account42 vs Amelia
Facts about Amelia come from its public pricing and feature pages as of September 15, 2026; check their site for current terms.
account42 is a hosted booking engine for businesses that sell seats in sessions. Its own WordPress plugin is one way in, beside the Wix app, the Shopify app and the embed. Every plan includes memberships, credit packs, waitlists with automatic promotion, the assistant and settlement on your own Stripe or PayPal account, priced monthly by volume. Amelia is a booking plugin for WordPress, licensed per year or for life and installed on your own site. It books appointments and events through payment gateways you connect. Its features step up by license: waiting lists, packages and refunds at Pro, the REST API and mobile app at Elite.
At a glance
| Feature | account42 | Amelia |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $29 a month on Solo, or $23 a month billed annually | $49 a year for Starter on one domain; Standard $99, Pro $329 and Elite $599 a year at list, with lifetime licenses also sold1 |
| Per-booking fees or commission | None. Stripe or PayPal charge their own processing fees and nothing else is added | None stated: the page says no hidden costs or add-ons, and your gateway's own fees apply1 |
| Where payments settle | Your own Stripe or PayPal account, as direct charges | Your own gateway accounts: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Mollie, Razorpay, WooCommerce and others2 |
| Feature gating across tiers | None. Plans differ by bookings, messaging balance and locations, never by feature | Yes. Recurring events, deposits, multilingual support and calendar sync from Standard; packages, cart, waiting list and refunds from Pro; REST API and the mobile app on Elite1 |
| Waitlists | Every plan, with automatic promotion and time-limited offers | Event Waiting List on Pro and Elite1 |
| Memberships and credit packs | Every plan, alongside free sessions and drop-ins | Packages of services on Pro and Elite; no recurring membership billing is listed12 |
| Assistant | Every plan, from 100 to 1,500 conversations a month | Not listed; the pricing page links to an AI booking site builder1 |
| Booking page languages | 12 | Translated into more than 20 languages, with every string translatable2 |
| Countries | 46 | Not stated; it runs on your own WordPress site with the gateway you connect12 |
| Free trial | 14 days, no card | A free limited version and a 15-day money-back guarantee on paid licenses1 |
- 1. Amelia pricing page: https://wpamelia.com/pricing/, as fetched on September 15, 2026.
- 2. Amelia features page: https://wpamelia.com/features/, as fetched on September 15, 2026.
Where account42 is the better fit
- You do not want to host, update or back up anything. account42 is hosted, with the WordPress plugin as a thin door; Amelia runs inside your WordPress install, so hosting, updates and backups are yours.
- You run classes with a seat count and need the waitlist from the first day. Amelia's Starter and Standard cards show the Event Waiting List as not included, with packages and refunds; account42 carries all three on every plan.
- You sell memberships or packs from day one. Amelia's pages list packages of services on Pro and Elite and event tickets, but no recurring membership billing; account42 reads a membership at booking time on every plan.
- You want the assistant. Amelia lists no assistant, and its pricing page links to an AI booking site builder instead. account42 includes an assistant on every plan, for the owner and the customer.
- Your site is on Squarespace, Webflow, Wix or Shopify rather than WordPress. Amelia is a WordPress plugin and runs nowhere else. account42 installs as a Wix app, a Shopify app or an embed snippet for Squarespace, Webflow or plain HTML, and as a WordPress plugin.
Under the hood
The account42 WordPress plugin holds no booking logic of its own. It is a thin client of the same engine the Wix app, the Shopify app and the embed use, so a plugin update never changes a rule.
Where Amelia is the better fit
- Most of your bookings are one client with one person. Amelia is an appointments plugin first, with employee schedules, buffer times, custom service durations and an employee panel for each staff member.
Switching from Amelia
Customers export from Amelia and arrive here by email or phone, and packages in progress become credit packs with the balance each customer has left. Recurring events are described once as a weekly pattern and become sessions with seat counts. The WordPress site stays exactly where it is; only the plugin changes. Custom fields, invoices and Amelia's employee panel do not carry across.
Questions people ask
- What does a year of Amelia cost against a year of account42 at 500 bookings a month with four instructors?
- account42 puts 500 bookings on Studio: $59 x 12 = $708 a year billed monthly, or $47 x 12 = $564 billed annually. The waitlist, memberships, the assistant and hosting are included, and four instructors cost nothing extra. On Amelia the like-for-like license is Pro, the first with the Event Waiting List and packages. It is $329 a year at list, or $219 on the first-year promotion shown at fetch time. It covers one domain with no count of bookings or employees, and there is no assistant to add. Amelia is licensed by the year, so its figure stands against both account42 numbers. Amelia is cheaper for this configuration: $379 against monthly billing and $235 against annual at list, or $489 and $345 on the promotion. The difference buys hosting, updates and backups, the booking page, the assistant and membership billing, none of which the Amelia license includes.
- Do I need to host anything with account42?
- No. The WordPress plugin, the Wix app, the Shopify app and the embed are thin clients of one hosted engine, so your site only carries the door. Amelia is a self-hosted WordPress plugin sold as a download. The plugin and its data live in your WordPress install, which you host, update and back up.
- Which Amelia license has a waiting list?
- On account42 the waitlist is on every plan, including Solo, and promotes the next person automatically with a time-limited offer when a seat frees. On Amelia, Pro and Elite carry the Event Waiting List. The Starter and Standard cards on its pricing page show it as not included, along with packages, the cart and refunds.
- Can I keep my WordPress site?
- Yes. account42 installs on WordPress as a plugin, so the site, its theme and its pages stay as they are and the booking page appears where you place it. Payments settle on your own Stripe or PayPal account, and nothing about the site moves to us. Amelia's pricing page licenses each install by domain: one on Starter and Standard, five on Pro and unlimited on Elite.