The PlanSeats Alternative

Side by side, for the seating chart specifically:

Want the wider field? See our honest comparison of the best wedding seating chart tools —PlanSeats, and the rest, side by side.

PlanSeats is an online seating chart maker for weddings and other events, from galas and fundraisers to corporate dinners. You paste in your guest list, draw the room with tables, a dance floor and a bar, drag guests onto seats (or let auto-assign fill them on a paid plan) and export a PDF. Its site says it works on a laptop, tablet or phone, and its Pro plan is aimed at planners, venues and coordinators. It’s a well-made tool with clear pricing, so this is a fair comparison rather than a takedown.

PlanSeats has three tiers. These are the figures on its pricing page when we checked in October 2026; prices change, so confirm on their site before you buy.

How that compares with Lovely Seating

The honest summary: for one wedding over 20 guests, PlanSeats asks you to pay before you can seat everyone, while Lovely Seating lets you build the whole plan free and pay once only to print. If you do pay, our one-time price is lower than Lifetime Plus, though a single month of PlanSeats Plus is cheaper still if you finish within the month. For three events in a year, PlanSeats’ $50 covers more. For a busy planner, PlanSeats Pro is the cheaper monthly plan; Agency costs more and adds white-label exports, a QR guest page and print stationery.

It does the core job well. The gaps show up as soon as a wedding grows past a dinner party:

• The free plan is very small. Twenty guests and four tables covers an intimate dinner, not most weddings, so you’re likely to pay before you can see your whole room.
• Automatic seating is paid. Seating rules and auto-assign come with Plus and Pro, so on the free plan every guest is placed by hand.
• Fewer wedding extras. We couldn’t find a guest QR seat finder, place cards or table numbers on its pricing or home page; exports are PNG, CSV and PDF.
• General-purpose by design. It serves galas and corporate events as well as weddings, so wedding details such as households, plus-ones and meal choices on the seat get less attention.

PlanSeats and Lovely Seating are both browser tools that work on a phone, and both sell a pay-once option. The difference is what you get before paying, and how much of the wedding the tool understands. With Lovely Seating you can import every guest, draw the room and let Auto-Seat place everyone for free, then pay once if you want the printed stationery and guest QR page.

• Start from your PlanSeats list. Import the guest list you already built in PlanSeats in one step — no re-typing anyone (more below).
• A floor plan of your room. The floor plan maker lets you drag and drop your real layout — round, banquet, head and sweetheart tables, plus the dance floor, bar, stage and other venue objects — and seat guests chair by chair.
• Automatic seating. Tag who must sit together and who to keep apart, and Auto-Seat places your unassigned guests in one click, honouring every rule — locked guests and reserved tables stay put, and one click undoes it.
• Every guest detail. RSVPs, meals, dietary notes, age and accessibility flags, plus-ones, groups and households — all joined to the seat.
• Complete exports (Pro). Nine export types in seven themes — a printable floor-plan seating chart, A–Z list, table list, table cards, table numbers, meal directory, place cards, welcome sign and a guest CSV — all from the same plan.
• A “find your seat” page for guests. Publish a guest page + QR code so guests search their name and see their table — and embed it on your wedding website (Pro).
• Free to build, no cap on guests. The free plan covers one wedding with unlimited guests and Auto-Seat; a one-time $39 Pro unlocks exports, place cards, the guest QR page and collaboration with your partner or planner — no subscription.

PlanSeats adds guest categories and tags on its paid plans. In Lovely Seating every guest carries RSVP, meal choice, dietary notes, age and accessibility flags, side, group, household and plus-one links, on the free plan, and every detail stays joined to the seat, so a late decline or a new +1 updates your plan and your caterer counts at once.

Open any guest and you get the full picture at a glance — no jumping between the guest list and a separate seating canvas.

And because meals live on the guest, you get a running count the moment you need it — the exact number your caterer needs, dietary flags included:

Still pulling the list together? Lovely Seating keeps every guest in one organised list, and the guest list import brings in an existing spreadsheet or CSV without retyping.

PlanSeats does offer seating rules and auto-assign, on Plus and Pro. Lovely Seating includes relationship-aware Auto-Seat on the free plan, for any number of guests. Set your rules once and seat the whole room in a click:

• Must sit together. A hard rule — couples, families, a guest and their carer always land at the same table.
• Would prefer together. A soft preference — honoured when there’s room, relaxed when there isn’t.
• Keep apart. A hard rule — feuding relatives or an ex never share a table, and the reason stays private.

When a plus-one appears or a late RSVP comes in, you don’t rebuild the room — re-run Auto-Seat and it seats anyone still unassigned into open seats, while guests you’ve already seated stay put. Lock anyone you never want moved, and undo any run in one click. Prefer to place people yourself? You still can, on the same plan — with a warning if you seat someone who’s declined or overfill a table.

We’d rather you land in the right place than just sign up. Here’s the honest split:

Export it as a CSV (or copy it from a spreadsheet) and import it into Lovely Seating — it takes minutes and you don’t re-type anyone. It matches the columns for you, links plus-ones, and flags duplicates before anything is added. (It’s a one-time CSV import, not a live sync with other platforms.)

Stuck on a step? The Lovely Seating help center walks through importing a CSV — including one exported from The Knot, Zola or Joy — merging duplicates and adding plus-ones.

Weighing up more than one option? These are the closest side-by-sides:

• SeatPlan.io alternative — a quick no-signup designer with cheap one-time plans, but paid plans keep your work for 90 days and seating is by hand.
• Top Table Planner alternative — a simple web planner with place cards and partner logins, but every guest is seated by hand.
• PerfectTablePlan alternative — powerful auto-seating and sized floor plans, but a Windows/Mac install with no phone or tablet version.