Booksui vs Planning Pod
A Booksui alternative to Planning Pod
Planning Pod serves event planners and venues across every kind of event, with a wide set of planning tools in one account. Booksui is narrower on purpose: it runs a wedding business — the inquiry, the proposal, the contract, the invoices — with a coordinator’s pipeline from discovery to event day and paperwork written for planners.
Planning Pod is known for event management software for event planners and venues — planning tools, floor plans and seating charts, registration, venue bookings, proposals and invoices in one account. The table below sets Booksui’s own features next to that, in plain terms.
| Topic | Booksui | Planning Pod |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Wedding photographers, videographers, DJs and planners alike. You pick your trade and its pipeline phases, checklists, contracts and templates are installed for it. | Event planners, venues and event teams, across corporate, social and wedding events. |
| Planning tools | Checklists per phase rather than planning tools — the floor plan confirmed in the actual room, rentals checked item by item, arrival times reconfirmed with every vendor. There is no floor plan designer, seating chart, guest list or registration in Booksui. | A strength: floor plans and seating charts, guest lists, budgets, timelines and event registration. |
| Venues | Venues and vendors attach to the job with their contacts, so a wedding’s caterer, florist, photographer and DJ sit on its record. Booksui does not run a venue’s own room or space bookings. | Venue booking and space management for venues, alongside the planner’s tools. |
| The inquiry | A shared inbox where a website inquiry, its email replies and private team notes sit on one thread next to the event details, and replies to what you send come back to the same conversation. | Lead capture and client records inside the event platform. |
| Proposals and contracts | Full, partial and day-of coordination as packages on your price sheet. The proposal spells out what each includes and becomes a contract the couple signs on their phone; Full-Service Event Planning and Event Day Coordination agreements are installed for planners, and the invoice can carry a payment schedule. | Proposals, contracts and invoices for events and venue bookings. |
| Price | Starter is free with no card (3 galleries, 1 booking page, 10 active inquiries). Pro $29/mo, Studio $59/mo, Agency $99/mo. 30-day refund on your first paid month. | Set by Planning Pod and changed by Planning Pod; their current pricing page is the only honest source, so this page does not quote it. |
Who switches, and why
- Wedding planners who use a small part of a platform built for every kind of event, and want one shaped around weddings.
- Coordinators who want each inquiry answered from a shared inbox with the date, venue and guest count beside the reply.
- Planners who sell full, partial and day-of packages and want each one to become a proposal and then a contract without retyping.
What you keep
- Your planning documents, if you want them: Booksui does not replace floor plans, seating or registration, so Planning Pod or your own files can stay for those.
- Your service levels, as packages on the price sheet.
- Your contract language, pasted into the planning agreement templates with merge fields.
What changes
- Each wedding moves through a coordinator’s phases — discovery, design & planning, vendor contracting, final details, event week, event day — and each phase lands its checklist on the job.
- Inquiries become a shared inbox with the event details beside the reply.
- Floor plans, seating charts, guest lists and registration are not in Booksui; if you rely on them, keep a planning tool for that part.
How the move happens
- 1Export your client contacts from Planning Pod as a CSV. If your account has no export, a spreadsheet of names and emails imports the same way.
- 2In Booksui, Import → Upload CSV; check the column matching and confirm. Events, floor plans and invoices stay in Planning Pod.
- 3Pick Event Coordinator during onboarding so the coordinator pipeline, checklists and planning agreements are installed, then add your packages to the price sheet.
- 4Point your website inquiry form at Booksui.
Importing
Any CSV of contacts imports through the generic path: upload, check the column matching, confirm. Names, email, phone, company, type, source and notes come across, and anyone already on file with the same email is skipped. Jobs, invoices and documents do not come across this way — write to us and we will help with the rest.
When Planning Pod is the better choice
If you run a venue, plan corporate or multi-day events, or depend on floor plans, seating charts and registration, Planning Pod is built for that range and Booksui is not. Booksui is the narrower choice for a wedding planning business that wants the inquiry-to-invoice side done well.
Questions
- Does Booksui have floor plans and seating charts?
- No. Booksui runs the business side of planning — inquiry, proposal, contract, invoices and the coordinator’s phases — and the Design & planning and Final details checklists remind you to confirm the floor plan with the venue; the plan itself stays in your own tool.
- Can a venue use Booksui?
- Not as a venue-management system: there is no room or space booking. Venues attach to a planner’s jobs as records with their contacts.
- Can I import from Planning Pod?
- There is no dedicated Planning Pod import. Client contacts come across through the generic CSV path; events, floor plans and invoices do not.
- Is there a free plan?
- Yes, no card required; limits are on the pricing page.
Planning Pod’s pricing and feature set are set by Planning Pod, change over time, and are worth checking on their own site — this page reflects Booksui’s own features accurately and describes Planning Pod in general, well-known terms rather than a line-by-line audit of their current product.