Begin with the part that is already settled
Optix, Ocuco, Acuitas, Jane and Cliniko all take eye test bookings online, and each will hold separate appointment types for a standard test, a contact lens check and a children's test. Acuity is the sixth name that comes up, and the fair question to put to it on a trial is whether it needs to reach your clinical records at all or simply needs to fill chairs.
That shared floor is why a feature table is a waste of an afternoon. Capability is rarely what goes wrong. Fit at your size is, and so is what the thing does to a site once embedded in one.
Why there is no ranking here
A league table of practice software tells one practice almost nothing. What suits a single-handed high-street optician with one test room does not suit a three-branch group with a dispensing team, and neither of them cares about the detail that decided it for a domiciliary service. So what follows are the questions that actually separate these six for an optometry diary. Load your own test types into a trial and ask them before you sign anything.
Can it hold three test lengths honestly?
Set up all three types and book each one yourself. Watch whether the diary blocks the right amount of test-room time rather than a default half hour, whether it will let two long appointments land back to back on the same optometrist, and whether the patient reads a plain name instead of an internal code. A wrong-length booking does more damage than a missed one, because it takes the rest of the afternoon with it.
Can a funded test be its own bookable type?
Whether it is the NHS, Medicare or provincial coverage where you practise, the funded test is the appointment patients most want and least understand. Ask whether the system carries it as a type of its own, whether the eligibility questions can be asked at the point of booking rather than at the desk, and what the patient sees when the answer sends them elsewhere. Do not let the form restate the scheme's rules — link the page that explains them.
Does a recall end on the booking page?
Eye care lives on people coming back, and a recall is only worth sending if it ends in a booked slot rather than a returned call. Find the recall list in the trial, send one to yourself, and open it on a phone. The thing to watch is where the link lands: on a page with the right test type already chosen, or on a home page that makes them start again.
Can a patient ask for a named optometrist?
Where more than one person tests, patients want a person. Check whether availability filters down to one optometrist, whether each can carry their own types and lengths, and whether a direct link exists that books that individual. That link is what belongs under a profile page carrying a registration number, and without it the profile is decoration.
Where does a lens reorder actually land?
Reordering contacts is not an appointment, and systems treat it very differently — inside the record, in a separate shop, or nowhere. Ask where a reorder arrives, whether an existing wearer needs a login to place one, and whether it reaches a list your staff already watch. If the honest answer is a spreadsheet behind the counter, the site should not imply otherwise.
What the widget does to the frames pages
This is the question nobody asks and everybody lives with. Load the embed once on a phone that is off the Wi-Fi and watch what shifts under your thumb. Then keep that script on the booking page and nowhere else: the frame and lens pages are the ones doing the persuading, and a scheduler loading on all of them slows exactly the pages a patient reads before deciding to come in at all.
Where this sits
Every optometry practice website we build embeds whichever of these you already run, styled to match, at a fixed price. For what the build itself comes to, read what an optician website costs, or audit the site you have with the six phone tests.