytics compared to its competitors.

Connect Integrations and Add-ons: You May Need Them

Many clinics already use different software for billing, record-keeping, or email marketing. Timely is built to integrate with various third-party applications. This means you can sync your appointment data with other systems, helping create a seamless workflow that reduces duplicate work and minimises errors.

Here is a list of apps you can integrate into your Timely account:

1. Payments: PayPal, Authorize.Net, eWay, Payment Express, Stripe, and Pin Payments.
2. Accounting: Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB.
3. Marketing: Mailchimp, Google Tag Manager.
4. API: Zapier for client experience.

Timely’s mobile app gives you access to your calendar, lets you manage bookings, and even lets you communicate with patients from your smartphone or tablet.

It’s available for both Android and iOS for free.

Overall Impressions. Pros and Cons of Timely

Timely is great for small salons, clinics, wellness, and spa services. This is easy to explain: these businesses have a limited set of services that don't need complex scheduling or analytics. The platform handles multi-location appointments thanks to its integration with Google Calendar and simple interface. And if your business is growing, you are hiring new specialists and opening new lines of business, the cost of Timely will grow very quickly.

For example, for a team of 10 people, you will pay 208 pounds per month. For this price, there are platforms with greater functionality and customisation. We’ll return to this point later.

Advantages of Using Timely:

1. One of Timely’s strongest points is its user-friendly design. The platform is set up so that even those who aren’t very tech-savvy can learn to use it quickly. With a clean layout and intuitive controls, you won’t spend hours figuring out how to navigate the system.
2. Automation is good. Timely’s automated reminders and easy-to-access online booking system ensure that patients are well-informed about their appointments. Good communication is key to reducing no-shows and building trust with your patients.
3. The mobile app means you’re never far from your schedule. Whether you’re in between consultations or out of the office, you can access your calendar, update appointments, or respond to changes quickly. This on-the-go capability is invaluable for busy doctors.

Disadvantages of Timely:

1. For practices with highly specialised needs, Timely’s features might not cover every aspect of practice management. If your clinic requires advanced functionalities—such as complex billing systems or deep integration with an electronic health record (EHR) system—you might need to use additional software alongside Timely.
2. Although Timely offers different tariff plans, the higher-end plans (which include advanced features and priority support) can be costly. It’s important to compare the cost of the plans with the benefits they offer to decide if the investment is right for your practice.
3. Customisation is limited. For example, you will not be able to create a custom report or tag patients with a custom tag or alert. And that's just what's on the surface.

When Timely Might Not Be Enough

Even the best systems have their limitations. If you find that Timely doesn’t fully address your business needs, perhaps you require more specialized patient management features or deeper integration with other healthcare systems. It might be time to consider an alternative. One promising option is Medesk.

Medesk is designed specifically for healthcare professionals and aesthetic specialists. The platform doesn’t just manage appointments. It offers integrated patient management, billing, and even reporting features in one system. This can be particularly useful if you want a platform that handles multiple aspects of your practice.

User-friendly and customisable

Similar to Timely, Medesk is designed with ease of use in mind. Its interface is straightforward, making it accessible for everyone in your clinic. Plus, you can customise many aspects of the platform to align with your practice’s workflow and branding.

Not to mention our superpower—the analytic module with a huge library of ready-made reports and a simple tool to create your own.

Competitive pricing

Medesk is known for offering cost-effective plans that suit small to mid-sized practices. The pricing is structured so that you get the features you need without paying for extras that aren’t necessary for your practice.

We use appointment-based pricing plans. It doesn’t matter how many staff members you have; you pay for real services and not for a number of people. Our clients save up to 30% on monthly subscription payments compared to our competitors.

Dedicated healthcare support

With Medesk, you benefit from customer support that understands the unique challenges of healthcare. Whether it’s a technical issue or guidance on best practices, their support team is geared toward helping healthcare professionals.

Customisable templates and workflows

Medesk offers templates designed for various specialities, ensuring your system reflects the precise nature of your patient visits—no generic forms here.

Seamless integrations

Connect easily with labs, billing systems, EHRs, and referral networks. When your tools work together automatically, you save time and reduce the risk of errors.

Clinicians worldwide trust Medesk to simplify their workflows. For example, Dr. Robert Longhurst, a consultant optometrist, shared:

“I love the fact that this is cloud-based and so you can access it from anywhere and don't have to worry about backing up, etc. It is also very reasonably priced and yet it is very powerful software that is always adding features and listening to their users' feedback with regard to what new features to add.”

Ready for a Change?

If you’re feeling that spark of relief at the thought of a system that truly understands your practice, it might be time to take the next step. Whether you decide on Timely or explore Medesk as a comprehensive alternative, the key is to choose a tool that frees you from tedious administrative tasks and lets you concentrate on client care.

We encourage you to explore both options, take advantage of demos and free trials, and choose the platform that best supports your goal of providing excellent patient care while simplifying your administrative tasks.

Take the first step today. And if you’re looking for a more tailored, all-in-one solution, give Medesk a try with a risk-free 15-day trial. No credit card and agreement required. Your practice—and your patients—will thank you. Click the button below ↓