Planning Pod Review

Monday, December 2nd

2024 Wedding Planning Software Reviews

Planning Pod

• Planning tools starting at $59
• Floor plan design product starting at $39/month
• Venue and facilities management for $149/month
• 14-day free trial
• Cancel any time
• Thorough onboarding training

Planning Pod was started as a response to a lack of technological advancement and software systems for event professionals, designed to be a solution for managing the hundreds of details that swirl around every event by creating smooth workflows. Planning Pod set out to automate processes that sucked up a lot of time and help entrepreneurs run their own businesses more efficiently. The company is based out of the Rocky Mountains in Denver, Colorado and was officially launched in 2013.

All-in-one management

Planning Pod boasts that they're the all-in-one management software for event planners and venues. They have helped over 20,000 professionals save over 62 hours a month by streamlining their processes and communications using their event software. The tools included for wedding planners include budget and payment tracking, calendars and appointments, checklists and worksheets, email communications, contracts and e-signatures, forms and surveys, guest lists, seating charts, templates, invoicing and payments, vendor management, wedding websites - and that's just the beginning.

3 separate products

Even though Planning Pod has a robust list of tools you can use, the pricing isn't exactly all-in-one. The three separate products they offer are event management and planning, venues and facilities, and floor plan design. Event management and planning is a suite of event planning and management tools that starts at $59/month for a "Planner” plan for small firms and teams. It allows for unlimited users, but you can't share data across other platforms. You can plan up to 10 events at one time with this subscription. For $89/month with the "Business” plan you can plan up to 25 events at once and get nearly the same tools as the "Planner” plan, except you will be able to integrate with other platforms. The "Enterprise 50” plan is $129/month and you can plan up to 50 events at a time. If you're an even bigger company and need to manage anywhere from 75-2,000 events a time, you can call for pricing on that.

Bookings, billing, and clients

The venues and facilities product can streamline operations by managing bookings, billing, and clients. It has features for lead tracking, creating proposals and contracts with e-signatures, invoicing, electronic bookings calendar, banquet event orders, checklists, file sharing, message boards, notes, reports, task management, and a long list of others. The cost for this product starts at $149/month billed annually. To see a full demo or get other pricing options, Planning Pod has provided a phone number for you.

Arrange your floor plan and seating

Lastly, if you just want tools to help you with wedding floor plans and seating charts, you could spend anywhere from $39/month for up to 30 events per year or $99/month for up to 100 events per year. If you plan on having a busier schedule than that, you'd need to call for Enterprise pricing and get a custom price to fit your needs. With this product, you can build out a room/space perimeter, use templates, get access to venue layout libraries, use the table/chair element library, practice furniture placement, use a ruler and notes, drag and drop assigned seating arrangements, and everything else you might find useful when trying to arrange people and places. An extensive list of the tools available can be viewed on the website.

Call for free trial

There are a lot of neat things you can do with Planning Pod, but it's hard to wrap your mind around without a visual of how it all integrates and works together. Some places on their website mention a 14-day free trial that you could use to start adding your information and playing around with the features. From there you should be able to carry over everything from your trial account into a paid subscription of your choice. You'll have to call Planning Pod to set up your free trial since they don't have a way to start one from their site and they don't mention it very many times, so we assume they'd rather have people just jump into a subscription. .

Thorough onboarding process

Once you decide which products you want from Planning Pod, you'll go through their onboarding process to get the ball rolling. This includes data importing, 2 hours of custom training and onboarding, API integrations assistance, and a dedicated account executive you can turn to along the way. They also have help center articles that could take care of a lot of your questions and how-to videos as well.

No refunds

Planning Pod does not offer refunds. You can cancel your membership with them at any time, but you'll still have access to the platform until the end of your billing cycle and then you won't be charged again. This means that if you pay for an annual plan and cancel a couple of months in, you won't get a prorated refund, so you might as well use any helpful features from Planning Pod until your year is through. The information you uploaded to your account is stored for 2 years, so if you decide to subscribe again at a later date, you won't lose all your previous work.

Well-liked by professionals

There is no rating from the Better Business Bureau for Planning Pod, but overall the professionals who use the system like it. They say there is a learning curve, so the onboarding training is essential (as is the ability to reach out to your assigned account executive). Customer reps seem to know the features really well and they do great demos if you're interested in that. We did read that some clients find the product a bit confusing, but otherwise it is an efficient choice that is ever-evolving to meet client's needs.

Well thought out software

As for the brides and grooms looking for assistance to put together their big day with friends and family, Planning Pod won't be what you're looking for. But, if you're a professional wedding planner or in charge of any type of big events throughout the year, Planning Pod is designed for you. They have definitely thought of all the features you'd need when planning a big event. We just wish they had pricing for the entire system and all three products as a whole. If this exists, they don't list it anywhere, so we would like some clarification on that. As a whole, Planning Pod is a well thought out system that deserves consideration from those in the market for an extensive (and somewhat pricey) software service for event planning.