62
SimplyBook.me – Booking and reservations calendar
Easy scheduling that might vanish if your session expires.
GrowingSuspicious reviewsReview burst
62/100
The plugin is easy to use but suffers from critical session errors and email failures.
Active installs
~42,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+
Rating
4.5★
17 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+402%
Growing fast
65 → 324 installs/day
Warnings
- 59% of reviewers have no other wp.org activity — pattern often associated with paid or solicited 5★.
- Reviews concentrated in a single month — usually a marketing push or paid wave.
What to watch out for
- MAJOR71% of reviews in one month (2024-08-13)
- MAJOR59% drive-by reviewers + concentrated review pattern
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +402% in the last year
65/day a year ago→324/day today
Reviews
what people actually saySimplyBook.me is a functional booking calendar plugin that integrates reasonably well with WordPress, but it carries a notable reliability risk around session logouts that can silently break booking for customers.
What people like
- +Easy to set up and integrate with a WordPress site
- +Support team is responsive and effective at resolving issues×2
Common complaints
- −Plugin randomly logs itself out, causing bookings to silently fail for customers×2
- −Notification/confirmation emails fail to deliver×2
- −Support deflects blame to the user rather than acknowledging or fixing plugin-side issues×2
- −A plugin update crashed the site entirely (caught on staging)
Review trustMixed — some inflation
- 4.43★Verified rating — drops from 4.50★ once one-shot reviewers are removed
- 59%One-shot reviewers — their only wp.org activity is this review — pattern linked to solicited 5★
- past spikeReview timing — up to 71% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2024-07-142025-07-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 17 total
Latest reviews · 17 analyzed
- 2025-12-01★★★★★Does not work with Complianzdefotohoeve
- 2025-07-07★★★★★Great, prompt support, with a straightforward solutionguerre64
- 2025-05-30★★★★★Plugin logs out with no reason, re-login didn’t workfischervlada
- 2024-07-24★★★★★Very good and convenient booking systemDirk Peter
- 2024-07-18★★★★★Plugin logs out with no reason, re-login didn't workstephan551-shot
- 2024-07-17★★★★★The best for photographersmmib1-shot
- 2024-07-17★★★★★A business essential!matrixra
- 2024-07-16★★★★★Greatagnacom1-shot
- 2024-07-16★★★★★Works Very Wellkeaphotos
- 2024-07-16★★★★★Fanstastic Booking SoftwareLashes at Eleven
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
407
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
313
Prior 7-day baseline
343
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
6,573
Mean release-day peak (30d)
405
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+30.0%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
71%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
3.40
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
88%
5★ share in analyzed sample
59%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.53 → 4.43★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered