When2Meet is a genuinely good tool. If you're scheduling one thing, once, use it with our blessing. A campaign isn't one thing once — it's the same five people, every week, indefinitely. That's a different problem, and it needs a different tool.
Nobody has to sign up. Nobody has to pay. You paste a link, everyone paints the hours they're free, and the overlap lights up as a heatmap. It's fast, it's free, and it does one job with zero ceremony. There's a reason every gaming group has used it at least once.
For a one-shot, a board game night, or picking a date for session zero, When2Meet is honestly all you need. This page isn't going to pretend otherwise.
Every When2Meet poll starts from nothing and ends at the booking. It has no memory of your group, no idea that you're trying to play every week, and no opinion about the two players who haven't filled it in yet. So the ritual repeats: someone makes the poll, shares the poll, chases the poll, reads the poll — and does it all again next week. That someone is usually the GM, and it's exactly how GMs burn out.
The binary free/busy grid has a quieter cost. The player who could make Thursday work — leave early, shuffle a commitment, take the call from the car — marks it busy, because the grid gives them no way to say "I can try". Four free plus one flexible is a session. On a When2Meet heatmap it looks like a conflict, and the group skips a week that was actually playable.
When2Meet gives players two brushes: free and busy. But most missed sessions live in the gap between them — the player who could do Thursday if they knew four others were in. Roll4Availability has a third state for exactly that, so the almost-sessions stop slipping through.
A When2Meet poll answers one question once. Roll4Availability stores your group's recurring availability and re-checks it every time something changes — someone frees up a Tuesday, and the app notices before anyone thinks to make a poll about it.
With When2Meet, the poll link needs a person behind it — creating, sharing, and reminding. Usually the GM, usually forever. Roll4Availability sends the reminders itself, so no one has to be the group’s scheduling conscience.
| What's being compared | When2Meet | Roll4Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Availability states | Free or busy | Free, busy, or "I can make this work" |
| After the session is booked | The poll is done — next week, new poll | Availability persists; the search keeps running |
| Who chases responses | Whoever made the poll | The app sends the nudges |
| Knows what a campaign is | No — every poll is a blank slate | Groups, campaigns, quorum rules, RSVPs |
| Cost | Free | Free tier; paid plans for bigger groups |
Weighing up Doodle too? See the Doodle comparison or the full comparison of every tool.
Your group marks availability once. The app finds the sessions — including the ones a free/busy grid would have missed.
Create Your Group FreeNo credit card required. Free tier forever.