How Much Does a Seating Chart App Cost in 2026?
Key Takeaways
- A single wedding or dinner rarely justifies a subscription: one-time options start at £8 (seatplan.io) and $29 (SeatPlanning Event Pass).
- SeatPlanning's Premium at $39 a month costs more than an Event Pass, so it only wins once you run about two events a month.
- Event Pass Max at $99 adds QR check-in and bigger limits; skip it unless you will scan guests at the door.
- Free tiers differ sharply: SeatPlanning's free account saves 5 tables and 40 seats per chart, while seatplan.io's free designer cannot save or export.
- Compare cost per event actually run, not the headline price.
Last checked October 2026. Prices are from each company's public site on that date and can change.
Seating chart tools sell in three ways: free, pay once, or pay monthly. Which is cheapest has little to do with the number on the page and a lot to do with how many events you run.
What a single event costs
| Tool | One-event option | Price | What the page says you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| SeatPlanning | Free account | $0 | 5 tables and 40 seats per chart |
| SeatPlanning | Event Pass | $29 one-time | One event |
| SeatPlanning | Event Pass Max | $99 one-time | Bigger limits, QR check-in included |
| seatplan.io | Pro | £8 one-time | Saving and PDF export for 90 days, 3 AI imports a month |
| seatplan.io | Collaborate | £14 one-time | Adds 2 collaborators, share links, QR seat finder, wallet passes |
| PerfectTablePlan | Desktop licence | $29.95 one-time, per user | Windows and Mac, works offline, free trial |
| Joy | Built-in planning tools | Page says its planning tools are free | Tied to Joy's guest list |
| Zola, The Knot, WeddingWire, Canva | Check their sites | Zola's page gave no price and the others would not load, so we will not guess |
The spread is small, about £8 to $30, so choose on fit. A free tool that cannot export the PDF your venue needs costs more than $29.
Free: where the limits really bite
SeatPlanning's free chart works without an account, and a free account keeps 5 tables and 40 seats per chart. At 8 per table, 40 guests is exactly 5 tables, so a small dinner fits and a 60-person party does not. The capacity calculator gives your table count first, so you know before building.
seatplan.io's free designer needs no sign-up but, per its own page, will not save your work or export a PDF. That makes it a trial, not a free plan.
Pay once: pass or licence
For one wedding, one-time wins. Event Pass at $29 covers one event. Pay the $70 more for Max ($99) only if you will scan guests in at the door, since QR check-in comes with it. The honest test: would a volunteer with a printed list do the job? For 60 guests, yes. For 250 arriving in ten minutes, the scan pays for itself in sanity. The QR guide has the queue arithmetic.
PerfectTablePlan's $29.95 is a licence per user rather than per event, and works offline. If you will run many events on one laptop, that is the cheapest route here.
Subscriptions: the break-even
At SeatPlanning's prices, a $39 Premium month equals 1.34 Event Passes ($39 ÷ $29). So:
- 1 event in a month: pass is cheaper ($29 vs $39).
- 2 events in a month: Premium ($39) vs two passes ($58), so Premium wins.
- Over a year, Premium is $468 ($39 × 12), the cost of 16 passes; Professional at $89 is $1,068 a year.
- Against Max ($99 per event), a single month of Premium ($39) is already cheaper than one Max pass.
seatplan.io's Event Manager is £40 a month billed annually, so £480 a year (£40 × 12), with unlimited events. A freelance planner doing a dozen events a year is the buyer for any of these; a couple is not.
Features worth paying for, and ones to skip
Pay for what removes hours: spreadsheet guest import, RSVP and invitation emails, collaborators so a partner or planner can edit, and export to PDF and Excel for the venue. Automatic guest seating (three questions, preview, apply, undo) is paid at SeatPlanning and is worth it past roughly 100 guests. Below that, dragging is faster than answering questions. AI floor-plan import from a photo or PDF gets one free trial and then monthly imports on paid plans; seatplan.io also gives one free import.
Skip anything you can't name a use for. A wedding almost never needs a team workspace or unlimited events.
Decision rule
One event this year: free tool if it exports; otherwise a one-time pass. Door check-in: Max, or seatplan.io Collaborate. Several events a month: subscription. Compare tool-by-tool fit in our maker comparison, and see current SeatPlanning plans on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a genuinely free seating chart app?
Yes, within limits. SeatPlanning opens without an account and a free account stores 5 tables and 40 seats per chart, enough for a dinner party of 40. Joy's page says its planning tools are free, and wedding sites often include seating for their couples. seatplan.io's free designer needs no sign-up but will not save or export, so treat it as a trial.
What is the cheapest seating chart software for one wedding?
On the prices we could verify, seatplan.io Pro at £8 one-time, then SeatPlanning Event Pass at $29 and PerfectTablePlan at $29.95. Wedding-site tools can cost nothing extra if your RSVPs already live there. The cheapest option is not always the right one: check it saves and exports the PDF your venue wants.
Should I buy an Event Pass or Event Pass Max?
Buy Max if you will check guests in at the door with QR codes or your chart goes past the basic pass's limits; otherwise the $29 pass covers a normal wedding plan. The $70 difference is the price of QR check-in and the larger limits, so weigh it against a clipboard and a volunteer.
When does a subscription beat one-time passes?
At SeatPlanning's prices, Premium ($39 a month) is cheaper than buying a $29 Event Pass per event once you run two or more events in a month. Over a year it totals $468, the same as about sixteen passes. For one or two events a year, a subscription never pays back.
Do seating apps charge per guest?
The three we checked do not publish a per-guest rate. SeatPlanning limits by tables and seats per chart on the free account, and by plan above that. PerfectTablePlan prices per user. seatplan.io prices by plan and events. Ask for the guest cap in writing before paying if you have over 200 guests.
Can I get a refund if the tool does not work for me?
Check each company's own terms before paying. PerfectTablePlan's site states a 14-day money-back guarantee and a free trial, and seatplan.io's states a refund if you find a better seat planning tool. For SeatPlanning, read the pricing page and terms for the current refund rules.
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