Best Free Wedding Planning Tools for New Planners [2026]

Starting Out: What You Actually Need

There's a myth in the wedding planning industry that you need to buy professional software before you can take your first client. You don't.

The tools you need in your first six months look different from the tools you need when you're managing 20 weddings a year. This guide is about starting smart — covering your core operational needs at minimal cost — and then upgrading strategically as your revenue justifies the investment.

Here's what "core operations" means for a new wedding planner:

1. Look professional — branded proposals and contracts that won't embarrass you in front of clients

2. Get paid reliably — invoicing with online payment options and automatic reminders

3. Manage your work — task lists, calendars, and communication that keep you organized

4. Design your materials — welcome packets, social posts, client guides

5. Plan the actual events — guest lists, seating, timelines (this is where you'll eventually outgrow free tools)

Let's go through each category.

The Most Important Free Tool: Maroo

Website: maroo.us Cost: Free (Starter plan, up to $10,000/month in processing volume)

The single most important free tool for new wedding planners is Maroo.

This isn't a generic recommendation. Maroo is purpose-built for wedding and event professionals — but be clear about what it is: a free invoicing and payments platform. It handles invoicing, payment processing, contractor payouts, and 1099 filing — and nothing else. Lead capture, proposals, and contracts don't live in Maroo; in this stack they live in TTO (covered below).

Here's what Maroo's free plan includes:

Invoicing with Payment Schedules

Create an invoice in a couple of clicks and set up custom payment schedules (retainer on signing, 50% at 6 months, balance 30 days before the event — whatever your structure is). Automatic payment reminders go out without you having to do anything. Clients can pay via credit card or bank transfer (ACH).

Payment Processing

Accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, and international cards. Processing fees on the Starter plan are 3.5% for cards and 1% for ACH transfers (max $25). Critically, you can pass these fees to clients — a standard practice in the wedding industry — which means your effective processing cost can be $0.

Contractor Payouts and 1099 Filing

If you pay photographers, florists, DJs, or other contractors, Maroo sends payouts and handles 1099 e-filing at year end from the same platform where you collect client payments.

Why Maroo beats the "free" alternatives:

Wave (another free invoicing tool) handles invoicing and basic accounting but isn't built for the wedding industry — no fee pass-through convention, no contractor payouts, no 1099 e-filing.

HoneyBook — no free plan. $36/month minimum, after a price increase in February 2025 that caused significant user backlash.

Dubsado — a "free" plan that limits you to 3 clients total. That's not a free plan; it's a trial.

Rock Paper Coin — free invoicing only, without Maroo's contractor payouts, 1099 e-filing, or fee pass-through.

Maroo's free Starter plan is the only genuinely useful free invoicing and payments platform built specifically for wedding professionals.

Maroo's Key Stats

Maroo has processed over $350 million in invoices, serves 13,000+ businesses, and reports a 94% on-time payment rate. These numbers matter because they tell you the platform is stable, trusted, and not going anywhere.

As your business grows, Maroo scales with you:

A solo wedding planner in their first year, charging $3,000–$5,000 per wedding, typically processes well under $10,000/month. Maroo's free plan covers this comfortably.

Free Planning Tools

Google Workspace (Free)

Website: workspace.google.com Cost: Free with a Google account; $6/user/month for business email

Until you're managing enough weddings to justify purpose-built planning software, Google's free tools handle a surprising amount:

Google Sheets — Guest lists, budget tracking, vendor contact sheets. Not elegant, but functional for your first 5–10 weddings.

Google Docs — Running documents, day-of timelines (until you have TTO), planning notes, and communication drafts.

Google Calendar — Event scheduling, vendor calls, client meetings, and personal organization. Sync it with your phone so nothing slips through.

Google Drive — Document storage and sharing. Share a folder with each couple for their documents.

Gmail — Professional email communication. If budget allows, upgrade to the $6/month business plan for a custom domain email address (yourname@yourcompanyname.com). That single investment does more for your professional image than almost anything else.

What Google doesn't do: Proposals, contracts, invoicing, payments, RSVP management, seating charts, or timelines with vendor coordination. These are the gaps that Maroo (invoicing and payments) and TTO (proposals, contracts, and planning) fill.

Canva (Free Tier)

Website: canva.com Cost: Free tier available; Canva Pro at $15/month

Canva's free tier is genuinely useful. You can create:

• Welcome packets and client guides

• Social media graphics and Instagram posts

• Mood boards and inspiration presentations

• Basic venue layout sketches (not to-scale, but fine for early-stage planning)

• Email headers and branded stationery templates

The free tier does have limitations — fewer templates, no background remover, limited storage — but it's more than enough to look professional when you're starting out. Upgrade to Canva Pro ($15/month) when you're regularly creating client-facing materials and want access to the premium template library.

Trello (Free Tier)

Website: trello.com Cost: Free tier available; Business at $5/user/month

Trello is a visual project management tool using cards and boards. For a new wedding planner, it's useful for:

• Tracking your own business tasks (marketing, admin, follow-ups)

• Managing your planning checklist for each wedding

• Organizing your own business development projects

Trello's free tier includes unlimited cards and up to 10 boards, which is plenty for a solo planner starting out. Once you're using TTO, its built-in wedding checklist and task tool handles wedding-specific to-do lists, and you may not need Trello at all.

TTO: The 30-Day Free Trial

Website: thatstheone.com Cost: Free for 30 days, then £45/month (~$57 USD)

TTO isn't free, and this list won't pretend otherwise: TTO is a paid platform at £45/month (~$57 USD) — unlimited events, unlimited collaborators — after a 30-day free trial. It is not a permanently free tool. It earns its place here because the 30-day free trial is genuinely full-featured — no artificial limitations, no credit card required, no restricted feature set.

TTO is the tool that replaces spreadsheets for planning operations — and it now covers the client-business side that new planners used to cobble together from other tools:

• Guest management and RSVP — No more updating the master guest list in Google Sheets and emailing it to the couple

• Seating charts — To-scale, drag-and-drop floor plans where clients can place their own guests

• Timelines — Event day timelines that keep everyone on the same page

• Budget tracking — Actual budget management, not a spreadsheet

• Vendor CRM — All your vendors, organized by wedding, with contact details clients can see

• Client CRM and lead capture — Native lead capture forms and pipeline tracking, so every inquiry lands in the same place you plan

• Proposals and contracts — Branded proposals and reusable contract templates with e-signatures, plus client status tracking and PDF export

• AI-assisted imports — Upload an existing timeline or to-do file and TTO migrates it into structured, editable items — no retyping. You can also import to-dos straight into an event from a CSV

• Zoom recaps — Connect Zoom and meeting recaps land in TTO Notes, ready to move to the relevant event. It's a notes and action intake, not an automation — TTO never auto-creates tasks or timelines from a call

• Wedding websites — Built-in, no third-party tool needed

• Hotel accommodation — Offer guests discounted hotel rates and track where everyone is staying

• Client collaboration — Couples, families, and team members all work in the same platform, free

When should you start TTO?

When managing guest lists, seating, and vendor coordination in Google Sheets starts taking more time than it saves. For most planners, that's somewhere around the 5–10 weddings-per-year mark. Try the free trial when you feel the spreadsheet friction — you'll know within a week whether it's time.

TTO is free for your clients and couples, which means you pay £45/month and your clients access the platform at no cost to them. Unlimited collaborators are included, so the couple, their family members, your assistant, and anyone else who needs access can all be on the platform without additional charges.

Free Invoicing Alternative: Wave

Website: waveapps.com Cost: Free invoicing and accounting; 2.9%+$0.60 card processing, 1% ACH

Wave is worth knowing about as a backup option. It's free for invoicing and basic accounting, with no monthly subscription for core features. If for some reason Maroo doesn't work for your situation, Wave handles invoicing competently.

The significant limitation: Wave has no CRM, no lead management, no proposals, and no contract features. You'd be using it purely for invoicing. Maroo's wedding-specific payment workflow — fee pass-through, contractor payouts, 1099 e-filing — is meaningfully better for wedding planners, with leads, proposals, and contracts handled in TTO. Wave's processing fees (2.9%+$0.60 for cards) are also slightly higher than Maroo's (3.5% but with fee-pass-through to clients).

The Complete Free Stack for New Planners

Estimated monthly cost: $0–$6 (just Google business email)

When you're ready to invest in professional planning tools, the upgrade path is straightforward:

1. Keep Maroo (stay on free Starter or upgrade to Business at $50–85/month when processing volume requires)

2. Add TTO at £45/month for full planning operations plus leads, proposals, and contracts

3. Upgrade Canva to Pro at $15/month when you're creating client materials regularly

4. Add QuickBooks at $35/month when your bookkeeping needs outgrow Google Sheets

What to Avoid When Starting Out

Expensive all-in-one platforms before you need them. HoneyBook at $36–$129/month, Dubsado at $35–$55/month, and Aisle Planner at $49.99–$229.99/month are all legitimate tools — but you don't need them on day one. Start with Maroo's free plan for the money side and upgrade when your volume justifies it.

Building a fragmented stack of specialized tools. The temptation to use one tool for email, another for proposals, another for contracts, another for invoicing, and another for payments creates a complexity tax that costs you hours every month. In this stack the split is deliberate and simple: TTO holds your leads, proposals, and contracts alongside the planning work, and Maroo holds invoicing and payments.

Paying for features you don't use yet. If you're booking 3 weddings a year, you don't need advanced automation, AI features, or multi-brand support. Save that money until your business has grown to where those features create real value.

Growing Into Professional Tools

The free stack above covers your first stage. As your business grows, here's a roadmap for upgrading:

Stage 1 (1–5 weddings/year): Maroo free + Google Workspace + Canva free. Total cost: ~$0/month.

Stage 2 (5–15 weddings/year): Add TTO at £45/month (~$57). Guest management and seating in spreadsheets becomes noticeably painful at this stage. Total: ~$57/month.

Stage 3 (15+ weddings/year): Upgrade Canva to Pro ($15/month), add QuickBooks ($35/month), consider Maroo Business ($50–85/month) if processing over $10K/month. Total: ~$157–192/month for a fully professional operation.

Related Reading

• The Complete Tech Stack for Wedding Planners in 2026

• Best Wedding Planning Software in 2026

FAQ

Is Maroo really free, or is there a catch?

Maroo's Starter plan is genuinely free — no monthly subscription fee. You pay only the processing fee when you collect client payments (3.5% for cards, 1% for ACH), and you can pass those fees to your clients. The plan covers invoicing, payment processing, contractor payouts, and 1099 e-filing. The only upgrade trigger is when you exceed $10,000/month in payment processing volume, at which point Maroo's Business plan at $50–85/month applies.

Can I use Google Sheets forever instead of buying TTO?

Yes, but you probably won't want to. Google Sheets works for small wedding counts, but as your business grows, maintaining accurate guest lists, dietary tracking, RSVP statuses, and seating arrangements across 15+ weddings in spreadsheets becomes a significant time sink. TTO saves experienced planners more than 50 hours per event compared to manual methods. The £45/month investment pays for itself quickly once you're managing meaningful event volume.

What's the best free option for contracts specifically?

Honestly, there isn't a great permanently free one. DocuSign and HelloSign both charge for e-signature workflows, and Maroo doesn't do contracts — it's an invoicing and payments platform. The strongest option is TTO, which includes reusable contract templates with e-signatures (alongside branded proposals and lead tracking) — free for 30 days on the trial, then £45/month as part of the paid platform.

Should I pay for HoneyBook or Dubsado as a new planner?

Probably not immediately. HoneyBook starts at $36/month (after a significant price increase in 2025) and Dubsado at $35/month. Neither has a meaningful free tier. Both bundle CRM, proposals, contracts, and invoicing into one subscription. In this stack, TTO covers leads, proposals, and contracts (free for 30 days, then £45/month) and Maroo covers invoicing and payments at $0. Try that combination first and pay for HoneyBook or Dubsado only if you find it genuinely lacking a feature you need — which is unlikely in your first year.

When is TTO worth paying for?

When managing planning operations in spreadsheets starts costing you more time than TTO's subscription costs in money. At the UK living wage, an hour of saved time per event is worth several months of TTO's subscription. Start the 30-day trial when you're managing 5+ active weddings simultaneously and see how much time the guest management, seating, and timeline tools save you.

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

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