Platforms change pricing and features — verify on the provider’s official pages.
Calendly is a scheduling tool that can collect payment when a client books a live meeting slot. Brillay is not a scheduling tool: a follower pays upfront for an asynchronous answer or a defined deliverable, with no calendar and no time-zone matching. Choose Calendly if the live session is the product; choose Brillay if the answer is. Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling.
No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. pricing
Which should I choose for selling paid sessions?
Choose Calendly when the deliverable genuinely requires both people on a call at the same time, and you are willing to pay a per-seat subscription for that. Choose Brillay when the client is really buying your answer, review, or feedback, and a shared 45-minute window is overhead rather than value.
- Pick Calendly if you sell live coaching calls, consultations, or prepaid session bundles and need a booking page that holds a time and takes money at booking. Collecting payments through Stripe is listed as available on the Professional, Standard, Standard Plus, Teams, Teams Plus, and Enterprise plans, and not on the free plan (Calendly Help Center: Calendly + Stripe and Calendly pricing).
- Pick Brillay if the work can be delivered as a written answer or defined deliverable, with no live call or scheduling. Followers pay upfront for Paid Questions or Custom Work, and you deliver later within the window you set, without keeping a calendar open (how it works).
What does Calendly cost to accept payments at booking?
Calendly prices by seat, not by transaction: collecting payment at booking requires a paid plan, and Calendly lists its Standard plan at $10 per seat per month billed yearly. Card processing is billed separately by the Stripe or PayPal account you connect, so the real cost is a fixed subscription plus a percentage of every payment. Followers pay upfront as guests when they send the request, so the request arrives already paid for, and your bank details stay with Stripe rather than with the buyer.
Calendly's own pricing page lists the Standard plan at $10 per seat per month on the yearly billing option and the Teams plan at $16 per seat per month, with Enterprise starting at $15,000 per year, a 50-seat minimum, and availability in USD only. Larger teams get volume tiers rather than a flat rate: on a 40-seat Teams plan, seats 1–30 cost $16.00 each per month and seats 31–50 cost $14.50 each per month billed annually (Calendly Help Center: Choose the right Calendly plan for your team, updated September 1, 2026). The free plan is capped at one event type and one calendar connection, and its feature comparison shows payments as unavailable (Calendly pricing).
Processing is separate on both sides. Stripe lists 2.9% plus $0.30 per successful transaction as its standard United States price for domestic cards, with international cards and currency conversion priced higher (Stripe pricing). The difference is when the platform's cut lands: a seat is billed every month whether or not anyone books, while our side of the cost only exists on an order a follower has actually paid for.
How do Brillay and Calendly compare side by side?
The difference is simple: Calendly clients pay to reserve your time, while Brillay clients pay for an answer or finished piece of work. Compare the monthly cost, fees, payment currencies, account requirement, and what happens when you decline a request below.
| Dimension | Brillay | Calendly |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of sale | One written answer, a defined deliverable, or a custom video — through Paid Questions, Custom Work, or Personalized Videos | A booked meeting slot, a prepaid bundle of meetings, or a standalone payment link |
| Monthly cost | $0 to start, no monthly platform fee | Free plan available, but payments require a paid plan; Standard is listed at $10 per seat per month billed yearly (Calendly pricing) |
| Platform fee | 8% when a follower pays for work; 5% on tips and goals | Priced per seat rather than per transaction on the published pricing page; processing is charged by the connected Stripe or PayPal account (Calendly pricing) |
| Currencies for paid bookings | Stripe supports processing charges in 135+ currencies (Stripe Documentation: Supported currencies) | Five: AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, and USD (Calendly Help Center: Calendly + Stripe) |
| Buyer account required | No. A follower pays by card as a guest, with no Brillay account to create and no app to install | Calendly states that "meeting invitees do not require an account or seat" to book |
| Refunds | You write your own refund policy, which a follower sees before paying; you can also decline a request. | "Refunds must be processed manually by the account holder" (Calendly Help Center: Calendly + Stripe) |
| Live call required | No. Brillay has no scheduling, no booking calendar, and no live video | Yes for booked event types; payment is collected when an invitee schedules a meeting (Calendly Help Center: Calendly + Stripe) |
What does a client actually have to do to pay?
On Calendly the client picks a time before paying, so the sale depends on two calendars overlapping. On Brillay the request and the payment happen on the page, as a guest. The scheduling step matters most for buyers in other time zones or on fixed office schedules.
Calendly describes the flow plainly in its own documentation:
Collect payments when invitees schedule a meeting by integrating Stripe with Calendly. Connect your account and choose which events will require payment upfront, helping you save time and reduce no-shows.
— Calendly Help Center, "Calendly + Stripe," updated August 20, 2026
Finding a mutual slot is where paid bookings stall. For clients in different time zones or with fixed work hours, finding a shared meeting slot can delay a purchase even when they only need a written answer. Currency is a second constraint: Calendly's paid meetings support five currencies — AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, and USD — through both the Stripe and PayPal integrations, while Stripe itself supports processing charges in 135+ currencies.
On Brillay, a follower pays upfront by card and sends the request without creating an account or installing an app.
Where can I sell expert advice without a calendar?
Brillay sells advice as a product rather than as an appointment. Paid Questions let a follower pay for one private question and one written reply, while Custom Work is for one defined deliverable such as a review, a mini audit, or written feedback. Neither offer uses a calendar.
The two offers are documented separately: Paid Questions and Custom Work. Price the size of the answer or deliverable, not a meeting slot: for example, a consultant might charge $25 for a written answer, while a designer might charge $25 for a portfolio review.
- Paid Questions: you send one written reply privately and set the price and reply time; you can also write the title and description followers see.
- Custom Work lets a client attach up to five files, 50 MB each. You send one defined delivery with text plus files of any allowed type and/or a link by the delivery time you set.
Anything needing an uploaded document belongs in Custom Work, not a Paid Question. For the wider format decision, see asynchronous Custom Work vs. Live Calls, and Brillay vs. Topmate for another calendar-based expert platform. Your own page, reached from your own bio link: the follower taps once, asks the question as a guest, and never has to sign up to a directory.
Who should stay on Calendly for paid meetings?
Calendly remains the better tool whenever the live session is the product rather than the packaging. Conversations that depend on real-time back-and-forth, and diagnostic first calls, lose something when they go asynchronous. With Brillay, a follower can pay upfront for one written answer instead of another call.
Calendly documents the multi-session case directly:
Meeting packages let you sell a bundle of prepaid one-on-one or group meetings.
— Calendly Help Center, "How to sell services using meeting packages and payment links," updated August 19, 2026
Meeting packages and payment links require a connected Stripe account, and PayPal is not supported for them (Calendly Help Center: meeting packages and payment links). One detail matters in tax-collecting jurisdictions: Calendly states it does not calculate or collect VAT or sales tax, and advises hosts to include tax in the event price.
What is the honest tradeoff between the two?
Calendly's advantage is that it can hold a specific time and take money for it, which no asynchronous tool can replicate. Calendly's cost is a per-seat subscription you pay whether or not anyone books, plus the friction of matching two calendars. Brillay reverses both: one-time paid requests with no membership and a written answer instead of a live call.
What Brillay removes is the calendar: no availability to maintain, no reschedule loop, and no subscription to carry through a slow month, whether that month brings four orders or none. You do not need a large audience or a follower minimum: if a few clients already ask for your advice, you can offer one fixed-price answer without paying a monthly fee.
The practical rule:
- Sell booked time on Calendly when the call itself creates the value.
- Sell completed work on Brillay when the client wants the answer, not the meeting.
- Run both when your calendar handles deep engagements and your Brillay link absorbs the quick asks.
Frequently asked questions
These five answers cover the questions coaches and consultants ask most often when comparing Brillay and Calendly for paid sessions: whether Brillay has a booking calendar, whether Calendly's free plan can take payment, which platform is cheaper at low volume, how refunds are handled on each platform, and whether the two tools can sensibly run side by side.
Does Brillay have a booking calendar or scheduling feature?
No. Brillay has no booking calendar, no time-slot scheduling, and no live 1:1 video. Followers pay upfront for Paid Questions and Custom Work, and you deliver later by the reply or delivery time you set.
Can I collect payments on Calendly's free plan?
No. Calendly lists payment collection through Stripe as available on the Professional, Standard, Standard Plus, Teams, Teams Plus, and Enterprise plans, and its pricing comparison shows payments as unavailable on the free plan, which is limited to one event type and one calendar connection (Calendly Help Center: Calendly + Stripe and Calendly pricing).
Which is cheaper for a coach selling a few sessions a month?
The cheaper option depends on volume. Calendly's cost is a per-seat subscription paid regardless of sales, and Calendly lists Standard at $10 per seat per month billed yearly. On Brillay a slow month with no orders costs nothing, since there is no monthly fee and the platform fee only applies to an order a follower has actually paid for.
How do refunds work on each platform?
Calendly states that it does not process refunds and that "refunds must be processed manually by the account holder". On Brillay, you write your own refund policy, and a follower sees it on your page before paying and again on the order page.
Can I use Brillay and Calendly together?
Yes, and for many coaches that is the sensible setup: keep Calendly for engagements that need a live session, and put a Brillay link in your bio for the one-off questions and small deliverables that never justified a call.
Ready to sell advice without a calendar?
If people keep coming to you with questions in your DMs, put one clearly priced answer or review on your Brillay page instead of turning every post into a sales pitch. A Brillay page puts Paid Questions and Custom Work on one link, has no follower minimum or monthly fee, and supports payouts in 41 countries.
If people already ask you questions that never turn into a booked call, let them pay for the answer instead. Create your free Brillay page