Vet discovery calls before they reach your calendar, give each engagement its own private link, and let the client's project lead bring their colleagues along.
Updated 22 October 2026
An independent consultant sells a small number of expensive hours. Each discovery call might lead to a three-month engagement, or it might be a student writing a thesis, a competitor fishing for your rates, or someone selling you software. A public booking link lets them all straight into your week. Tymeslot lets you see who is asking before you say yes: the request arrives with their answers, and the call is confirmed only when you approve it.
Scheduling tools built for sales teams want as many meetings as possible. Consulting runs the other way: a few clients at once, each with its own rhythm of check-ins and workshops, and a calendar that should never show one client another client's commitments.
Tymeslot keeps each engagement apart. A discovery call can require your approval. Each running engagement can get its own private meeting type, with its own link and duration, which stops taking bookings the day you switch it off. The client's project lead books the workshop and adds the colleagues who need to attend, and every guest gets an invitation and reminders. Your connected calendars block busy times across all engagements, and clients only ever see that a slot is taken, not by whom.
Turn on approval for discovery calls. The request arrives with the prospect's answers, and the booking is confirmed only when you accept it.
Create a private meeting type for each client's check-ins. It is not listed on your public booking page; deactivate it when the engagement ends and the link goes dead.
Whoever books can add up to ten colleagues, and every one of them gets the invitation and reminders, and hears about any change of time; moving or cancelling stays with the booker.
Offer a workshop at the client's office and by video on the same meeting type. The booker picks one, and choosing video generates a Teams, Zoom or Google Meet link for that booking.
On Pro, sell a 90-minute strategy call at a fixed price, paid by card while booking. Prospects not ready to pay take the free discovery route instead, which separates buyers from browsers before you give up an afternoon.
On Pro, webhooks send each booking, cancellation and reschedule to your CRM or invoicing tool, and Slack or Telegram can tell you the moment a request arrives.
Without Tymeslot
With Tymeslot
A free discovery call is worth offering, but not to everyone. Approval lets you read the request first and keep the call for people who might become clients.
Two or three engagements in parallel means two or three cadences of check-ins and reviews. Each client should book only their own meetings, and none should see the others.
A workshop pulls in five people from the client side. Finding a time by email takes days, and you do not need to be part of their internal negotiation.
| Meeting type | Duration | Buffer | Minimum notice | Bookable ahead | Payment at booking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery call (approval required) | 45 min | 15 min | 1 day | 3 weeks | None |
| Paid strategy call | 90 min | 15 min | 2 days | 30 days | Full fee at booking |
| Engagement check-in | 30 min | 15 min | 2 days | 4 weeks | None |
The questions belong on the discovery call, where they decide whether you approve it. Duplicate the check-in for each client so every engagement has its own private link. The discovery call accepts bookings a day ahead and the other two need 48 hours, so the call sits on a schedule of its own.
Against Calendly and SavvyCal, Tymeslot's case for an independent consultant rests on price and on screening prospects before a call, and it loses on the agreement row: both competitors accept a data processing agreement with their standard terms, while Tymeslot signs one only on Enterprise. If a client's procurement team wants that paperwork from every processor and you will not run your own server, pick one of them. The price and question rows show what it costs to vet a prospect before giving up an hour.
| Feature | Tymeslot | Calendly | SavvyCal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signed data processing agreement | Enterprise only; self-hosted, Tymeslot processes nothing | Yes: accepted with the customer terms | Yes: accepted with the Terms of Use |
| Entry price | Pro €9 a month, not per user | $10/seat/month, billed yearly | From $10/user/month; annual billing saves 2 months |
| Custom intake questions | Pro: organisation, problem and timeline before approval | Yes: up to 10 questions per event type, on all plans | Yes: custom questions on scheduling links |
Sources checked 5 October 2026.
A rough estimate, not a promise.
160
minutes saved per week
138.7
hours saved per year
€27,740
annual value of saved time
The approval step, a private check-in link per engagement and the workshop guests in this setup all work on the free plan. Pro (€9/month) is needed for the strategy call's fee and for the organisation and timeline questions you read before approving. A client who insists on a signed DPA points you to Enterprise or to running Tymeslot yourself.
Free
€0 / month
Pro
€9 / month
Tymeslot 1.1 adds custom booking questions, payment at the moment of booking, automatic Zoom meetings, and Slack notifications.
Luka Breitig
16 June 2026 · 4 min read
