When you don’t know what’s next, it’s just about impossible to manage your time. Whether it’s what time is lunch or when is the next team meeting, you have to prevent things from falling through the cracks to stay on course.
And if you’re in the dark—or getting close to it—you need to get your hands on a free schedule maker that keeps you up to date and informed.
Let’s be honest for a second—most of us struggle with monthly or even weekly schedules more than we care to admit. If you’re tired of losing critical minutes in your day, you could seriously benefit from free schedule templates or a simple schedule builder.
While a solid work schedule is beneficial, so too is one that helps you stay organized with your personal life. The stress-free feeling of custom schedules lets you plan, avoid missed appointments, and truly own your calendar!
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of our 12 favorite schedule makers and schedule templates.
Before we get into the best tools to create a schedule, let’s go over a quick justification for using these productivity tools at work and at home.
Summarize this article for me pleaseBenefits of Using a Schedule Maker App
If your weekly schedule typically includes multiple tasks, appointments, meetings, or events, staying on top of them with zero hassle is a no-brainer. With our chaotic work schedules, important tasks are forgotten easily.
A fully customizable work schedule maker—or even a work schedule app for personal use—is a critical tool to stay organized and ensure you’re respectful of everyone’s time. It can also help you with:
- Stress relief: A fully customizable tool to create schedules creates a sense of order and ownership. It’s easy to match your energy level, time, and availability with the tasks that need to be completed. Keep it in order so you are too. And for students, building class schedules into your weekly schedules provides relief that you know just where to be and when.
- Enhanced productivity: When you plan out every individual task or project from a single, do-it-all schedule maker platform, you and your team make more informed decisions and maintain a productive workflow.
- Preparation for emergencies: With custom schedules, you identify potential pitfalls before they happen. You’ll quickly prioritize and deprioritize items as they come along so you avoid the spray and pray strategy.
- Evaluating progress: A good schedule maker helps day-to-day tasks appear more familiar and less taxing. Become more familiar with your work and activities to get better at executing them and understand how much time and effort each task requires.
- Calm others: For service folks engaging customers or clients, detailed weekly schedules (especially those you can share online) help everyone see your schedule. People feel better knowing you’re not double-booked and you’re available. For team leads, let your employees know your daily schedule if they have to add something last-minute. Otherwise, you operate out of a sense of constant urgency.
Summarize this article for me please12 Best Free Schedule Maker Apps in 2024
There are enough schedule makers available to make your head spin, but we’ve found the best tools and schedule templates to fit your specific needs. And the best part? These tools won’t cost you a thing! Let’s dive in!
1. ClickUp
ClickUp is a top-rated productivity app and the best free online schedule maker on the market. It’s used by some of the most productive teams.
Whether you’re a project manager, an employee managing tasks, or a student planning a class schedule, ClickUp is a fully customizable schedule builder to help you stay on top of everything.
ClickUp has over 15 ways to view your daily schedule and workload. This includes the ClickUp Calendar View, which lets you see your calendar by day, week, or month to track projects.
View your daily schedule at a high level or drill down into task details.
It’s simple to use filters to show just the tasks you need to see and ClickUp also lets you share your Calendar and schedules with anyone. If that isn’t pure scheduling awesomeness, we don’t know what is!
ClickUp key features
- Become truly and wholesomely productive with Time Tracking
- Break down large tasks into executable ClickUp Checklists and set Goals in ClickUp to tackle them
- Set Reminders for tasks as per schedules
- Create a solid, well-visualized schedule for upcoming tasks and meetings with ClickUp Mind Maps
- Create task lists or notes and collaborate with your team using ClickUp Docs
- Scribble your daily chores or even your work ideas in ClickUp’s Notepad
- Integrate with a dozen other work apps, including Time Doctor, Outlook, and Google Calendar
- Add nested items as Subtasks and assign them to others
- Let every minute in your workday count with personal project management
- Access ClickUp in every way imaginable, including via an iPad, Android mobile, or iOS, or through its web app
ClickUp free schedule maker templates
- Ace repetitive tasks and save time and download the ClickUp Checklist Template
- Get unorganized roommates more accountable and download the Chore Chart Template
- Stay on top of your schoolwork and class schedules with the Study Time Template
- Keep it simple and download the Daily Schedule Planner Template
- Use ClickUp as a fitness schedule tool and download the Exercise Log Template
ClickUp pros
- Feature-rich free version
- Simple and powerful drag-and-drop functionality for powerful calendar management
- User-friendly interface
- Loads of integrations
- Can easily add start dates and set due dates
- Offers Offline Mode that allows you to work from anywhere, anytime
ClickUp cons
- No dashboard export feature…yet
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever (Calendar View included)
- Unlimited: $7 per user per month
- Business: $12 per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact ClickUp for custom pricing
- ClickUp Brain is available on all paid plans for $7 per Workspace member per month
ClickUp user ratings
- G2 4.7/5: (4700+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (3071+ reviews)
2. Google Sheets
For a little more power focused on centralization rather than personal scheduling, Google Sheets may be a smoother option instead of a paper chart.
Their user interface is reliable and maintains the same steady, minimalist edge that Google maintains across its products. Google’s free schedule templates let you easily create columns and grids to fill in a work schedule.
Google Sheets pros
- Easy to customize schedules for hourly employees
- Reliable
- Has monthly schedule templates and class schedule templates
Google Sheets cons
- Difficult to track task details
- The initial setup is manual and tedious
- Lack a drag-and-drop rescheduling feature
- No additional features beyond a typical spreadsheet
Google Sheets pricing
At no cost to you with your Google account.
Google Sheets user ratings
- G2: N/A
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (12100+ reviews)
3. Asana
Asana is known for its project management capabilities but it also includes scheduling features through its team calendar tool. Easily use it for daily schedule organization for the team or to build your own schedule—all within Asana.
The timeline feature is not inherently a schedule maker, but you can pretty much list out your tasks and plot them on the timeline accordingly. Additionally, Asana’s project management calendar is read-only, which means you can’t add tasks right into the calendar, creating a problem for some.
*ClickUp’s Calendar View has entered the chat*
Asana key features
- Break up project work into tasks with clear assignees
- Create an online Gantt chart-like timeline
- Share timeline with teammates
- Accompany every milestone with a status update
Asana pros
- Intuitive and well-designed interface
- Easier to use than a spreadsheet
- Creating calendars is simple
Asana cons
- Lacks a drag-and-drop functionality
- Limited views compared to tools like ClickUp
Asana pricing
Asana’s timeline feature is available at no cost. The premium plan starts at $10.99/per user per month.
Asana user ratings
- G2: 4.3/5 (8800+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (11300+ reviews)
4. HubSpot
If you find yourself accepting a lot of meetings, the HubSpot scheduling tool allows you to better plan everything on your phone. Creating personalized booking links helps you invite people or show your availability so they know you have enough time to book.
Set the exact days of the week you want to be available for meetings and which hours of the day. That way, no one can book a meeting with you outside of your work schedule.
Also, when you sign up for HubSpot Meetings, you gain access to HubSpot’s CRM database which allows you to keep track of your contacts, set tasks, reminders, and store meeting notes.
Immediately someone books a meeting via your customized scheduling link, their contact details are automatically added to your Outlook or Google calendar. Guess where this info is finally pushed to? That’s right—the HubSpot CRM database.
HubSpot key features
- Personalized booking link and customizable booking page (logo, headshot, color palette)
- Integration with Office 365 or Google
- Group meeting links allow prospects to book meetings with more than one person in your organization
- Custom form questions to provide useful context about your contact before the actual meeting
HubSpot pros
- Easy to use
- Great for scheduling across different time-zones
- It’s forever free
- One can add as many as 1 million contacts to the database
- The scheduling tool in itself comes with several sales, service, and marketing tools like form builder, and live chat at no cost
HubSpot cons
- The free version has limited perks and options
- At $50/month for paid plans
- Not a lot of templates to choose from
HubSpot pricing
HubSpot has a free plan, and it includes one personalized meeting link, integration with the tool’s CRM, and unlimited meetings.
HubSpot user ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 (8500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (3300+ reviews)
5. Excel
Excel is a decent schedule maker used by individuals and teams.
The software allows you the ability to divide your spreadsheet into different sections, use color code and conditional formatting to highlight any gaps in the schedule, and create a weekly calendar for your team to use.
Looking for a few Excel schedule templates to help kick-start your journey to true productivity? Fret not, we’ve got you covered. Here’s the full list.
However, making changes to a schedule in Excel isn’t exactly a breeze.
Once you fill up a scheduling template, you’ll have to create another one and another one after that. Plus, there’s no carryover option, meaning you’ll have to reenter task details when creating every template.
Excel pros
- Familiar program with an easily navigable interface
- A rich array of templates to build your own schedule
Excel cons
- Changes are difficult to execute
- Lack of task details
- Daily schedule template tough use on the go
Excel pricing
There is a free version, but you’ll have to part with $99 per year to access Microsoft Office 365.
Excel user ratings
- G2: 4.7/5 (2200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (17100+ reviews)
7. Canva
Anyone who’s been around the digital design block probably knows Canva. It’s a free tool that teams use to edit photos, design layouts, and more, all within an easy-to-use platform.
Canva also promises to bring your weekly schedules under one roof. Browse through a collection of stunning design templates, then start customizing as much or as little as you want. Download your new design for printing or share it with your colleagues straight from Canva.
Canva key features
- Customize the initial design to the fullest
- Access a rich, built-in library of design assets
- Organize schedule using guidelines or grid lines
- Move elements around easily in various schedule templates
Canva pros
- Beautiful design and simple to start designing
- Easy to use and create items for life events
- If you want a printed version, it’s easy to create an image or PDF file
Canva cons
- Lack of task details
- Lack of on-the-go functionality
Canva pricing
Has a free-forever plan, and the pro plan starts at $54/per user per year.
Canva user ratings
- G2: 4.7/5 (3500 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (9700 reviews)
Check out these Canva alternatives!
7. Appoint.ly
Appointly is a unique schedule maker and works as a widget so you have complete control of your schedule right from the start.
Unlike other schedule templates and makers, Appointly also caters to those who are without a website. The tool gives you a distinct sub-domain that’ll allow you to create your very own booking page.
Create a tab on your Facebook through Appoint.ly, which customers can use to schedule events quickly and on the go.
While it makes a good option for a schedule maker, it’s not a suitable option for creating and organizing multiple schedules, which could be a deal breaker for others.
Appoint.ly key features
- Schedule meetings via shared links
- Easily share a calendar with co-workers or clients
- Syncs with all major calendars, including iCloud, Office 365, and Outlook
- Avoid appointment hiccups with time-zone synchronization
Appoint.ly pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Automatically reverts to different time zones when booking appointments
Appoint.ly cons
- Links can’t be customized depending on time zone
- Group bookings are hard to make
- Doesn’t work well to build a class schedule for students
Appoint.ly pricing
Free for personal use. The pro plan starts at $8/user per month.
Appoint.ly user ratings
G2: 4.4/5 (13 reviews)
Capterra: 3.3/5 (3 reviews)
8. Google Keep
Google Keep is mostly known as a note-taking app, but it can work as your dedicated schedule maker. With Google Keep, you can utilize a powerful blank interface to type or draw (even with a stylus) for natural handwriting.
Set reminders within the app to prompt you to start a task at a specific time or title your new schedule and then come back to a saved schedule later.
Google Keep key features
- Set reminders for your schedules
- Use checklist features to track down tasks
- Leave voice reminders
- Pin schedules
Google Keep pros
- User-friendly
- Completely free
- Supports voice commands
Google Keep cons
- Can’t share a group of schedules
- Can’t set statuses for different stages of a task
- No schedule template features
- A lot of white space to start with
Google Keep pricing
This online schedule maker is available for free with a Google account.
Google Keep ratings
- G2: 4.5/5 (1220+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (70+ reviews)
9. Calendly
Calendly is a great and intelligent tool to set meetings and share your availability with others. This tool is particularly awesome if your main goal is to provide visibility into your available time slots so outside contacts can request and schedule time for you.
However, this tool doesn’t let you plan outside your schedule and works best as an integration to your calendar. Calendly’s free version is geared more toward individuals than teams. Even if you were able to assign multiple people to one slot, it’d still be tricky to manage as that’s not the intended use of the tool.
Calendly key features
- Create simple rules for defining your availability preferences
- Send guests your link or embed your schedule on your website
- Schedule across your team’s calendars for events you co-host with others
Calendly pros
- Easy to add Calendly to your email or website
- Calendly integrates with several tools like ClickUp and Slack
- Can work off a weekly schedule
Calendly cons
- Can be complicated for invitees to connect
- No schedule template to use or print
- Can’t get a PDF file of your finished schedule
Calendly pricing
Calendly has a free plan, and the paid plans start at $8/user per month.
Calendly user ratings
- G2: 4.7/5 (1330+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (2300+ reviews)
Check out these Calendly alternatives!
10. Shiftly Schedule Maker
While Shiftly isn’t necessarily a personal free online schedule maker, this tool does provide an interactive rostering interface for both employees and employers. This tool makes it simple for employees to set time slots for shifts at the literal click of a button.
Once they select their preferred slots, team leads instantly receive the information and Shiftly automatically creates a shift schedule for the upcoming week.
Shiftly also allows you to view, export, and share schedules with others. However, Shiftly doesn’t integrate with other calendars and roster planners.
Shiftly key features
- Track staff availability
- Share, send, and print rosters
- Send staff automated shift notifications and custom messages
- Check employees’ shifts anytime
- Edit, view, and organize rosters
Shiftly pros
- Great for teams working with changing shifts
- Weekly schedule views are easy for teams
- Simple to schedule, change, save, or edit shifts
- Ideal for shift management on the weekends
Shiftly cons
- Beyond shifts, it’s not a true business tool for schedules
- No schedule template to use
- Not the best option to print
Shiftly pricing
Has a free plan (for up to 5 staff), and the pro plan starts at $4/staff per month (for 6 to 200+ staff)
Shiftly user ratings
- G2: N/A
- Capterra: N/A
11. Doodle
Doodle is a super simple and efficient free online schedule maker. Both individuals and teams can use it for all of their schedule-building needs—whether it’s life events or work meetings. Simply block off certain times of the day or assign your team members to times of the day.
Team members can also list which days and times do and don’t work, which makes it easy to see the availability of everyone’s schedule at any time.
Doodle key features
- Utilize polls to get your participants to vote on their preferred meeting times
- Choose from multiple views, including month view and weekly schedule view
- Connects with Google Calendars, Office 365, iCal, and Outlook
- Add Zoom links automatically to any meeting
Doodle pros
- Very simple and easy-to-use business tool
- Supports various time zones for planning across the globe
- Users can create hidden polls where participants can’t see other’s results
Doodle cons
- It’s a bit hectic to load and create a personal calendar into Doodle
- No real schedule template available
Doodle pricing
It’s a free schedule maker with paid plans starting at $6/user per month.
Doodle user ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 (2000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (1200+ reviews)
12. Calendarpedia
If you’re looking for simple schedule templates with empty text blocks that you can print, Calendarpedia has a lot of calendar options. Whether you need a fitness schedule, a business plan, or weekly meeting templates, there are a lot of basic options to print and use. But if you’re looking for an integrated template to save or course out, this isn’t going to be the best fit for you.
Pen and paper pros
- Completely free
- Easy to use and create
- Clear and simple to follow
- Great for various templates
- One of the best options to print
Pen and paper cons
- Can be lost or changed
- Difficult to share with team members
- Not easy to save or create additional notes
Pen and paper pricing
These templates don’t cost a thing besides what you spend to print (i.e. ink and paper)
Summarize this article for me pleaseManage Work with Free Online Schedule Maker Apps
Most of these options let you create a schedule with ease, but how well do they manage your day-to-day life activities or how well do they adjust and automatically save your flexible schedule for work?
That’s what makes ClickUp stand out among the rest. ClickUp is a productivity app that can do so much more than manage schedules.
With its numerous templates, views, and features, there’s no reason not to try ClickUp for free!
ClickUp has a rich array of customization options, from the way you structure your calendar to how you scribble your work ideas. It’s not just the best free schedule maker, ClickUp offers a centralized workspace for your team so you manage the entire process.
What’s standing between you and an easier, fuss-free way to keep your life in order is a simple click of a button!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
