17hats Alternative for Wedding Planners: Why TTO Is the Upgrade [2026]

The 17hats Problem for Wedding Planners

17hats has been around since 2014, and in that time it's built a solid reputation as a dependable back-office tool for freelancers and solopreneurs across a wide range of service industries. Photographers, coaches, consultants, designers, and yes — some wedding planners — have made it work.

The operative word is "made it work." Because 17hats was never designed for wedding planners. It was designed for generic service businesses, and wedding planning is anything but generic.

When a wedding planner signs up for 17hats looking for help with their core job — managing guest lists, building seating charts, tracking dietary restrictions, coordinating vendors across complex day-of timelines — they find a platform that has no answers for any of those needs. 17hats is, fundamentally, a contacts-and-invoices tool. For a business that needs contacts-and-invoices plus a planning platform, it's half a solution at full price.

What 17hats Costs

17hats uses a single-plan model with a confusing tiered feature structure and modular add-ons. The headline pricing:

The promotional pricing (50% off) appears to be semi-permanent, but even at the promotional rate, you're paying $25–$30/month for a tool that doesn't cover the most important parts of your job.

The add-on trap

17hats charges separately for features that competitors include in their base plans:

A wedding planner who needs scheduling, QuickBooks integration, and bank connect — all fairly basic needs — adds $15/month in add-ons to their subscription. At the standard rate, that's $75/month for a tool that still has no planning features.

What 17hats' tiered features actually mean

The single subscription hides a tiered feature model (called Essentials, Standard, and Premier internally, though 17hats doesn't advertise it this way):

• Client portal: Premier/Tier 3 only — not on lower tiers

• Payment schedules: Standard/Tier 2 and up

• Saved card data: Standard/Tier 2 and up

• If/then logic (automation): Premier/Tier 3 only

• Zapier integration: Premier/Tier 3 only

Most planners don't discover which tier they're on until they try to use a feature and find it locked.

What 17hats Does Well

To be fair: 17hats isn't bad at what it's designed to do.

Established and stable. 17hats has been around for over a decade. It's not going anywhere, and the platform is reliable.

All-in-one for basic freelance needs. If you need contacts, invoices, contracts, basic scheduling, and time tracking in one place, 17hats covers those functions.

Bookkeeping integration. 17hats has expense tracking, profit/loss reporting, and sales tax reporting built in (though QuickBooks integration costs extra). For freelancers who want to manage their own simple bookkeeping without a separate tool, this is useful.

Contract and invoice templates. 17hats has a reasonable library of document templates for freelancers.

Three users included. The base plan includes up to 3 users at no extra cost, which suits small teams.

These are genuine strengths for a freelance photographer or consultant. They're table stakes for a wedding planning business that needs planning-specific functionality that doesn't exist in 17hats.

What 17hats Is Missing for Wedding Planners

Here's the definitive list of features that wedding planners need that 17hats simply doesn't have — at any price, at any tier:

Guest management — No guest list, no RSVP collection, no RSVP dashboard. This is one of the core operational tasks of a wedding planner, and it doesn't exist in 17hats.

Dietary tracking — No way to record, organize, or report on guest dietary restrictions. A caterer's worst nightmare is receiving an incorrect guest count with wrong dietary information. Wedding planners manage this; 17hats can't help.

Hotel accommodation management — No ability to coordinate guest hotel blocks, offer discounted rates, or track where guests are staying.

Seating charts and floor plans — No floor plan builder, no seating chart tool. Wedding planners do this job; 17hats offers no support.

Event day timelines — No timeline builder for day-of schedules coordinated across vendors, clients, and staff.

Catering report exports — Related to the above: no integration between RSVP data, dietary needs, and seating that can be exported for caterers.

Vendor CRM — 17hats' contacts system handles client contacts; it's not designed for managing a roster of 15 vendors per wedding across 20 active weddings, with vendor-specific notes and communication history.

Wedding websites — No client-facing wedding site builder.

E-cards — No digital invitation or card features.

Client collaboration on planning — 17hats' client portal is a document portal. There's no concept of a shared planning workspace where clients can see their guest list, interact with their seating chart, or leave feedback on work-in-progress.

TTO: The Planning Platform 17hats Can't Be

TTO (thatstheone.com) was built for exactly what 17hats is missing. Every feature in TTO exists because wedding planners need it — not because it serves a generic freelance use case.

TTO Pricing: £45/month (~$57 USD), unlimited events, unlimited collaborators, free for clients, 30-day free trial.

TTO also covers the client-business side 17hats users rely on: lead capture and pipeline tracking, branded proposals, reusable contract templates with e-signatures, client status tracking, and PDF export. Two workflow features stand out for switchers. AI-assisted timeline and to-do imports: upload an existing timeline or task file and TTO migrates it into structured, editable items — no retyping. And Zoom recaps: connect Zoom to bring meeting and call recaps straight into TTO Notes, then move each recap to the relevant event. Note that TTO deliberately avoids a generative writing assistant — its AI is focused on migrating and organising your real planning data.

TTO vs. 17hats: Feature Comparison

The Replacement Plan: TTO + Maroo

Switching from 17hats to a purpose-built stack means splitting its functions between two better tools. TTO takes over the client-business side — lead capture and pipeline tracking, branded proposals, reusable contract templates with e-signatures, client status tracking, and PDF export — alongside all of the planning work. Maroo takes over the money side only: invoicing, payment processing, contractor payouts, and 1099 filing. TTO does not process payments — that boundary is deliberate.

Replace 17hats' invoicing and payment features → Maroo

Maroo is a free payments platform built specifically for wedding and event professionals. It handles invoicing, payment processing, contractor payouts, and 1099 filing — and nothing else. Your leads, proposals, and contracts live in TTO; here's how each 17hats feature maps across the new stack.

Maroo pricing:

For most solo wedding planners, Maroo's free Starter plan covers everything. The upgrade to Business only happens when you're processing more than $10,000/month in client payments — at which point the revenue easily justifies the subscription cost.

Add TTO for planning and client management → The features 17hats can't match

TTO's 30-day free trial lets you build your first weddings, import guest lists, set up seating charts, test the timeline builder, and run your proposals, contracts, and client pipeline before committing to £45/month. Most planners experience the time savings within the first week.

Cost Comparison: 17hats vs. TTO + Maroo

At standard 17hats pricing, TTO + Maroo is actually cheaper — and delivers vastly more functionality for wedding planners. Even at 17hats' promotional rate, TTO + Maroo is only marginally more expensive while covering the entire planning side of your business that 17hats ignores.

Migrating from 17hats to TTO + Maroo

Step 1: Create your Maroo account

Go to maroo.us and sign up — it's free. Set up invoicing, connect your payout details, and configure payment processing. This takes about 20 minutes.

Step 2: Start TTO's free trial

Go to thatstheone.com and start the 30-day trial. Set up your profile, create your first wedding, and build your client pipeline: set up lead capture, branded proposals, and reusable contract templates with e-signatures. Import your guest list from wherever it currently lives (CSV upload from Excel or Google Sheets works). For existing timelines and task lists, upload an existing timeline or task file and TTO migrates it into structured, editable items. Finally, connect Zoom to bring meeting and call recaps straight into TTO Notes, then move each recap to the relevant event.

Step 3: Migrate active clients

For clients currently mid-process in 17hats, recreate their client records, proposals, and contracts in TTO, and recreate any outstanding invoices in Maroo. For planning data (guest lists, vendor contacts, timelines, to-do lists), move it into TTO — the AI-assisted import handles existing timeline and task files so you don't retype them.

Step 4: Run in parallel briefly

Keep 17hats active for 30–60 days while you onboard new clients in TTO + Maroo. Once all active client data is migrated and you're comfortable with both platforms, cancel 17hats.

Step 5: Note the QuickBooks gap

If you use 17hats' built-in bookkeeping features, you'll want to connect Maroo to QuickBooks ($35/month from Intuit) for accounting continuity. Maroo's QuickBooks integration handles this connection.

Who Should Stay on 17hats

To be fair: some professionals genuinely get value from 17hats and shouldn't necessarily switch. You might stay if:

• You're primarily a photographer or coach using 17hats for basic CRM, and you have no planning needs

• You use 17hats' time tracking features heavily and rely on them for billing

• You're locked into a bi-yearly plan and the economics of switching mid-term don't make sense

• You're comfortable with your current workflow and the missing planning features don't affect your specific service model

If any of those apply, there's no urgent reason to switch. When your current plan expires, re-evaluate whether TTO + Maroo makes more sense for where your business has grown.

Related Reading

• Best HoneyBook Alternatives for Wedding Planners

• TTO vs HoneyBook: Which Is Better for Planners?

• The Complete Tech Stack for Wedding Planners in 2026

FAQ

Does 17hats have any planning features I might have overlooked?

No. 17hats has task/to-do lists (on Tier 2 and up), which are useful for managing your own workflow. But it has no guest management, no seating charts, no dietary tracking, no event day timelines, no vendor CRM designed for multi-vendor wedding management, and no wedding websites. These are not obscure edge features — they're central to what wedding planners do.

Is 17hats' promotional pricing permanent?

17hats regularly offers 50% off introductory pricing, but this is not guaranteed to be available forever. Their standard pricing is $60/month (monthly) or $50/month (annual). Evaluate the platform at its standard pricing to understand what you'll actually pay long-term.

Can I use 17hats for contracts and Maroo for payments?

You could, but there's no practical reason to. In the TTO + Maroo stack, contracts live in TTO — reusable contract templates with e-signatures, right alongside your proposals and client pipeline — while Maroo handles invoicing and payment processing only. Keeping 17hats around just for contracts means paying for a platform you no longer need.

What happens to my 17hats data if I cancel?

Export your data from 17hats before canceling — contacts, invoices, and documents can be exported. Annual subscriptions are typically non-refundable, so time your cancellation to the end of your billing period.

Is TTO also a CRM?

Yes. TTO includes a client CRM with lead capture and pipeline tracking, branded proposals, reusable contract templates with e-signatures, client status tracking, and PDF export — plus a vendor CRM for managing your vendor relationships across weddings. The one thing TTO deliberately does not do is process payments: invoicing, payment processing, contractor payouts, and 1099 filing are what Maroo handles.

Try your 30 day free trial here or book a demo.

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