# Acuity Scheduling API vs Aurinko Calendar API

> Aurinko Calendar API scores 45.6 (E) on agent readiness against Acuity Scheduling API's 42.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Acuity Scheduling API leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do calendar read. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Aurinko Calendar API scores 45.6 (E) on agent readiness against Acuity Scheduling API's 42.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Acuity Scheduling API leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do calendar read.

- Acuity Scheduling API: grade E, 42.4/100, rank #678 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/acuity-scheduling.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/acuity-scheduling.json
- Aurinko Calendar API: grade E, 45.6/100, rank #654 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aurinko-calendar.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aurinko-calendar.json

## Which one, for what

### Acuity Scheduling API (E)

Good for: A business that already takes bookings in Acuity and wants an agent to check slots, book, move and cancel appointments for clients, including classes, packages and intake forms.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 58 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 54 against 44

Watch for: The pricing page lists custom API access on Premium only, $61 a month or $49 billed yearly

### Aurinko Calendar API (E)

Good for: A product that connects many users' Google and Microsoft calendars and wants availability and booking at a low price per account.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 66 against 56
- Agent ergonomics, 56 against 44
- Security & auth, 41 against 27
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 20 against 15

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA found, and the terms supply the service as is


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Acuity Scheduling API | Aurinko Calendar API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 40 | Acuity Scheduling API +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 66 | Aurinko Calendar API +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 44 | 56 | Aurinko Calendar API +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 27 | 41 | Aurinko Calendar API +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Aurinko Calendar API +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 20 | Aurinko Calendar API +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 44 | Acuity Scheduling API +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **42.4 · E** | **45.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Acuity Scheduling API | Aurinko Calendar API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Squarespace | Yoxel, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://acuityscheduling.com/api/v1` | `https://api.aurinko.io` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Squarespace's Developer Terms. The Node.js and PHP SDKs are MIT | Proprietary service under Yoxel's Terms of Services Agreement |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Terms last updated | 2025-12-16 | 2022-08-11 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2022-08-11 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 9.2k npm/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Acuity Scheduling API.** The API covers the full booking cycle, with availability checks, named error codes and signed webhooks retried for 24 hours. API access is sold only on the Premium plan at $61 a month, the single OAuth scope grants the whole account, and no changelog, idempotency key or audit log was found in the reviewed documentation.

**Aurinko Calendar API.** A public OpenAPI 3.0 spec covers 154 operations, with free/busy, meeting-time suggestion and booking profiles alongside calendar reads and writes, and prices start at $1 an active account a month. No status page, SLA, changelog or official SDK was found, and the application's client secret reaches every connected account.

## Before you call either

### Acuity Scheduling API

1. Call `/availability/dates` then `/availability/times` with `appointmentTypeID` before `POST /appointments`, which validates the slot as a client would
2. Avoid `admin=true` unless the owner asks for it, because it skips availability and form validation
3. Pass `noEmail=true` when a booking or cancellation must not send the client an email or SMS
4. Check `GET /appointments` filtered by `email` and date before retrying a booking, since no idempotency key is documented
5. Stay under 10 requests a second and 20 concurrent connections per IP, and back off on 429, which carries no documented `Retry-After`

### Aurinko Calendar API

1. Use `https://api.aurinko.io/v1`. Several cURL examples in the docs print `https:/api.aurinko.io` with one slash
2. Send `If-Match` with the event's `etag` on `PATCH /v1/calendars/{calendarId}/events/{eventId}`. A stale value returns 412
3. Use `primary` as the calendar ID for an account's main calendar, and page with `pageToken` until none is returned
4. Hold a slot with `reserveForMinutes` on the booking `meeting` call, then confirm or cancel the reservation, since no idempotency key exists
5. Retry 429, 408 and 5xx with exponential backoff. Do not retry 404. A 429 can come from Google or Microsoft limits behind the API

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Acuity Scheduling API or Aurinko Calendar API?

Aurinko Calendar API scores 45.6 (E) on agent readiness against Acuity Scheduling API's 42.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Acuity Scheduling API leads on reliability and transparency & trust.

### Do Acuity Scheduling API and Aurinko Calendar API need an API key?

Acuity Scheduling API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Aurinko Calendar API uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Acuity Scheduling API and Aurinko Calendar API without installing anything?

Yes. Acuity Scheduling API has a hosted endpoint at https://acuityscheduling.com/api/v1 and Aurinko Calendar API at https://api.aurinko.io.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acuity-scheduling-vs-aurinko-calendar.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "acuity-scheduling", "b": "aurinko-calendar"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare acuity-scheduling aurinko-calendar`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/acuity-scheduling.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aurinko-calendar.json

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