CraftForms vs Amelia
Amelia is a WordPress booking plugin built around people: services, employees with their own hours, locations and events. CraftForms is a WordPress form builder with booking, inventory and payments built in, built around what is booked: a room, a rental, a tour, a chair, a service. Amelia goes further on staff scheduling; CraftForms goes further on the form, the price and anything booked by the night or the day.
- Compared with
- Amelia Lite 2.4.14 and premium 9.9.2 (Starter, Standard, Pro, Elite)
- Features checked
- 46
- Checked on
- Summary
- Where each one leads
| Feature | CraftForms | Amelia |
|---|---|---|
| Platform & pricing | ||
| Free version | Yes | YesLite: Square only, few employees |
| Pricing | €50.99/yr or €129.99 one-time | €49–€339 a yearmost rows below need Standard or Pro |
| Booking data stays on your own server | Yes | YesSMS goes through Amelia |
| Gutenberg, Elementor, Bricks | Yes | Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi |
| Embed on a non-WordPress site | Yes | No |
| Scheduling | ||
| Appointments by time slot | Yes | Yes |
| Stays by the night (min/max nights, no-arrival days) | Yes | No |
| Any start time + duration (meeting rooms, studios) | Yes | custom durationsStandard |
| Buffer time, minimum notice, booking window | Yes | Yes |
| Group bookings, places left per slot | Yes | Yes |
| One person runs several services | Yesshared calendars | Yes |
| Shared rooms and equipment | Yesshared calendars | YesPro plan |
| Employee profiles with own hours and days off | Noone item or shared calendar per person | Yes |
| “Any available” employee, auto-assigned | No | Yes |
| Multiple locations | one item per location | YesStandard |
| Recurring appointments | No | YesStandard |
| Service packages | No | YesPro plan |
| Waiting list | No | events onlyPro plan |
| Visitor time-zone conversion | No | Yes |
| Calendars & clients | ||
| Clients cancel or reschedule online | Noyou cancel from the work page | Yescustomer panel |
| Google / Outlook calendar sync | iCal link, both wayspolled, not live | Yeslive, two-way, Standard |
| Two-way sync with Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo | Yes | No |
| Zoom, Google Meet, Teams links | No | YesStandard |
| Screens for the day’s work | YesBookings, Rentals, Appointments | Yescalendar, dashboard |
| Staff access by role | YesTeam Access, free | Yesemployee panel; app on Elite |
| Booking form & price | ||
| Booking form builder | full form builder | fixed steps + custom fieldsStandard |
| Conditional logic | Yes | No |
| File uploads | Yes | Yes7 file types, Standard |
| Service extras | Yespriced by formula | Yes |
| Price formulas (per person, season, option) | Yes | per-person pricingStandard |
| Several services in one booking | Yescatalog items as choices | Yescart, Pro plan |
| Booking form in the visitor’s language | Yesfree | YesStandard |
| Abandoned booking capture | Yes | No |
| Payments & documents | ||
| Payment at booking | YesStripe, PayPal, Mollie, Square | YesSquare in Lite; Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, Razorpay on Standard |
| Deposits | Yesany formula | YesStandard |
| Coupons | No | Yes |
| Refund from the booking screen | Yes | YesPro plan |
| Designed PDF invoices and tickets (QR code) | Yesfree | invoicesStandard |
| Branded email templates | Yesfree designer | Yes |
| Reminders & integrations | ||
| Reminder emails before the booking | YesFlows | YesStandard |
| SMS reminders | No | Yesprepaid credits |
| chat button in Telegram alerts | YesPro plan | |
| Mailchimp, Brevo, FluentCRM, MailPoet | Yesfree | Mailchimp |
| Webhooks | Yes | YesStandard |
| REST API | Yes | YesElite only |
| AI assistants (MCP / Abilities API) | Yes | Yespaid plans |
Competitor details as published on the date above; tell us if something has changed.
Where CraftForms leads
- The booking is a real form: questions that appear only when they matter, a repeater per guest, multi-step, signature, uploads; Amelia has fixed steps, a few custom fields and no conditional logic
- Prices Amelia can’t set: per night, per person, per season, early bird, a price matrix and priced add-ons, rechecked on the server at submit
- Stays and rentals as well as appointments: nights with minimum and maximum stays, rentals by the day, a room for any start time and length
- Two-way calendar sync with Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo; Amelia has none
- One PRO plan instead of four: Amelia puts PayPal, Stripe, deposits, custom fields and translations on Standard, cart, packages and resources on Pro, and the REST API on Elite
- Designed PDF invoices and tickets with a QR code, and a Gutenberg email designer with a delivery log, free
- Work pages for the day: who is coming today, a week of free times, client cards, cancel with refund, people who left before booking
- One plugin for the rest of the site too: contact forms, quote calculators, WooCommerce product options, an embed for any website
Where Amelia has an edge
- Staff scheduling: employees with their own hours and days off, “any available” assignment, an employee panel, and a mobile app on Elite
- Clients cancel or reschedule themselves in a customer panel; with CraftForms they ask you and you do it from the work page
- Slots shown in the visitor’s time zone, and live two-way Google and Outlook sync; CraftForms syncs through a polled iCal link
- Recurring appointments, service packages, coupons and an event waiting list
- Zoom, Google Meet and Teams links, SMS reminders (prepaid credits) and WhatsApp
- 90,000+ active installs and a product that does only scheduling
The bottom line
If you run a team of people whose calendars are the product (a clinic, a salon with five stylists, coaching across time zones) and want clients to reschedule themselves and get an SMS reminder, Amelia is built for that. If you book a room, a rental, a tour or a service with a price to work out, or the booking needs a proper form with uploads, a signature and a PDF, CraftForms does more on one plan, with a form builder for the rest of your site. For a single practitioner, ask two questions: do your clients need to reschedule themselves, and do they book from other time zones? If not, CraftForms covers the rest. A booking importer for Amelia is planned for about version 2.4.