The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Between Doodle Polls and When2Meet for Group Scheduling

Are you organizing a meeting time for a large group or event? Nobody wants to spend the time in 2024 going back and forth in group emails to find a common meeting time. There are plenty of group scheduling apps available—and two of the most recognizable names are Doodle and When2Meet. Both platforms are intuitive and reliable and allow users to poll your audience, collect availability, and help the organizer find the best time to meet without the confusing back and forth messaging.

But while the two apps may be solving the same problem, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. 

Both tools have been around for many years—and I'd argue both can be very powerful in helping to save you time and frustration. But, depending on your use case, you might find one of them to be the better tool.

I spent time this year testing and exploring both apps, comparing their strengths and weaknesses. Here, I'll walk you through the main differences between Doodle and When2Meet—and who each tool is right for—so you can find the best fit for you.

Doodle vs. When2Meet at a glance

This comparison below outlines the main differences in the Doodle polling vs. When2Meet showdown. For more details about my experience testing each tool, keep reading—or you can always scroll to the end to find a summary of the pros and cons, and which tool is recommended.

Simplicity for the organizer

Doodle used to be a very simple tool. Doodle polls allow you to choose specific dates and times for your participants to choose from. However, it has recently become more complex where the polls are not as easy to setup and the participant entry is not as easy. However, you can still make a Doodle poll without an account. But you still must enter an email address. Participants must select yes or no to fill out their availability. Then the organizer can view which dates and times had the most availability. Doodle is available on the web and through mobile apps.

When2Meet is very simple and fast to get started. When2Meet allows you can choose specific dates and time ranges, so participants can pick a time within the range that they are available. No account or email is required. Participants paint thier availability onto a grid. Then the organizer can view a heatmap of the grid to see the most popular dates. When2Meet is only a web based app.

Business Tools and Integrations

When2Meet is a basic tool to quickly find availability for your group. However, Doodle offers more advanced features. Below are some of the extra integrations available by using the Doodle product. However, some will require a paid subscription plan.

Price

Doodle is free, however Doodle shows an abundance of ads across all of their pages and limits polls to 20 timeslots. To remove the ads and have unlimited timeslots, it costs $14.95 per month.

When2Meet is completely free for all features. There are no upgrades or pro plans. There are ads displayed on the pages. However, they are not as many as on a Doodle poll. When2Meet does allow donations as a way to keep the platform up and running. It's important to remember that a 100% free service will be hard to get more feature requests and customer service from.

Ideal Use Case

Doodle is primarly designed for professionals who are frequently collecting group availability from social event planning to professional cross organization meetings.

When2Meet is made for users that want a free tool every once and awhile such as students and professors, but don't need to use it frequently.

Does Doodle or When2Meet have the better user experience for participants?

First, let's establish a subtle but important difference between the purposes of these two tools: yes/no polls vs. heatmap polls. Most people are familiar with polls, but maybe not with the different approaches by these two tools, so here's a quick way to differentiate them:

Yes/No polls have pre defined options where the participant can select Yes or No for their availability on each option.

Heatmap polls are grids with dates displayed horizontally, and times shown vertically. The times are a range of periods between the predefined start and end time. Participants can paint (click and hold) over the time periods in the grid that they are available.

While either tool could be used for group availability, When2Meet shines as an open window of times within a period that can be selected—and Doodle is more of a smaller list of options to choose from. 

Undoubtedly, Doodle is the more powerful choice. If you're looking for a tool with a virtually nonexistent learning curve and no superfluous features, you'll probably be happier with Doodle.

Both Doodle and When2Meet have a relatively intuitive and quick to setup interface, but When2Meet's is extremely simple. However, if more features are important to you, then maybe it is not the best choice.

When2Meet feels like a very free tool that probably is not best for professional use cases due to a limited design and interface. However, Doodle's feature rich product feels like it is trying to suck every dollar out of you, whether that be in advertising or it's expensive subscription price. If you have the budget, we recommend Doodle's pro plan. Otherwise, if you're going the free route, it's best to skip out on the extra features and keep it simple with When2Meet.

Additionally, both Doodle and When2Meet allow the user to adjust their timezone.

What are the pros and cons of Doodle and When2Meet?

Pros of Doodle

Cons of Doodle

Pros of When2Meet

Cons of When2Meet

What is the best choice for group scheduling?

While both Doodle and When2Meet offer many features, the best choice is an alternative, TallyCal. TallyCal was created in 2022 to provide a superior group scheduling product, without all of the limitations and drawbacks from Doodle and When2Meet.