Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) vs. CoSchedule Marketing Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
iCal
Score 3.9 out of 10
N/A
The Apple iCloud Calendar (formerly iCal), is the calendar tool associated to Apple's productivity product suite.N/A
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
CoSchedule provides a content calendar, content optimization, and contentmarketing products, with users among 50,000 marketers worldwide, helping them organize their work, deliver projects on time, and prove marketing team value.N/A
Pricing
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
iCalCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Features
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Content Creation
Comparison of Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
7.3
Ratings
10% below category average
Ideation00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Content collaboration00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Content calendar00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content Publishing
Comparison of Content Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
10.0
Ratings
21% above category average
Content distribution00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content promotion00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content automation00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
10.0
Ratings
24% above category average
Closed-loop tracking and reporting00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content performance analytics00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Vyond
Vyond
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Conductor
Conductor
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Google Calendar
Google Calendar
Score 9.5 out of 10
Conductor
Conductor
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
2.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
In my experience, Ical is very useful in organizing various calendar sources into one place, as well as real-time synchronization in the cloud. It is easy to integrate links, and media sources, as well as add attendees and make edits. A good example of a scenario is inviting everyone in various time zones to a meeting, and many attendees have their iCloud accounts, but some don’t. Everyone is able to be added to the meeting, showing in their correct time zone and seeing the necessary event details, as well as any virtual meeting, and invite details.
Read full review
CoSchedule does more than just content planning, it helps you organize your content, betters your content with headline analyzers, and allows you to organize your work and marketing calendars as well. If your organization is in a spot where you need a well-rounded tool to help with content, marketing, or even task organization, CoSchedule might be the right fit.
Read full review
Pros
  • Perfectly syncs between all devices
  • It allows me to set multiple reminders before a meeting
  • When I add an address it automatically links to Apple Maps so I can see where i am going and also how long it will take me. I can easiy click on the link and it will start navigation for me, pretty cool
Read full review
  • Best time to post is great at updating to when we get the most engagement by platform
  • Requeue tool to slate out additional posts for a given piece of content is a huge time saver
  • Aggregate analytics tool shows us a peek across our posts on a given platform that's actually easier to read than the platform itself
Read full review
Cons
  • I would love it to have more visualizations and not just the classic one in a common calendar and that it could be customized
  • You have the possibility to have a face-to-face call by sharing a link that, in my opinion, could be improved by creating groups of only contacts and limiting access to the meeting.
Read full review
  • The import Google Doc to WordPress functionality never worked successfully or reliably for me. So I just manually copy and paste Google Docs to the WordPress editor instead.
  • The social sharing counter was not that helpful, because it only counted Facebook and Google+. Who uses Google+ anymore? Plus, now they don't even show the social counter in the monthly calendar view. so you can't see the numbers without doing some extra digging.
  • In the monthly calendar view, some titles get cut off if they don't wrap cleanly in the day's box. So I would make it look cleaner instead of having words broken up by a hyphen.
Read full review
Usability
As I've said, Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) does not work well when integrated with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendars. It's not very usable. Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) does not stay in sync well at all with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. You will waste a lot of time manually resyncing your calendars and you will never be able to fully trust Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal).
Read full review
The interface is very intuitive, from setting up social profiles, to posting, to tags, to optimizing for best day/time to post. It's super easy to scan the aggregate analytics. The calendar is very easy to grok at a glance, and the more advanced functionality is intuitive to set up.
Read full review
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
I didn't have to use their official support, but I can say that they put out a lot of content online to help users. Their YouTube page has quite an array of tutorial videos explaining how things work and how to get the most out of their tools. If you're struggling, before picking up a phone or blasting off an email, try searching for your problem on YouTube or their forums.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Google Calendar and Apple iCal offer basically the same thing. If you have Google devices, Google Calendar is going to work better for you. If you have Apple devices, Apple iCal will work better. Both have issues with cross platform support, however, Google Calendar on an Apple device at least works whereas Apple iCal on a Google device is difficult to setup and difficult to manage.
Read full review
CoSchedule is definitely a more powerful marketing tool than Loomly or Buffer, which are more dedicated to straight social media scheduling. I preview the calendar overview offered by CoSchedule, which makes it easy to see everything at a glance. PromoRepublic is similar but has the added Canva-type integration, which makes it more appealing to our clients who want to be able to easily put together their own images. CoSchedule is a bit pricy, which can be prohibitive for clients who don't pay in dollars.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • As mentioned previously iCal provides more info to me than just an appointment
  • i can add attachments like notes or links to other services inside the appointment and these will synchronise across my devices.
  • The search functionality in iCal allows me to save items in the notes and then find them at a later stage. An example - I save key information about meetings or activities and then when I am looking for it at a later stage i can jjst search iCal and find it without having to look for documents or through my notes.
  • There is no default video call setting (like Google has Meet as a default and Microsoft has Teams) this is a problem in that I can't schedule video calls so the work around is that I sync to a Gmail calender and then schedule the video call (Meet) in Google
Read full review
  • Operationally, it is easier and faster to train new staff and get them comfortable in their roles and with their projects.
  • We are producing more content, faster.
  • We are more aware of what everyone else in the department is working on.
Read full review
ScreenShots

CoSchedule Marketing Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Calendar Organizer: Visualizes everything in real time, and shows every project on a unified calendar of record. Helps to keep stakeholders in the know and pivot quickly when priorities change.Screenshot of Content Organizer: Eliminates content bottlenecks from idea to promotion. Optimizes the editorial process, and centralizes publishing and promotion by connecting marketing tools.Screenshot of Work Organizer: Maximizes resources by implementing consistent, defined workflows to speed up production and identify how urgent changes impact proactively planned work.Screenshot of Asset Organizer: Catalogs and maintains control of brand assets with customized taxonomies to find, update, and share files. Folders and files can be shared with stakeholders to make sure work is up-to-date.Screenshot of Idea Board: Used to write down ideas, take in requests, and prioritize the projects that are up-next, before giving them a publish date and putting them on the calendar organizer.Screenshot of An AI-powered Marketing Intelligence Assistant that can be used to write first-draft copy, complete work faster, and generate new ideas.