How we evaluate wedding planning apps

Every app on this site gets the same treatment: the same sources, the same eight criteria, the same weights. This page explains what goes into a score and how you can check our work.

Where do our facts come from?

From the apps’ own public documents first, then from the people who use them. For each app we read:

• Official pricing pages, including plan tiers, transaction fees and anything that only shows up at checkout.
• Help centers and support articles, which are often more candid about limits than the marketing site.
• Privacy policies and terms of service, for what happens to your data, your guests’ data, and whether vendors get your contact details.
• Ratings on the App Store, Google Play and Trustpilot, always recorded with the review count and the date we checked, because a 4.8 from 40 reviews means something different from a 4.8 from 90,000.
• Reddit threads and independent reviews, for the things documentation never says: clutter, bugs, spam, and what couples actually liked.

We compare apps from this public documentation and from user reports. When the two disagree, we say so.

What are the eight criteria?

Each app gets a score from 0 to 10 on eight criteria, in whole or half points. The overall score is a weighted average, calculated the same way for every app.

Criterion	Weight	10 means	5 means	0 to 2 means
Price & transparency	15%	Free, or a clear one-time price with no hidden fees	Freemium with upsells, or a clear subscription	Fees hidden until checkout, or a costly subscription for couples
Privacy & vendor spam	20%	No ads, no vendor lead-sharing, data not sold	Some marketing, opt-in vendor contact	Vendor lead-sharing by default, documented spam complaints
Guest list & RSVP	15%	Households, plus-ones, per-event RSVP, dietary needs, reminders	Basic list and online RSVP	No guest tools
Seating chart	10%	Drag-and-drop, table shapes, printable, linked to RSVPs	A basic seating tool	None
Budget tracker	10%	Categories, payments and deposits, currencies, export	A simple budget list	None
Collaboration	10%	Real-time, multiple users	Shared login or limited sharing	Single user
Export & data ownership	10%	Full CSV or PDF export anytime, clean account deletion	Partial export	Locked in
Ease of use	10%	Consistently praised in reviews, calm interface	Mixed reviews	Frequent complaints of clutter or bugs

Privacy carries the most weight because it is the cost most couples don’t see coming. A free app that passes your email and wedding date to vendors can fill your inbox for months, and that belongs in the comparison next to the price tag.

Ease of use is scored from what reviewers and couples report, not from our own impressions. Professional tools such as Aisle Planner, Planning Pod and HoneyBook are scored on the same criteria from a couple’s point of view, but they are only ranked against each other on /software.

Why aren’t registry and website features scored?

Because they’re separate decisions. You can plan in one app and run your registry in another, and plenty of couples do: any planner pairs fine with a free registry from Zola or Joy. Scoring registries would reward apps for bundling, not for helping you plan. We still show registry and website support on every review and in the comparison table, so you can weigh them yourself.

How do we quote policies?

Word for word. When a page says an app shares data with vendors, sells data, or charges a fee, we quote the sentence from the app’s own policy and link to it with the exact passage highlighted, so the link opens on the words we quoted. Each quote carries the date we checked it. If a policy changes, the quote gets updated or removed.

How often is this updated?

Prices, fees and plans are rechecked every month. Our last full check was September 30, 2026. Ratings, policies and features are updated whenever we see a change, and every review shows the date its facts were last verified.

What if we got something wrong?

Tell us at corrections@bestweddingplanningapps.com. Include the page and, if you can, a link to the source. We check every correction against the app’s own documentation, fix what’s wrong, and update the date on the page. App makers are welcome to write in too; the same rules apply to them as to everyone else.