Why we built WhenWhen
Posted
The tool we used
For years the scheduling tool here was Doodle. Propose a few times, send the link, let everyone vote, pick the winner. It did the job.
The free plan is a different thing now. Doodle's own pages describe it:
- Creating a group poll needs a Doodle account. You can begin the setup signed out, but you are prompted to sign up before you can finalize it. Voting still needs no account (Doodle help, dated August 26, 2025).
- The free plan includes "One Group Poll", with a limit of 10 time slots (Doodle premium, Free and Professional at a glance).
- Free polls carry ads for the organizer and for every participant. Doodle lists "No ads for organizers or participants" as a thing the Professional plan includes (same page).
- A free poll is deleted 30 days after its last proposed date or 30 days after the last time anyone opened it, whichever comes later. Once it goes, Doodle says it cannot be recovered (Doodle help).
- Deleting a poll you created yourself requires a Professional subscription (Doodle help).
- The iOS and Android apps were pulled from the app stores. A rebuilt app is promised, with no date attached (Doodle mobile app change).
- New API access ended on June 11, 2024 (Doodle API deprecation).
None of that is unreasonable for a company that has to pay for itself. It is also a different product from the one we started using. The part we relied on was sending a link to people who have no accounts and getting their votes back, and that now opens with a sign-up. So we built the tool we wanted.
What WhenWhen is
WhenWhen is a scheduling poll. You create an event with a few proposed times and share one link. People vote yes, no, or if-needed on each time. You watch the votes arrive, finalize a time, and everyone gets add-to-calendar links: an .ics file, Google, Outlook.
Nobody needs an account, the organizer included. Creating an event hands you a private admin link, and that link is the control: it opens the results, edits the event, finalizes the time, and deletes the whole thing.
Free on every tier: finalizing, the calendar files, times shown in each participant's own timezone, durable edit links so a voter can change their votes later, no ads, and no tracking. Voting stays open until you finalize the event or its last proposed time has passed.
What we decided differently
Finalizing more than one time slot. Some events need two dates locked in rather than one, and a decision that names both belongs on the event instead of in a follow-up message. It is a Pro feature; the pricing page has the plans.
No third-party scripts on a page that shows a group's names. An ad tag or an analytics tag is how a page ends up describing its visitors to somebody else, and a page listing who is coming to dinner should not do that. Two exceptions exist and both are named here: Turnstile, the bot check, on the pages that create an event, and Paddle's checkout script on /pay, the page a purchase hands off to. Nothing else on this site loads anything from another host.
Three links, one per capability. The share link lets someone vote. The admin link controls the event. Each voter gets an edit link for their own votes. All three work on any device, in any browser, with nothing to remember and nothing to reset.
The honest comparison
| Doodle, free plan | WhenWhen, no account | |
|---|---|---|
| Account to create | Required before you can finalize | Never required |
| Time slots per event | 10 | Set by the plan, on the pricing page |
| Ads | Shown to the organizer and to participants | None, on any plan |
| Deleting the event | Needs a Professional subscription | Anyone holding the admin link, at any time |
| Once the dates have passed | Deleted 30 days after the last date or the last time it was opened, whichever comes later | Voting closes and the page stays readable, then the event is deleted on the schedule the privacy policy sets out |
WhenWhen has less in it than Doodle does, and some of what is missing will matter to you. Nothing reads your calendar, so no busy time is imported and nothing fills your votes in for you. There is no availability grid to paint. A grid tells you when people are free. It does not tell anyone what was decided. You cannot set a response deadline of your own: voting closes when the last proposed time passes, or when you finalize. Every participant can see everyone else's votes, so there is no hidden-response mode. Email is notifications about an event you created or voted in, and nothing sends invitations or reminders you have written yourself.
Where it is
WhenWhen is live at whenwhen.io, free to use, and needs no account. The plans are on the pricing page. Questions, problems and requests go to support@whenwhen.io.