SeatPlan.io Alternative: SeatCanvas for One Event (2026)

SeatPlan.io vs SeatCanvas: same idea, different structure

SeatCanvas is a browser-based drag-and-drop seating chart planner for weddings and events — free up to 40 seated guests and $19.99 one-time for unlimited seating, with PDF, PNG, and CSV export in English or Spanish. SeatPlan.io is a browser-based seating chart maker too: free to design with no guest cap, with saving, exporting, and real-time collaboration on paid tiers.

The two are close cousins. Both run in a browser, both take a CSV of your guests, both let you drag names onto round and rectangular tables, and both hand you a print-ready chart at the end. There’s no desktop-vs-cloud gap here and no enterprise-vs-consumer gap. Two web apps, the same job, different bets on how you pay and what you get.

So the honest comparison lives in two places: what each tool can do, and where the money changes hands. SeatPlan bets on collaboration and scale; SeatCanvas bets on one event, one price, export included. Neither bet is wrong — they’re aimed at different people.

What SeatPlan.io does well

Credit where it’s due, and there’s a lot of it.

SeatPlan’s real-time collaboration is a real feature, not a checkbox. On its paid tiers, several people can edit the same chart at once — useful when a couple, a planner, and a venue coordinator are all touching the same layout. SeatCanvas has nothing like it; sharing here is a read-only link. That’s a clear point for SeatPlan.

Its AI floor-plan import is genuinely clever: upload a photo, a screenshot, or a PDF of the venue and it builds an editable layout for you to refine. If you’re starting from a venue’s existing floor plan, that’s a real head start SeatCanvas can’t match.

SeatPlan also leans into running the event, not just planning it: guest check-in links, a guest-facing QR sign so people find their own table, and reusable templates for planners doing this every month. It exports A3 PDFs, Excel seat lists for caterers, and printable place cards. And its free designer has no guest cap — you can lay out a 300-person room without paying a cent, as long as you don’t need to save or export it yet.

Those are all genuine strengths. If your work is professional and repeated, SeatPlan is built for you.

Where SeatCanvas is the better pick

The split comes down to two things you can check before you commit: when you pay, and what the free tier actually gives you.

On SeatPlan, designing is free but the design is ephemeral — free and anonymous work isn’t stored, and saving or exporting a chart requires buying a plan. The cheapest way to keep your chart is a one-time purchase with time-limited (90-day) access; unlimited events and collaboration are a monthly subscription. That’s a fair model, but it means the moment you want to save your work or hand a PDF to your caterer, you’re at a paywall.

SeatCanvas draws the line differently. The free tier is permanent and it includes export: events up to 40 seated guests get the full canvas and every export format — PDF, PNG, and CSV — with no timer and no card on file. If your wedding fits under 40 guests, you can plan it, save it, and print it without paying anything. When you outgrow 40 guests, unlimited seating is a single $19.99 one-time Event Pass. No subscription, no renewal, no 90-day clock.

SeatCanvas also ships a full Spanish-language version. For a Quinceañera or a bilingual wedding where half the family reads Spanish first, that’s the difference between a usable tool and a frustrating one. I couldn’t find a Spanish version of SeatPlan (checked July 2026).

The trade is real and worth stating plainly: SeatPlan’s free design has no guest cap and SeatCanvas’s is 40 — so for a huge room you want to sketch for free before committing, SeatPlan’s ceiling is higher. But SeatCanvas is the only one of the two where the free tier lets you actually keep and export the finished chart.

Moving your guest list over

If you started in SeatPlan, the move is quick, because you almost certainly already have the raw material: the guest-list CSV you imported in the first place.

1. Find the CSV or spreadsheet you imported into SeatPlan. If you don’t have it, copy your names and party sizes into a spreadsheet and save it as CSV.
2. Open the SeatCanvas planner — no sign-in needed for events up to 40 guests.
3. Click the guest-list icon, choose Import CSV, and upload the file.
4. Use the column-mapping step to match your columns to SeatCanvas’s name and party-size fields.

The table layout doesn’t transfer — you’ll redraw the room in SeatCanvas — but for a wedding-scale list that’s a few minutes of dragging, and then you export a PDF or PNG for the day.

Bottom line

SeatPlan.io makes a strong case if collaboration, AI floor-plan import, check-in, and reusable templates are the features you’d use most — and if paying per save or subscribing monthly fits how often you run events. It’s a capable, well-built tool, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

But for one event, planned by one person, SeatCanvas answers the two questions that matter most:

• When do I pay? Never, up to 40 guests — export included. Then $19.99 one-time for unlimited seating, printed on the pricing page. No subscription, no 90-day clock.
• What can I get out of it? PDF, PNG, and CSV export, in English or Spanish, off a permanent free tier.

If real-time collaboration across a team is the thing you can’t live without, SeatPlan. Otherwise, open the SeatCanvas planner and drag your first table onto the canvas. (Comparing other direct tools? See SeatCanvas vs SeatingPlannerApp and SeatCanvas vs PerfectTablePlan, or browse the full alternatives hub.)