A Calendly seat is the unit that paid Calendly plans are priced on. Calendly’s Help Center describes a seat as also called a licence, representing one spot for a person in an organization, and says the customer is billed for the number of seats whether or not they are filled.[1] The Definitions page expresses the same idea in contract terms: Authorized Users are an Entity’s or its Affiliates’ employees, consultants, contractors and agents for whom access has been purchased.[9] See Seat and Authorized User.
Who needs a seat
| Person | Seat needed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Host who connects a calendar and runs meetings | Yes | [8] |
| Owner | Yes (one Owner per account) | [3] |
| Admin | Yes; Calendly says there is no Admin role that does not take a seat | [2] |
| Group admin, Team manager | Roles assigned to users of the organization; the Help Center lists Team manager on all paid plans and Group admin on Teams and Enterprise | [3] |
| Host of a Round Robin or Collective event | Yes, each host needs their own paid seat | [11] |
| Invitee who books a meeting | No; invitees need no account or seat | [8][11] |
Invitees fall under the defined term Participant, not Authorized User.[9] A person who only views Notetaker recaps shared by a customer can use a Limited Access Account, which the Definitions describe as provided free of charge.[9]
Organizations
An organization is the highest-level structure in Calendly. It includes everyone with a Calendly account at a company, shares one billing account, and is managed by the Owner or Admins.[6] On the Free plan the organization is just the account holder.[1] Two structures sit below the organization: a team page, which is an external landing page for customers to book with team members, and a group, which is an internal collection of users for reporting and delegated administration.[6] Neither creates a separate licence.
Two organization rules affect counting:
- One organization per user. A user can be part of only one organization at a time; if the user is already in another, that organization’s owner or admin must remove them first.[2]
- One plan per organization. All users in an organization must be on the same plan; individual users cannot be on different plans.[7]
When a person accepts an invitation, the account becomes part of the organization and is managed by its admins. An existing personal paid subscription is cancelled on joining.[1]
Roles
Calendly offers five roles.[3]
- Owner. One per account, on all plans; all permissions including transferring ownership. If the Owner deletes their own account, the whole organization is disbanded: teams are deleted and members are removed but their accounts are not deleted.[3]
- Admin. Unlimited on paid plans; all permissions except changing the owner. Admins and the Owner manage billing: payment method, plan changes, paid seats and tax documents.[3]
- Group admin. Available on Teams and Enterprise; manages and reports on a subset of users, may create teams and routing forms, and may invite users if an admin grants invitation permission.[3]
- Team manager. All paid plans; manages team event types and team membership.[3]
- User. The default role for anyone added; has a personal scheduling page and can edit personal settings only.[3]
Assigning, removing and reducing seats
Adding. On the Free plan, an organization must upgrade and buy seats before inviting anyone. On paid plans, an invitation uses an open seat if one exists; otherwise the admin is shown prorated costs and must buy a seat first. Up to 100 users can be invited at a time. Seats can also be bought in advance without inviting anyone.[2] Invitations do not expire, a one-time reminder goes out after seven days, and the invitee must log in with the same email address the invitation was sent to.[2] Admins can invite users in bulk, apply roles in bulk, and export a CSV of members with login email, role, date added, calendar status and events scheduled in the past 30 days.[4]
Removing. Removing a user leaves the paid seat open for a replacement. A separate “Remove and delete” option also deletes the account but only if the user created it while joining the organization. A removed user moves to Calendly’s free plan with the personal account intact.[2]
Reducing. Unused seats are removed from the Billing page, but the count cannot go below the number of assigned users.[2] Downgrades and removed seats take effect at the end of the billing cycle, while added seats take effect at once, and the Customer Terms apply the same end-of-term timing to licence reductions.[1][10]
Managed accounts. If the account is managed by Calendly, such as Enterprise or customer-success-managed plans, seats cannot be added or removed in self-service and changes go through the account manager.[2]
Counting pitfalls
- Charges are prorated when a user is added.[2]
- An organization with more than one paid account is billed separately for each; separate sign-ups with different email addresses can produce multiple charges.[1]
- In some organizations, deactivated or SCIM-provisioned users may still hold seats and block new invitations.[1]
- Moving users between organizations needs an open seat in the destination first. The user’s personal link, availability, individual event types and calendars migrate; routing forms, team, shared and managed event types, and Zapier and payment integrations do not.[5]
- Teams annual plans receive a per-seat discount above 30 seats; see Teams and Teams Plus tiered annual pricing.[1]
Billing mechanics that affect seat counts
Calendly sends invoices to the organization owner’s login email by default; a billing contact can be added through support, or ownership can be transferred, in which case the new owner becomes the primary billing contact.[1] The subscription payment date cannot be changed except by cancelling and resubscribing, and Calendly does not offer extensions for a missed payment, which may lead to the subscription being paused or downgraded.[1] Plans can be switched from monthly to yearly in Settings, but switching from yearly to monthly goes through the billing team.[7] Owners and admins can both manage billing, including adding or removing paid seats and submitting tax-exemption documentation.[3]
Out of scope
This article does not cover single sign-on and SCIM provisioning, which are covered in the enterprise article, or the free-plan account rules in the Customer Terms beyond those cited.