Room, to scale
Tables placed against real dimensions, with walkways and service aisles you can see rather than assume.
Software guide
Seating Chart Software
Seating chart software is the difference between a plan that survives contact with the actual day and one that has to be redrawn every time somebody cancels. It holds three things at once - the shape of the room, the list of people, and the mapping between them - and it keeps them consistent when any of the three changes.
This page covers what that category of tool does, where it earns its keep, and where it does not. If you would rather just try one, the free seating chart maker opens without an account.
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What seating chart software does
Every seating plan is the same three-part problem. There is a room with a fixed shape and fixed exits. There is a guest list that keeps changing. And there is the assignment between them, which is the only part anyone actually cares about and the first part to fall out of date.
A spreadsheet holds the third part and nothing else. A floor plan drawing holds the first part and nothing else. Seating chart software holds all three and keeps them honest against one another: draw a table for eight and seat nine people at it and the tool says so, rather than letting the discovery happen at the venue.
The second thing it does is distribute the answer. Once the assignment exists in software rather than on paper, it can be printed, exported, handed to a planner, or scanned by a guest, and every one of those stays current when the underlying plan moves.
Guest list, imported
CSV, Excel or a pasted block. The list you already keep, not one retyped into a new system.
Assignment, enforced
Capacity per table is checked as you seat. Overfilling is caught while it is still cheap to fix.
Output, everywhere
A printed chart, place cards, table numbers, and a QR page guests search by name - all from one source.
Who it is for
Not everyone needs this. Sixty guests at six tables is a job a spreadsheet does perfectly well, and we say so at length on the comparison page.
The people it genuinely helps are the ones where the plan changes after it is made, or where somebody other than the planner has to read it.
Wedding hosts past about 80 guests
The point where "move one person" stops being a small edit. See wedding seating chart software.
Event and conference planners
Multiple rooms, multiple layouts, and a client who wants to see it before agreeing to it.
Venue coordinators
The same room set eight different ways across a month, and a need to prove capacity before the fire officer asks.
Anyone running the door
Whoever stands at the entrance needs a lookup, not a laminated grid. That is the event check-in app.
Features that matter on the day
Feature lists are cheap. These are the four that change what happens between the last rehearsal and the last guest sitting down.
01Editing from a phone
The plan you need to change at 6pm is the one you cannot reach, because it is on a laptop in a hotel room. Anything web-based is editable from the venue floor. See the seating chart app.
02Assignments that outlive the print run
A printed board freezes the plan at the moment it went to print. A QR page does not, which means a late change costs nothing.
03A guest-facing view
Most seating tools stop at the planner. The part that removes the queue at the door is the view built for the person arriving, not the person organizing.
04Real capacity maths
How many 60-inch rounds fit a room, and how much walkway is left when they do. Covered in event seating.
Seating software vs spreadsheets
Short version: a spreadsheet is fine until about 60 guests, until the plan needs to be read by someone who did not build it, or until it needs to change after it has been shared. Past any of those three, the spreadsheet starts costing more time than it saves.
The long version, including where the spreadsheet genuinely wins, is on seating chart software vs spreadsheets.
| Spreadsheet | Seating software | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 60 guests, one table shape | Fine | Also fine, slightly faster |
| Room drawn to scale | No | Yes |
| Capacity checked as you seat | Manual | Automatic |
| Changes after sharing | Resend the file | Same link, new answer |
| Guest can look themselves up | No | Yes, by name |
| Cost | Free | Free to build, one payment to publish |
Compare plans
Building a chart costs nothing and needs no account. Publishing a guest page is free for your first event through 250 guests, then a single payment per event rather than a monthly fee - which suits a category where most customers run one event, not twelve.
Full pricing, including what the tiers actually differ on, is on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a seat planner and a floor plan tool?
A floor plan tool draws the room. A seat planner draws the room and holds the guest list against it, so it can tell you when a table is over capacity and can produce a per-guest answer. If you only need the room drawn, a floor plan tool is enough.
Do I need to install anything?
No. RH Seating runs in a browser on any device, including the phone in your pocket at the venue. There is nothing to download and nothing to keep updated.
Can two people work on the same plan?
Yes. A saved event is reachable from any device signed in to the account, so a host and a planner can both open it rather than emailing versions of a file back and forth.
How large an event does it handle?
It is built for rooms in the hundreds - weddings, banquets, galas, conference dining. Ticketed stadium seat maps are a different product category and not what this does.
Continue from here
Try it before you read another feature list.
The builder opens with no account. Ten minutes tells you more than this page can.
Build your chart freeNo account needed to buildFirst event free through 250Paid events refundable until 7 days after the day