Planning Pod 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Screenshots
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews
Popular Comparisons

Overview

Planning Pod

4.3

(38)

Pricing

Starting at $74.00 per month

About Planning Pod

Planning Pod is an online event management solution that helps event professionals streamline day-to-day operations. The platform includes various integrated tools to manage various aspects of events, such as lead generation, client communication, floorplan design, and invoicing.

The system is designed to save users time by simplifying common tasks and automating complex processes. It offers features, such as an event CRM, email communications tools, booking calendar, task manager, client portals, proposals and contracts, and invoicing and payments. Users can access Planning Pod on mobile devices, view reporting dashboards, personalize accounts, and take advantage of data security features.

Planning Pod's comprehensive functionality and intuitive interface ensure that it is a suitable solution for event professionals looking to centralize operations, improve collaboration, and gain insights into the business. The platform integrates with numerous third-party applications, allowing users to streamline workflows and share data across multiple systems.

Planning Pod Screenshots

Planning Pod Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $74.00 per month

Free Trial

Free Version

Event Management Planner

$74.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Maximum number of events: 10
Unlimited number of users allowed
Accept Payments
Event Webpage Builder
Checklists
File Sharing
Invoice Payment Processing
Lead Webforms w/ Integrations
Email Communications
Curated Online Training

Event Management Business

$109.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Maximum number of events: 25
Share Data (via Zapier)

Event Management Enterprise 50

$159.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Maximum number of events: 50

Event Management Enterprise 75 And Up

Pricing available upon request

Plan includes:

Maximum number of events: 75 - 2000

Venue Management

$149.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

20+ timesaving tools
Unlimited users
Group training webinars
Custom training sessions
Premium support (phone, email, chat)
Online payment processing
API Integrations

Planning Pod Features

Popular features found in Venue Management
Attendee Management
Billing & Invoicing
Contract/License Management
Credit Card Processing
Event Management
Food & Beverage Management
Multi-Facility
Reservations Management
Sales Management
More features of Planning Pod
Access Control
Accounting Integration
Activity Dashboard
Agenda Management
Alerts/Notifications
Audience Engagement
Automated Scheduling
Badge Management
Banquet Management
Barcode/Ticket Scanning
Booking Management
Budget Management
Calendar Management
Calendar Sync
Communication Management
Conferences/Conventions
Confirmations/Reminders
Contact Database
Contact Management
CRM
Customer Database
Customer Management
Customizable Branding
Customizable Forms
Customizable Reports
Customizable Templates
Data Import/Export
Discount Management
Document Management
Drag & Drop
Electronic Payments
Electronic Signature
Email Marketing
Email Templates
Event Calendar
Event Scheduling
Event Ticketing
Exhibit/Vendor Management
Facility Management
Financial Analysis
For Catering Businesses
For Virtual Events
Gamification
Guest List Management
Historical Reporting
Inventory Management
Invoice Management
Kitchen/Menu Management
Lead Capture
Loyalty Program
Marketing Automation
Mobile Access
Multi-Location
Online Ordering
Online Payments
Online Registration
Order Management
Order Tracking
Payment Processing
Promotions Management
Proposal Generation
Quotes/Estimates
Real-Time Data
Real-Time Reporting
Real-Time Updates
Recipe Management
Recurring Orders
Registration Management
Reminders
Reporting/Analytics
Reporting & Statistics
Resource Management
Role-Based Permissions
Room Block Management
Room Booking
Sales Reports
Seating Map
Self Service Portal
Social Media Integration
Social Promotion
Sponsorship Management
Staff Management
Supplier Management
Surveys & Feedback
Task Management
Third-Party Integrations
Ticketing
User Management
Vendor Management
Venue Management
Visitor Registration
Volunteer Management
Wait List Management
Website Management
Weddings/Parties

Planning Pod Integrations

Dropbox Business

Xero

Slack

Google Docs

Gmail

Zapier

See all 11 integrations

Planning Pod User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.3

Ratings Breakdown

55%

32%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.2

Value for money

4.3

Customer support

4.4

Functionality

4.1

Have you used Planning Pod and would like to share your experience with others?

Verified

Reviewer

Events Services

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2018

Manage everything in one place.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I could easily manage my multiple events, send emails and notes to clients, create timelines and share them with my team all with just a few clicks.

Cons:

They should create an app for smartphones or at least a more user friendly mobile website. Just a tad pricey compared to other options.

Josh T.

Verified reviewer

Events Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2024

Planning Pod Review

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like the proposal and invoice features the best.

Cons:

Planning pod doesn’t have a great floor building element.

Jennifer Y.

Verified reviewer

Entertainment

Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed January 2023

The struggle is real!

Negative. The customer service reps seem to not know the platform very well, or will answer questions and tell you that you can or can not do something but forget to tell you what steps to take to do it, lastly the chat customer service reps will not provide any help to get you through the modules and tell you that you need to watch the videos and take the test or that you should email with any questions that you have.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like the ability to be able to have a platform to work from for each individual event and connect templates and forms to individual events.

Cons:

There are sooo many glitches that I couldn't actually get much work done because of the huge learning curve. There are pre-made templates that I was told would be able to be erased after I signed up and then after signing up for a paid membership was told that I would not be able to delete these pre-made templates. Under the invoices section, there is no clear way to delete an amount or invoice. Every time I send an email from the system it populates in my main planning pod "inbox" as a new email. I would love to be able to watch a module on this and the other issues that I'm dealing with but in order to learn anything through the academy videos you must watch the videos in the order they have set up and answer test with a score of 100% before you can move to the next module. This means if you don't need one of the features of the system and don't need to learn about it, you will still have to watch the video and take a test in order to get to the information that you do need to learn about.

Reasons for choosing Planning Pod

Because it was specific to the event industry and I thought it would be easier then building a crm to fit my event needs. My mistake obviously... I've worked with salesforce and just built the Hubspot pipline for the last company I was with and I am astounded at how difficult this platform is to use. I'm going to try this last month to see if things get easier and if they do I'll change this review other wise I'll move on to another platform.

Vendor Response

We're sorry to hear your experience did not meet your expectations. Below we address your concerns: -We have not experienced any system issues/glitches -The email templates allow you to customize automated communications; they are required for notifications to work -The CRM tool will not replace your external email inbox. -Planning Pod Academy lays the groundwork for successful use of our platform; you were enrolled at your request, and the answers needed to pass knowledge checks are in the videos/text of each module and our Help Center. Chatting and insisting that our agents answer each question in the Academy course so you can bypass the learning modules defeats the very purpose of the learning process. -All of your support inquiries were answered promptly/accurately, including links to resources. -Our staff is knowledgeable about all functionality; you can always expect to competently assisted by an expert. We recognize we are not a fit for everyone and wish you the best!

Replied January 2023

Laura M.

Verified reviewer

Museums and Institutions

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2022

Planning Pod has changed the way our venue manages events!

This program has been a much needed addition to our organization. I did the research and trial runs with other software programs and there was never a question that I chose the right one! Customer support is second to none and the program is consistently rolling out updates that improve the end user experience.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Planning Pod helped bring all the aspects of event management together in one easy to use program! I am able to work on multiple events simultaneously and keep track of all communication from start to finish. This one program replaced the 4-5 programs we had been using to manage our venue and I will never look back!

Cons:

The only con I have found with the program is with the credit card processing and that change occurred when the processing company we used initially was no longer available. We used to have the ability to check a box and have the credit card fee added to an invoice as a line item and that made it easier to pass that cost on to the client as we are a non-profit organization.

Reasons for choosing Planning Pod

After signing up for several trial periods with other software, I found that Planning Pod accomplished my goals the best. It is user friendly and easy to navigate. It also had more features that I needed than some of the other programs.

Reasons for switching to Planning Pod

Our old system was time consuming and not cohesive or user friendly. Using multiple different programs to achieve the goal of organizing one event was one of my first challenges when I accepted my position nearly 7 years ago.

Diana B.

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed September 2022

Transformed Our Back Office Operation

Planning Pod has given us a more professional way to take our clients through the booking process and saved us time and effort in doing it.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

For us the biggest impact has been on our contracting and billing process. Before Planning Pod everything was a manual process with handwritten signatures, scanning and emailing contracts back and forth, and no easy way to generate payment reminders and issue invoices. With Planning Pod the process is much more streamlined for us and for our clients.

Cons:

I would like to see some enhancements to the floorplan tool.

Reasons for choosing Planning Pod

I liked that it was designed for venue management. It allows us to manage multiple spaces across multiple venues all in one integrated system.

John N.

Verified reviewer

Hospitality

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2022

Game Changer

It has been a game changer for us. The first few training sessions were not quite enough for us but they are more than willing to take some time for us to learn more. They are very receptive to us and fix/change things that we told them would be useful to us on the platform. They have no problems getting things onto the platform and even changing code for something as simple as font sizes on event orders. Really great company to work with, they are a partner in our success.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Functionality

Pros:

Automatic payment and communication features. Integration with calendars. Lead management.

Cons:

Searching for things within the system could use some more work.

Donna A.

Events Services

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2018

I use PP to keep all my weddings in one place. It's an efficient tool to use in tracking my clients

My client info was everywhere, some in Google docs, some in excel...just everywhere. Now everything is in one place which has helped me organize and be a little more efficient.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The timeline feature and the ability to customize a few things. I enjoy the fact that my clients can collaborate with me on their events and manage their task lists on their own. The planning pod team is very responsive to ideas from its users and that is a huge plys.

Cons:

It's easy for event planning use, but for weddings it has many features I don't use, such as ticket sales etc. It had also been nice to manage basic tasks specific to daily follow up on clients through the client contact area. I don't necessarily like that I have to utilize a task lust within the event to set a task if that makes sense. I want to go to one area that has all my clients in it, set my follow up tasks at one time for each client and then get an email reminder to do it.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your feedback, Donna. You can add/view/manage tasks via the Calendar tool also if you don't want to manage them inside each event. We will be adding workflows in Q2 2018 so you can more easily set follow-ups and reminders for anything in your account.

Replied March 2018

Verified

Reviewer

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2018

Planning pod is the only software I have found that gives me the features I need at a great price.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The organization tools are great. Floor plan tools are easy to use. Collaboration tools are great. Invoice and proposal tools are very useful.

Cons:

I wish it had an inventory management feature. Clients don't always know how to use the tools. I wish I could do a little more with integration with other programs.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your feedback. We have just added a Quick Reference area to your account where you can direct your clients to quickly learn about how to use the tools in your account. We are also adding more integrations with other platforms in Q2 2018. And finally, I appreciate your mention of inventory management, as I will add that to our list of suggested features for future consideration.

Replied March 2018

Verified

Reviewer

Consumer Goods

501-1000 employees

Used weekly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed March 2018

This is a great value. Very high end functionality for the price to set up our school's post-prom.

It provided an online presence that was easy to edit, which was the main thing we were looking for with this project. All of the other event planning tools were icing on the cake and may very well shift how we handle event management going forward.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The ability to organize items into different parts for the events (invoices, contacts, contracts) yet have them all interconnected and retrievable is superb.

Cons:

At times, navigating the site to get from one section to another can be a little confusing. Some of the links are in the navigation, some of the links need to be found in pull-down lists.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your review! We have recently launched a new version of the software and, based on feedback from our users, tweaked our navigation so things are easier to find and there are more ways to find the information you need.

Replied March 2018