Are you organising a concert, a market, a beauty salon or just want to organise the next book club meeting? Then you are certainly looking for a calendar for your website. And one thing is even more certain: it should be as cheap, comprehensive and uncomplicated as possible. And best of all, you’ve come to the right place!
In this article, we will introduce you to various calendar plugin variations for WordPress, so that you can easily and quickly integrate a calendar into your website.
The advantages of a calendar plugin
It is definitely an advantage to get a calendar plugin. You don’t have to create tables that would most likely not even look very fancy. Also, you would have to manually set up all the processes that are already automated in plugins – where you would certainly reach your limits quickly.
Regardless of what kind of calendar plugin you want to use, it is advisable to have the following features:
- Creation and registration of events
- Booking options
- Responsive design
- E-mail notifications (e.g. for booking confirmations or changes)
- Provision of event data (location, time, etc.)
- Recording and storage of booking or customer data
The Events Calender
Costs: free basic version available
The Events Calendar is, as the name suggests, a WordPress plugin that helps you create and manage an events calendar.
Right from the start, the plugin is very beginner-friendly, so that you can easily integrate a calendar into your website.
Even the free basic version covers a wide range of functions. These include:
- Quickly create a calendar
- Storage of venues and organizers
- Event list view
- Event search
- Extensive documentation of registration
In the PRO version, which is subject to a charge, you have access to additional functions such as ticket sales or user-submitted events.
Immediately after installing and activating the calendar plug-in, it surprises you with helpful tips for setting it up and using it, which is also very helpful given the abundance of functions. In addition, it appears on the left in the menu as an independent menu item including sub-items. (We did say that it is beginner-friendly 😉)
As you can see, the view for creating an event is very similar to that of a “normal” post. Therefore, the procedure should already be familiar and intuitive to you.
Booking Calendar
Costs: free basic version available
Another plugin in the round of calendar plugins is Booking Calendar. You can also get this plugin in a well-equipped, free version. Unlike The Events Calendar, this plugin is all about bookings.
The plugin is very intuitively designed. To help you get started, there is an integrated YouTube video that explains the structure and functionality.
You can create individual bookings in which you can enter the name, telephone number, e-mail address and details of the booking. In addition, you can notify the customer of their booking via email.
In the Settings tab, you can view statistics such as unconfirmed bookings.
As you can see, the Booking plugin is simple, yet practical, because it fulfils the basic functions needed to offer and manage bookings.
Modern Events Calendar
Costs: free basic version available
The Modern Events Calendar plugin is also a great way to add a calendar for events to WordPress. The event calendar plugin supports you with a setup wizard that provides you with video tutorials and dummy events.
You have the possibility to import your Google Calendar via Google API Key, add organisers, venues and categories. The creation of events is similar to that of The Events Calender plugin.
You can view events in a list view, calendar view or countdown. In the PRO version, you have access to additional functions such as displaying maps and time zones. The plugin also offers you countless design templates for integration into your website.
My Calendar
Costs: free basic version available
The name speaks for itself: with the help of the calendar plugin My Calendar, you can create individualised calendars. You have the option of creating a calendar for several pages. Basically, the plug-in is equipped in the same way as other basic calendar plug-ins.
The big difference here, however, is interactivity. Several groups can be combined into one event and edited. This saves you the tedious, separate editing when you plan a series of events.
Other functions of the plugin are:
- List or tile view of events
- Month, week or day view
- Custom templates
- Views by category, location, author or hostDesign editing through CSS code
- Multisite friendly
- Shortcode generator to create custom views
Are you planning to sell tickets on your website for events? For this purpose, the developers have separately created the plugin Use My Tickets. It can be integrated into My Calendar, but is only responsible for ticket sales.
Events Calendar
Costs: free basic version available
Not to be confused with The Events Calendar. Events Calendar is a well-equipped event registration plugin for WordPress. Even the free version offers you a comprehensive feature package:
- Simple event registration
- Recurring and long (multi-day) event registrations
- Booking management (including approval/rejection)
- Multisite support
- Submissions for guest/member eventsGoogle Maps integration
- Time zone support
Basically, the free version is sufficient to integrate an events calendar into your website. If the functions are still not sufficient for you, you can fall back on the PRO version. Here, a WooCommerce integration and individual forms for participants are also available.
The structure and functionality of the plugin is similar to that of The Events Calendar and Modern Events Calendar.