thread Re: Google Calendar synchronization now paywalled?? in Appointments & Bookings

Google Calendar synchronization now paywalled??

HeyShay — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:22:32 GMT

I have been using Square Appointments for years, allowing students to book spare time in my dance studio for rehearsals. We keep our schedule on Google Calendar, and by keeping that synchronized with Square, it would only show them times not already booked by classes and workshops, allowing them to book spare time in between independently. It's a lightly used feature, but one with a fair amount of administrative overhead we eliminated by allowing them to handle it themselves.

This weekend I was informed by two dancers that they booked time, then showed up to find the space was already in use by someone else. Looking into it, I discovered that synchronization with Google Calendar is now behind a paywall. I had not seen any indication that this feature would be locked behind a subscription tier. I searched mails from Square from the past 6 months and don't see any warning or indication this was happening. There was a newsletter talking about "improvements" (none of which are helpful to me), but no mention of taking this feature away. I just now saw one comment under the "improvements" which was angry about removing the feature from the free tier, and that is the only place I see it mentioned. $360/year just to make this one small feature available--which was freely available for years--is frustrating to say the least.

REMOVING features from your free tier, rather than ADDING FEATURES to your paid tier, is a slap in the face to your customer base.

Re: Google Calendar synchronization now paywalled??

Goldneye — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 20:06:13 GMT

HI, yes it is on a Paid Plan now. It is unfortunate for the businesses that depend on every penny.

On April 26 the new pricing structure was implemented. You would have needed to select the appropriate Paid Plan. The announcement regarding the new structure was on January 20.

Square Pricing Plan Announcement

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Product-Updates/New-Square-Appointments-Pricing-Plans/ba-p/334905

Square Appointment Pricing Plans

https://squareup.com/us/en/appointments/pricing

Re: Google Calendar synchronization now paywalled??

HeyShay — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 21:07:29 GMT

I appreciate the link, but that page basically completely hid the fact it was REMOVING current free functionality. The Plus tier on that page says "everything in the free tier", which up until that point we knew to include calendar synchronization. Nothing about that announcement would indicate to a current user that they were LOSING functionality they already had. Frustrating.

Re: Google Calendar synchronization now paywalled??

Apple — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 01:30:41 GMT

Yes, Square screwed us last month.

I temporarily switched to Revervio which is $9.23/mo, but I think I'll be switching to Calendly because they offer Free Google calendar sync and iCal sync, which is great for me because I can finally stop using Google Calendar as a middle man. I would sign up now before they change their mind and put sync behind a paywall... I don't think they're as devious and would just take it away from their existing users like Square did, but they might stop offering it to new users.