--- title: Calira Reviews meta_title: 'Calira Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 10 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Calira works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.8 review_count: 10 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-24' parent_category: name: Life Sciences url: https://www.g2.com/categories/life-sciences --- # Calira Reviews **Vendor:** Calira **Category:** [Pharma and Biotech Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/pharma-and-biotech) **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 10 ## About Calira Calira is an equipment booking and management platform for shared R&D lab equipment. It replaces the shared spreadsheets, Outlook calendars, paper signup sheets, and other improvised systems that most labs use to manage access to shared instruments. Labs use Calira to track instrument utilisation, improve asset visibility, reduce booking conflicts, prevent downtime, plan CapEx, and produce structured usage data. More than 1,800 labs in 53 countries run on Calira, including teams at Moderna, Takeda, Eli Lilly, Bayer, Novo Nordisk, Stanford, and MIT. Feature overview: - Equipment booking: Real-time booking calendar with booking rules, approval workflows, recurring bookings, and multi-equipment booking (up to 5 instruments per session) - Equipment management: Searchable directory of every instrument with location, metadata, purchase price, and QR code labels for walk-up mobile booking - Usage reporting: Per-instrument utilisation reports, filterable by team, department, or site, with export to CSV, Excel, or BI tools - Maintenance tracking: Planned calibration and servicing with task assignment, service contract tracking, and automatic booking blocks during downtime - User management: Training-based access rules, role-based permissions, and approval workflows to prevent untrained users from booking sensitive instruments - Notifications: Booking reminders, maintenance alerts, and lab-wide announcements - LabTrack: A desktop application that captures real instrument usage and controls access at the PC ## Calira Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users commend the **efficient customer support** from Clustermarket, highlighting helpful staff and smooth subscription upgrades. (2 reviews) - Users find the **reporting features** of Calira essential for effective billing and equipment status updates. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **seamless transition and tailored support** from Nathan, enhancing their experience with Clustermarket. (1 reviews) - Users praise the **efficient training support** of Calira, making it easier to keep everyone informed and updated. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the switch to a **paid service** after years of free access to be unexpectedly expensive. (1 reviews) ## Calira Reviews ### 1. Robust and Flexible Tool, Essential for Management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jose Miguel A. | Responsable Plataforma Citometría de Flujo, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** I like being able to upload any detail that technically describes all my equipment and share useful information such as the optical configuration of each cytometer. I can make quick announcements to all users about any incident, problem, or scheduled maintenance on any equipment. Another valuable feature is the ability to edit the available time slots for equipment use according to the privileges of different user groups. I also value being able to quickly search for any user. Calira is an extremely robust, flexible, and intuitive tool, and if you have any questions or problems, customer support is quick, committed, and efficient. My users can download the optical configuration of the cytometry equipment in PDF, which they greatly appreciate. Additionally, the ability to group users with different privileges is very useful, allowing those who are trained to manage their own reservations without relying on me. **What do you dislike about Calira?** When making any type of "announcement" I miss the ability to filter by creation date, apart from the fact that the creation date doesn't appear anywhere. I think it would be very useful to be able to know or check the creation date of an announcement and to be able to filter searches by date. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calira organizes equipment reservations and maintenance, simplifies billing, and allows real-time viewing of equipment occupancy. It facilitates the sharing of technical information and manages user privileges, which saves time and improves efficiency. ### 2. Seamless Equipment Booking Management That Empowers Users **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tim R. | Flow Cytometry Lab Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** We run a core facility at an academic institution so we really enjoy how seamless equipment booking management has been with Calira. Users are able to manage their own bookings and update them as needed, so booking management is much easier for the lab admins **What do you dislike about Calira?** I don't really think there are many downsides. We mainly use Calira for booking management, and have been looking into the other features. One glitch I found was that I had some user booking rule conflicts that were difficult to diagnose, but I was able to resolve it fairly easily **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing equipment booking where there is a large user base ### 3. Revolutionized Our Equipment Management with Ease **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** john p. | Research Technologist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 06, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** I find Calira incredibly useful for booking scientific equipment, managing financial cost reporting, and facilitating payments. It provides a clear real-time overview of equipment availability and location, which helps researchers plan their work efficiently. I like that it makes the status of instruments clear and includes specification details, saving time for users. Generating reports on research groups is a breeze, and it’s great for tracking financial returns from each instrument. It also helps to identify the most efficient users. Adding users and instruments is straightforward, and I appreciate how it streamlines usage hours to ensure fair access to lab equipment and prevent overuse. The platform is very straightforward and easy to set up; everything flows logically, and inviting or removing users is simple. Overall, I genuinely believe it’s the best platform for an online booking equipment calendar that I have used in many years. Customer support from Nathan is very professiona and efficient. The team provide rapid replies and related information to messages and queries sent to them. **What do you dislike about Calira?** Creating announcements: it would be great if you had a feature option button which enabled you to select everyone, currently you have to select each user individually. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calira provides a real-time overview of equipment availability and location, helping researchers plan efficiently. It lets me track equipment usage, generate cost reports, and streamline usage hours, ensuring fair use and recouping maintenance costs. ### 4. Calira: Intuitive Lab Management with TRAC Costing, Easy Reporting & Excellent Support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Chemicals | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 30, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** The UI is intuitive and easy to use. Being able to set individual or group booking rules means user-access can be managed effectively based on their experience level; this protects sensitive instruments against misuse. As a TRAC costed facility we need to be able to log instrument uptime/downtime, user numbers , income generated and maintenance. We also need to assign sessions and costs to specific UKRI funding bodies which can do easily through the Projects option. Reports and spreadsheets capturing all of these metrics can then be generated at the click of a button. Being able to upload documents to each individual equipment dashboard is superb as we can then have the Risk Assessments, Standard operating procedures , instruction manuals etc available to every user at the point of booking. Support from Calira has been excellent and the software is competitively priced. As an academic facility with limited budget fully integrated PIMS and LIMS systems are prohibitively expensive and not an option for us. They are also overly complicated and often have a level of functionality we do not need, Calira provides everything we need. **What do you dislike about Calira?** To date there is actually nothing I dislike about this platform. It provides everything we need and I have not encountered any issues. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to assign projects and cost codes to every user or group is the biggest time saver and has completely removed the need to log users time and costs separately on a case by case basis. This would take a few days a month to collate and is now available at a click of a button. Users can also now see the costs of their session upfront prior to booking allowing them to plan and budget accordingly. As we recently moved to TRAC costing it a requirement for us to be fully transparent in our accounting and be able to show how grants are being spent across our instruments, Calira now covers all this. ### 5. Intuitive, User-Friendly UI with Promising Roadmap **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tizian P. | IT-Manager GxP, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 08, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** The UI is very intuitive and clearly designed for end users. It’s kept as simple as possible, so the application can be handled easily and without any specific training. The support and the ongoing roadmap are also very promising, and they seem to address customer needs and feedback well. **What do you dislike about Calira?** This globally used application can only be customized to a certain extent. At times, we need more flexibility than it currently offers. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** It gives us the opportunity to communicate quickly with all users about any breakdowns or scheduled repairs. It also helps users with experimental planning and gives us insight into how instruments are used, including where we might need to invest in additional instruments or automated solutions. ### 6. Comprehensive Lab Management with Minor User Rule Challenges **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 10, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** I like that all of the lab management can be done in one place with Calira. It allows us to store a range of different documents online, which enables various managers throughout the different parts of the process to access documentation and all the information that users may have submitted. This is really convenient for us in organizing laboratory operations. **What do you dislike about Calira?** Sometimes it's difficult to understand what user/equipment rules are and how they link across different services and equipment or groups of equipment. It becomes quite hard to understand how to change those rules in a unified way. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calira helps us organize lab bookings and requests for research and teaching. It centralizes management, storing documents online for easy access by managers, streamlining lab processes. ### 7. Equipment Booking and Lab Dashboard Make Lab Management Effortless **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Biotechnology | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 02, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** Equipment booking, the lab dashboard and being able to send announcement to all lab users. **What do you dislike about Calira?** The Reports option, I am unable to open the excel report with the equipment list. It is not user friendly, and does not give me the information I need. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calira is solving scheduling problems for our shared lab equipment, and communication about equipment downtime and servicing. Having Calira saves a me and my tenants a lot of time and imrpoves our lab's efficiency. ### 8. All Booking Tools and Information in One Place **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 29, 2026 **What do you like best about Calira?** Good to have all instrument for booking in one place and to be able to keep all information in one place **What do you dislike about Calira?** If I as an administrator wants to contact all users in one access group there is no button - contact all. It is complicated to change time for start and end for my bookings, could be better to be able to write it in different places. Now the start time change when I try to change the end time. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** To have an overview of booking of different instruments in our core facility. Easy to add more instruments to the users. ### 9. A great experience **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** kelly H. | Technical Operations Assistant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2025 **What do you like best about Calira?** We upgraded our subscription from basic/premium to the enterprise package combining the building labs together. This was all done from the advice and guidance from Nathan, the Customer Success Manager. The whole process was very smooth, with regular check ins and plenty of information and examples to help us make sure this package was the right fit for us. Nathan was very attentive to your needs as a research building and made the transition of labs seamless. Overall, users find Clustermarket simple to use, and management are finding the benefit of the tailored reports. Small features such as generating QR codes for bookings are extremely useful. **What do you dislike about Calira?** The only downside for us is the marketplace feature. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** Clustermarket helps with the management of labs, creating a better flow of usage with the equipment. This can also be tracked by management in the reports and the data utilised to make for a more efficient workspace. ### 10. It is an easy, flexible, intuitive, and very robust tool to work with **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jose Miguel A. | Flow Cytometry Platform Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 05, 2024 **What do you like best about Calira?** The team support behind Clustermarket is a bonus. They have always been professional, helpful, and very efficient when answering all our questions. Both Reports & Announcements features are now essential for billing and getting all our users updated on equipment status or training courses. **What do you dislike about Calira?** To point out a drawback, I would just mention that the platform was initially free for public academic institutions like ours, but after several years, it became a paid service. This was an unexpected change and an additional expense that we had to justify to our decision-makers. In any case, Clustermarket greatly facilitated this transition. **What problems is Calira solving and how is that benefiting you?** IDIBELL started having issues with their previous booking system failing - with users experiencing recurring breakdowns and having the booking calendar unavailable for days. This caused the instrument bookings to be managed via mobile devices and Outlook calendar, resulting in an exhausting, demanding, and very time-consuming experience. Clustermarket now supports all these researchers and managers with their research and day-to-day operations by helping easily manage instrument bookings. The resource booking system allows robust, agile, and efficient management of instruments, as well as giving a clear availability overview in a real-time calendar. Immediate announcements help the labs reach all users to inform about instrument status and availability and the reports feature helps make billing smooth. - [View Calira pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/calira/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-26+03%3A47%3A32+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=059cbdd1-7026-488c-bc6f-b92738947510&secure%5Btoken%5D=2a26ff29d9e2c6213694315008f3fd2bc2c8d1b0910ef7c32ca5c4fb41f2c901&format=llm_user) ## Calira Integrations - [Microsoft Outlook](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-outlook/reviews) ## Calira Features **Resource Management** - Inventory Control **Operations** - Task Automation **Operations Management** - Records Maintenance - Excel Data Import - User Access Settings **Activity Management** - Information Management - Process Automation ## Top Calira Alternatives - [Qualio](https://www.g2.com/products/qualio/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (771 reviews) - [SciNote](https://www.g2.com/products/scinote/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (303 reviews) - [CrelioHealth LIMS](https://www.g2.com/products/creliohealth-for-diagnostics-product/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (251 reviews)