Planning Pod

RATING:

4.4

(34)

About Planning Pod

Streamline how you manage events, grow revenues and save 62+ hours/month of busywork with Planning Pod's all-in-one venue and event management platform. Call 877-266-3882 for more information. Featuring 20+ online tools, our cloud-based software transforms how you track event bookings, leads, clients, billings, communications and hundreds of other event details. How? By automating everyday tasks and giving you business insights in real-time. Our venue and catering management software platform is perfect for meeting and event centers, hotels, reception and wedding halls, restaurants, caterers, golf clubs, wineries/breweries, museums and any other venue that rents out event space or provides catering services. It includes integrated tools for managing food-&-beverage i...

Planning Pod Pricing

Pricing depends on the type of product (event management vs. venue management). Venue management software packages start at $119/month. Event management software packages start at $49/month.

Starting price: 

$119.00 per month

Free trial: 

Available

Free version: 

Not Available

At-a-glance dashboards provide users with a snapshot of important business updates including upcoming events, to-do's, appointments, leads, and more.
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Planning Pod Reviews

Overall Rating

4.4

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4.5

Customer Support

4.5

Value for money

4.5

Functionality

4

Most Helpful Reviews for Planning Pod

1 - 5 of 33 Reviews

Anonymous

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed March 2018

Good, easy-to-use and practical planning tool

I use it to mostly manage my client's budget and timelines. There are many other features that I don't regularly use because I use other tools or processes, but it works well for those items and I'm on it frequently.

PROS

I like that the owners are always trying to make upgrades to the software and they seem to genuinely listen to customer feedback on what we want to see. It's well priced and easy to use.

CONS

The wedding websites available to the clients aren't up to par with what is available in the industry. Same with the floor plan tool. It would be wonderful to only have to use one platform, but at the same time, it's priced appropriately that the tools you receive are good / on point with what you are paying for.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your review. We are currently collecting feedback on our Floorplans tool with plans to make major updates to it in 2018, so please let us know if you have any specific features you would like to see enhanced. We also recently added an Inspiration/Vision Board tool for collaborating visually with team members and clients. As for the event webpage tool, it is focused more on RSVP/registration collection, which is why it may not have the design capabilities of other tools like Wix. But I appreciate the feedback and we will be making updates to that tool later in 2018.

Replied March 2018

Andrea

Events Services, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2022

The Lifeline of Our Business

We are so glad we stumbled upon this software when we did. I have used Dubsado, Honeybook, TripleSeat and done demos with a few others and none compare to Planning Pod. It had everything our organization was looking for- integrated invoices, proposals, calendar (syncs with Google), lead forms (integrates to our website), questionnaires and floor plans. We eliminated 3 other softwares we were using and streamlined it all into one. Our team uses it everyday and it is the lifeline of our business. The aesthetically pleasing BEO's, floor plans and timelines are printed and hung up on our bulletin board for every event! We are so glad this product exists!

PROS

It is very user friendly and the onboarding was quick and easy. The support team at Planning Pod is quick to respond and friendly. We loved the communications feature that wasn't available on other platforms as well as the ability to use with multiple team members. The invoice feature is great as well as proposals. The floor plan feature is a game changer!

CONS

I wish I would've found it sooner and didn't have to switch from my other software.

Reason for choosing Planning Pod

None have the functionality of an all-in-one booking software. It is meant specifically for venues with multiple users. We considered others like Honeybook, Dubsado and 17 Hats but none were robust enough for our team.

Reasons for switching to Planning Pod

Our original booking software Gather was bought out by Tripleseat. It did not have the functionality we were looking for. Lacking the communications aspect which is critical in our business. We also tried Honeybook for several months along with Aisle Planner for timelines and All Seated for floor plans.

Jennifer

Entertainment, 1 employee

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

2

EASE OF USE

1

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

1

FUNCTIONALITY

2

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.

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.

Reason 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

Shannon

Food & Beverages, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2022

THE solution for your FOOD TRUCK catering!

PROS

The software is incredibly moldable to any caterers needs. As we are a wood fired pizza caterer, we bring our food truck on site to cook, but serve buffet style. Along with this, we have bartenders, servers, and other vendors to connect with on most any event. Being able to customize BEO's to each vendors needs is incredible. Being able to have everyone in one place is incredible. Being able to have all communications between multiple parties/family members/vendors all be linked to the one event they regard is timesaving! Being able to automate our reservation & final check in process is how we were able to DOUBLE OUR VOLUME this year. HANDS DOWN THE BEST!

CONS

I have zero complaints. This product is fantastic. Even their customer support rocks!

Reason for choosing Planning Pod

Much more customizable. Being a food truck and mobile, it is hard to find a good product that can either be adaptable or easy to use for food truck catering.

Laura

Museums and Institutions, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

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.

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.

Reason 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.