10 Time Zone Converter Tools to Schedule Meetings Worldwide (2025 Guide)
A honest roundup of converters and planners, what each is best for, where they fall short, and how to keep a living overlap board for your team. —
Picking a time across continents shouldn't feel like air-traffic control. Converters are great at math; teams need clarity, context, and shareability. Here's a practical guide to 10 tools what they do well, where they wobble, and when to reach for each. Spoiler: for recurring work with the same people, a shared overlap board beats a one-off converter every time.
Comparison at a glance
Tool | Best For | Why Teams Like It | Watch-Outs | Try This |
---|---|---|---|---|
Timezoners | Recurring collaboration with the same teammates across US/EU/APAC | Live board of people + working hours; instant "green zone" overlap; sharable no-login links | Not a full calendar (by design) still send invites via Google/Outlook | Create a board, mark no-meeting blocks, and pin the link in Slack. Update cities when people travel. |
timeanddate Meeting Planner | Quick multi-city windows (prospects, vendors, webinars) | Huge city database; reliable DST rules; clear red/green blocks | No team persistence; must rebuild cities each time | Propose two UTC-anchored slots ~12h apart so one is humane for all. |
WorldTimeBuddy | Fast "what time is it there?" comparisons | Familiar timeline; drag to select windows | City-centric, not team-centric; recurring meetings still manual | Save a shortlist of critical cities; use overlap board for ongoing cadence. |
SavvyTime | Sales/support with external guests | Simple overlap view; links/screenshots easy to share | No teammate persistence; limited working-hour logic | Save a default window template (e.g., "US morning / EU afternoon") for reuse. |
Every Time Zone | Solo sanity checks | Minimalist slider; frictionless | Not for groups; DST quirks easy to miss | Use for quick confirmation, then plan in a proper overlap tool. |
Google Calendar TZ Features | Preventing mistakes in invites | Dual time-zones, world clock sidebar, per-event TZ | No multi-teammate overlap grid; messy for external orgs | Decide slot in an overlap tool, then set event TZ to recipient's city + paste UTC note. |
Outlook Scheduling Assistant / Teams | Internal meetings in Microsoft shops | Built-in availability + timezone awareness | Weak for cross-org or mixed toolchains; still need neutral overlap | Use internally, but keep a neutral overlap board for external cadence. |
The Time Zone Converter | Quick one-off conversions | Simple, uncluttered, copy-paste friendly | No teams; no working hours; pure math | Convert to UTC first, then share both UTC + local times. |
Dateful Converter | Clean, copy-ready outputs | Human-readable strings; easy for docs/email | Same as other basics no persistence or overlap logic | Keep snippets of your top cities for faster repeats. |
Timezone.io | Awareness of where teammates are | Person-centric directory; good for onboarding | Awareness ≠ scheduling; no overlap selection | Link from your "How we work" doc; pair with a Timezoners board. |
A simple playbook that actually works
- Pick the slot where overlap is obvious. Use Timezoners to see a living green zone for the people involved not just cities.
- Anchor in UTC. Share your proposal like this: "3-4pm UTC (NY 11–12am, London 4–5pm)." Fewer DST surprises.
- Send from your calendar. Set the event's timezone to the recipient's location and paste the UTC note in the description.
- Write it down once. Pin your overlap board in Slack and link it in your working agreement so newcomers inherit your scheduling rules.
FAQs
-
Q: Do I still need a converter if my calendar handles time zones?
Yes your calendar prevents broken invites, but it doesn't make the overlap obvious. Decide the time in a planner, then send the invite. -
Q: What's the least painful US–EU window?
Aim for late-morning ET / late-afternoon UK. When guessing, anchor in UTC and offer two options to keep things humane. -
Q: How do we stay fair across US–EU–APAC?
Rotate across three UTC anchors on a published schedule so the burden is shared predictably.