I am receiving lots of request from upset users for alternatives.
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While I found the $40 to be too steep for my use cases, even as a work expense, I subscribed when it was on sale. The main selling point to me is just the elegance of it. That is, it’s a pleasure to use. Other apps have some of the same functionality, like natural language, drag to create appointments, etc., but Fantastical’s implementation is just enjoyable.
As far as the tentpole features, I use the Calendar Sets frequently with Office 365 to check my co-workers’ schedules, and also the one-click Zoom meetings. I thought I would use the “Proposed Meeting Times” feature frequently, but have only used it a handful of times.
Value is going to be different for everyone, but for me, $40 is just a tad bit too expensive for what I get out of it.
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Thanks for all of the input. I have read through all of the input provided.
I like Fantastical but I have yet to conclude that it provides enough ROI for my use case. This is not a complaint about the subscription per se.
My executive admin assistant handles 90% of the work associated with managing my calendar so I spend little time entering events or scheduling multiple people for an event. My primary use case is entering an occasional event and viewing and planning from my calendar.
I meet each Monday morning with my EAA and go over the next three weeks of projects and scheduled and/or needed appointments/meetings and she takes it from there.
This may be the main difference in use cases and calendar app needs. If one manages his or her events then I can see the ROI for Fantastical. In a case like mine, I think Apple Calendar is sufficient for my needs. That said, I also much prefer Fantastical’s GUI over Apple Calendar.
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Now we need to find an alternative for the original iOS calendar app. The new UI is 
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Good insight. My lack of such an assistant is the reason I subscribe. I basically pay Fantastical to do light admin work for me, similarly to part of of my OmniFocus use.
I would estimate that it saves me ~10-20 hours per year, and this is especially valuable during weeks when calendar/event work/meetings threaten time I want to spend producing.
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I use itsycal for menu calendar , works fab and costs nothing , fantastical is severely overpriced !!
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I subscribed to Fantastical for 1 year to give it a try. My work is basically meetings and I dance around in my calendar most days.
- I like that it integrates with google calendar well so I can see when peers are available when I quickly have to move a meeting. But in reality I use that feature very rarely and default to open google.com/calendar instead because it’s just works better for a google-centric organization (obviously).
- The quick-entry is good, but try to use that for work when you have to invite 5-6 people to a meeting and find a time when they are all free.
- Templates are nice for recurring things, to quickly set the same event at a different time. I use it a lot for classes and hobbies.
- The “propose time” feature is good in theory but there is no way I can send fantastical.com URLs to my work environment and expect my coworkers to click on those links.
My subscription expires in a few months and to be honest, I don’t think I’ll renew it even though I use the app daily. I like fantastical but it’s not worth paying $50 a year for me. I paid for Fantastical2 and the iOS apps, and the price of everything together is what I consider fantasticals worth. I’m salty that I will lose access to the features that I paid for, which is exactly how I thought I would feel in a year.
Not a fan of subscription apps in general unless they provide a service I need. A calendar app is not a service and I don’t need the server-side stuff from flexibits.
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I’ve used Fantastical from the beginning, and always upgraded when new versions came out. While I do prefer it to Apple’s Calendar, I opted not to subscribe as it is too expensive in my opinion. I honestly feel that they’d get a lot more subscribers if they lowered the price a bit.
This thread is timely for me as I’ve been revisiting whether it might be worth it to subscribe. After careful consideration, its still a hard no for me. So many things are subscription now, it is like death by a thousand cuts and I have become a lot pickier on what I’ll subscribe to and what I won’t. Fantastical is better than Apple’s Calendar but for me, it’s not $55 Canadian per year better.
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I was initially repulsed by the subscription change, but am generally resigned to it at this point.
There are a lot of nice features, but the one feature I can’t really live without any more is duplicating events. I have a work calendar through Exchange and a personal calendar through iCloud (really could be any service) and the ability to copy appointments from one to the other is priceless.
@zchrykng How are you doing the duplicating? I’m trying to find something similar and looking at automated solutions as well.
In Fantastical, when you press and hold on an event one of the menu options is duplicate. If you tap that, it will open an editor for a new event and you can put it on any calendar setup in Fantastical.
Don’t know about automated solutions.
Thanks. I wish there was an option to let you include or not include the prior invitees.
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I have just downloaded Fantastical to see whether it is actually as good as I hear. However, I am in “free mode” at the moment and unless I am missing something, you can’t actually see the calendar without a subscription!
It doesn’t matter if I click Day, Week, Month or Year as the ‘view’ from the buttons at the top of the app (this is on MacOS) I get the same message “XXX view is only available with Fantastical Premium”. Makes the free version pointless!
Oh wow, really? thats not great! I would expect to at least be able to see and add items to it…
I was curious about that; I noticed something like it listed in the paid benefits. Do you see the basic list of upcoming events, at least? I can’t easily test the free version.
Now it’s $60 a year, so no. I just canceled my subscription which was up for renewal.
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