Orca Book · Booking pages and offers by email · The Calendly replacement
Part of OrcaSend a link, or send three times. Either way, it books itself.
Two ways to get a meeting in the diary, both run by Orca. A public booking page under your own name, the way booking.simmance.ai works for me, where people pick a free slot. Or, for the people you are already emailing, Orca offers a few times in the reply and each one has a Book button. Someone clicks, Orca checks the live calendar, creates the invite with everyone on it, and sends the confirmation. No Calendly, no third party in the middle.
Booking is part of Orca, not a separate subscription. The page runs on your own Orca project; your calendar credentials never leave your desktop.
Three steps, and the last one is Orca's.
Set up the meeting types once. After that the diary fills itself in, with a check every time.
Define a meeting type
Name, length, Teams or Meet or phone or in person, buffers before and after, minimum notice, a daily cap, and any questions to ask up front. Each type gets its own public address.
Orca publishes your free time
Every 15 minutes, and straight after any change, Orca works out the free slots across every connected calendar and publishes them to the page. Tentative blocks and holds count as busy.
Someone books. Orca confirms.
The slot comes off the page for everyone else the moment it is taken. Orca re-checks the live calendar, creates the invite with every guest on it, and emails a confirmation with reschedule and cancel links.
Offer times by email
"Does Tuesday work?" with a button on Tuesday.
Most meetings do not start from a link. They start from an email thread, and the link feels like a brush-off. So Orca does it the other way round: it reads the thread, finds slots that fit both of you, and offers them in the reply. Each slot has its own Book button.
- One click books it. The button records the chosen slot; your Orca sees it within minutes, creates the invite and replies to confirm.
- Replies in words work too. "The second one" or "can we do Thursday instead" is read by Orca, which either books or comes back with a fresh offer.
- You stay in charge. The offer goes out through the draft queue, so you see the times before they do.
The booking page
A page under your name, that only shows times you can actually do.
The page reads a list of free slots your desktop published, nothing more. It never sees your calendar, your tokens or your email. Guests see times in their own timezone, answer your intake questions, and get a branded confirmation with Reschedule and Cancel buttons that keep working however many times they use them.
Nobody books over a hold
A tentative block, a "hold" in the title, a poll that is still open: all of it counts as busy on the page. The reverse is deliberate too. Two people hitting the same slot at the same second get one booking and one polite "that one just went".
Reschedules move the invite, not replace it
When a guest picks a new time, Orca moves the same calendar event, so every attendee's invite updates. If the new time has gone in the meantime, the booking reverts to the original and the guest gets an email saying so.
Built so the public bit knows as little as possible.
A booking page is a public door into your diary. This one opens onto a copy, and the copy only has the free slots in it.
Credentials stay on your desktop
The page and its functions hold no calendar tokens at all. They read published slots and write a pending booking. Your Orca does the booking.
Checked twice
The published list can be up to 15 minutes old, so before any invite goes out Orca re-checks the live calendar. A clash means a decline and an apology, never a double booking.
Rate-limited and honeypotted
Bots filling the form hit a hidden field and a per-hour cap. Guests' manage links carry a long random token and nothing that identifies you.
Why not Calendly
A booking link is one answer. Most meetings need the other one.
Calendly is good at the link. It is also another subscription, another place your calendar is connected, and another brand on the page your clients see. And it does nothing for the meeting that starts with "are you free next week?" in an email thread, which is most of them.
Orca Book does the link and the thread. The page for people you do not know yet. The three times with buttons for people you are mid-conversation with. Polls for the group that needs a vote. All booked by the same Orca that already runs your inbox, so it knows the buffers you keep, the days that are full, and which account the invite should come from.
It is one fewer tool. That is most of the case, honestly. The rest is that the confirmations come from you, the page is yours, and the calendar never left the building.
How it fits
Booking is the door. These are the rooms behind it.
A booking is a calendar event, offered from an email, that the notetaker will later join.
Pricing
Included in Orca. The Calendly line comes off your card.
£250/licence/month
Everything included, Claude usage too
- Unlimited meeting types and bookings
- Offers by email and group polls
- Cancel any time
One licence, the whole assistant
This page is one part of it. Every part below comes with the same licence.
- Orca Inbox
- Orca Autopilot
- Orca Calendar
- Orca Book You are here
- Orca Meet
- Orca Post
- Orca Brief
- Orca Notes
- Orca People
- Orca Chat
- Orca Plan
- Orca Clip
- Orca Mobile
- Orca Today
- Orca Screen recording storage
Claude API usage, setup support and updates are in the monthly price. The pricing page has the one-off setup fee and the rate for six licences or more.
Also available: Orca Time, £2.79 per seat a month, with Orca Snap included.
Questions: chris@simmance.ai.
Questions people ask
What address does my booking page have?
A booking address under your name, with a path per meeting type, in the same style as booking.simmance.ai. The base address is set in Orca's settings and every link Orca sends is built from it.
Does my laptop need to be on for a booking to confirm?
The booking is taken on the page straight away and the slot is removed for everyone else. The invite and confirmation email are created by your Orca, so they go out when it is next running, usually within a few minutes. If it has been quiet too long, Orca nudges you.
Which calendar does the invite land on?
Your primary account by default, or a specific account per meeting type if you have more than one connected. Availability is always worked out across all of them regardless.
Can I ask questions on the form?
Yes. Short answer or long answer fields, required or optional, per meeting type. The answers go into the invite body so they are there when the call starts.
What happens if someone books a time I have just filled?
Orca re-checks the live calendar before creating any invite. If the slot has gone, the guest gets a decline with an apology and a link to pick again, rather than a double-booked diary.
The diary fills itself. You just turn up.
Part of Orca · Mac and Windows | See also Orca Calendar, Orca Inbox and Orca Meet