A When2meet alternative that finishes the job
When2meet answered one question brilliantly — “when can everyone meet?” — for free, with no accounts. Faculty run real academic business on it anyway: committee times, defense scheduling, lab meetings. Three gaps are worth knowing about before you do.
1. A poll isn’t a booking
When the grid agrees on Thursday at 3, When2meet’s work is done — but nobody is confirmed, nothing lands on anyone’s calendar, and a change means a fresh email thread. A Facultory poll finalizes into a real meeting: every participant gets one standard .ics calendar invite (Outlook, Google, and Apple calendars all read it), sent from your own address.
2. We couldn’t find a privacy policy
As of July 2026, we could not find a published privacy policy or terms of service on when2meet.com. (Several look-alike domains publish their own policies — those are not the tool you’re using.) For pickup basketball, that’s fine. For grids that attach student names to advising and defense scheduling, “no stated policy” is the line your campus privacy review will quote back to you. Facultory publishes its Privacy & Data Collection Policy and Terms, and takes a FERPA-conscious posture toward student data: records stay scoped to the faculty member who owns them.
3. The grid is the whole product
No booking page for one-on-one office hours, no meeting types, no confirmations, no locations, no email that comes from you — and the drag-to-paint grid is famously fiddly on a phone. When2meet is a single brilliant page; a faculty schedule is more than one page.
The same grid, grown up
- Pick a date range, daily hours, and slot size — the familiar paint-your-availability grid follows.
- Share one poll link. Voting needs no account — colleagues off the platform just click and paint.
- Colleagues on the platform arrive with availability pre-filled from their own calendar, ready to adjust.
- Finalize, and the whole group gets a single calendar invite; the poll records the decision.
- Departments can opt into a public poll board at /your‑university/your‑department/poll.
- And the other half of the desk: real booking pages for office hours and advising — $6/month flat for all of it.
| Dimension | When2meet | Facultory |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | $6/month or $60/year for the whole scheduling desk |
| Accounts to vote | None | None |
| After the poll closes | You email everyone yourself | One calendar invite to the whole group, sent as you |
| Booking pages for 1:1s | None — polls only | Included, with meeting types, locations, and an Outlook busy overlay |
| Privacy policy | None we could find (July 2026) | Published privacy policy and terms; FERPA-conscious data handling |
| Ads | None | None |
Keep When2meet for game night
When2meet is free, minimal, and asks nothing of anyone — genuinely admirable software. If a grid with no strings is all a meeting needs, use it happily. The scheduling desk is for the meetings attached to your job: the ones that need confirmations, calendars, student privacy, and a page with your name on it.
Keep comparing
Competitor pricing and feature notes reflect the vendors’ public pages as of July 2026 and can change at any time — verify current details on their own sites. Calendly is a trademark of Calendly LLC; Doodle of Doodle AG; When2meet of its operator. Facultory is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, and the comparisons here are our good-faith reading, offered so you can make your own call. Facultory pricing shown is the live plan catalog at render time.