The best Total Party Planner alternatives are Perfect Venue, Caterease, Curate, CaterTrax, Tripleseat, Think Cater, CaterCamp, MONKEY, Spoonfed, and Flex Catering, each built for a different mix of catering, venue, or off-premises business.
Choosing catering management software isn't always straightforward. Different platforms bring different solutions to the table, and it's up to you to find what will work best based on your needs.
Total Party Planner (TPP) is well-reviewed: it holds a 4.8-star rating across more than 150 verified reviews on Capterra, and users consistently praise its support team and the fact that it was built by caterers for caterers. But no platform fits everyone.
The most common reasons TPP users look elsewhere are specific gaps: a mobile app that lags behind the desktop experience, no support for multi-day events, and contract templates that are hard to customize.
This guide covers ten alternatives to Total Party Planner and who each one fits best.
TL;DR: Total Party Planner Alternatives at a Glance
Pricing shown is what each vendor publishes as of September 2026 and can change; confirm current rates directly with the vendor before budgeting.
10 Total Party Planner Alternatives to Consider
Total Party Planner offers a fairly comprehensive all-in-one catering software solution for catering companies and professionals. Sales teams, event planners, and caterers use it to track jobs across the event lifecycle.
We won't go into much detail on TPP here (read our full Total Party Planner review for more information). As a quick recap, some of its best-known features include:
- Banquet management
- Food costing and reports
- Documents and proposals
- Task lists
- A built-in CRM for events to track leads and repeat clients
- Client billing and communication
- Custom reports
- Integrations
- Mobile app
TPP isn't the only catering software company out there. Depending on your needs, you might find TPP focuses closely on catering while you require added features for general event management, or a different price point entirely. Here are ten Total Party Planner alternatives worth putting on your radar.
1. Perfect Venue
Pricing: Professional plans start at $199/month per location, billed annually ($299/month for Premium). There is no free plan; new accounts get a 30-day money-back guarantee and a guided migration instead.
Perfect Venue is all-in-one venue and event management software for restaurants (including multi-location chains), caterers, event venues, breweries, and hospitality groups. It's a strong fit for venues that want a rounded solution for overseeing events, not just catering.
The dashboard has a central calendar for all upcoming events and a team task tab that outlines what needs to happen next. You can assign tasks to team members and automate reminders so nothing slips. One-click email templates speed up client and vendor communication, and built-in templates generate contracts, proposals, and BEOs. Client email threads and internal team communication both live on the same dashboard, and event analytics show how the business is performing.
Reviewers on Capterra give Perfect Venue 4.8 out of 5 stars across 82 reviews, and frequently compare it favorably to Tripleseat on price and ease of use.
Main features
- Central events calendar
- Email templates
- Digital proposals
- Detailed analytics
- Task automation
- Payment collection
2. Caterease
Pricing: Plans now run Express at $99/month, Standard at $149/month, and Professional at $199/month (billed annually), plus $28/month for each additional user and a one-time $200 launch fee per user.
Caterease launched in 1991 and remains one of the best-known names in catering software, serving hotels, restaurants, and event venues alongside dedicated caterers.
Caterease is built around the full event timeline: organizing leads, accepting bookings, and planning, overseeing, and reporting on catering events. Custom prints, automated packing lists, and scalable recipes and sub-recipes help streamline a busy catering operation, and custom query tools track client activity and revenue forecasts.
Capterra reviewers rate Caterease 4.4 out of 5 across 110 reviews. Users consistently praise the depth of customization and the support team, but the interface comes up again and again as dated, and several reviewers describe a steep learning curve and real cost once add-on modules and per-user fees are factored in.
Main features
- Custom print tools (menus, prints)
- Automatic scalable recipes and sub-recipes
- Event bookings
- Automated packing lists
- Staff selection tool
- Automated reminders
- Mobile app
Read our full Caterease review here.
3. Curate
Pricing: Quote-only pricing across Basic, Growth, and Partnership tiers.
Curate is a popular Total Party Planner alternative for florists, catering professionals, event venues, and event teams. It markets itself around eye-catching proposals, back-end process management, rental tracking, and running multiple locations from one dashboard.
On the catering side, Curate helps plan accurate recipes for events and streamline wholesale orders, which supports tighter food inventory management and, in turn, event profitability. Its interactive proposals connect with Pinterest so clients can visualize their event, and venues get BEOs, task management, e-signatures, and rentals management in the same platform.
Curate holds 4.7 out of 5 stars across 218 Capterra reviews, among the highest volume on this list. Reviewers highlight fast, professional-looking proposals and responsive support, but several who went through Curate's platform migration this year reported bugs and printing issues during peak season, and smaller-volume businesses flagged the cost.
Main features
- Proposal creation
- Rental tracking
- Recipe creation
- Event costing reports
- Automated order lists
Read our complete Curate review here.
4. CaterTrax
Pricing: Contact CaterTrax for custom pricing.
CaterTrax is a catering and hospitality ordering platform, offering tools to streamline orders and operate multiple lines of business more efficiently. It splits its offering into an Independent path for single-location and small-site operators and an Enterprise path for multi-location brands that need standardized menus, centralized reporting, and POS or finance integrations.
This is a stronger fit for food service management than for event planners as it doesn't cover the broader event-logistics ground that Total Party Planner does.
CaterTrax reviewers on Capterra give it 4.6 out of 5 across 128 reviews, citing an intuitive interface, useful order-duplication tools, and responsive support. The recurring complaints are performance lag at high order volumes and having to file a support ticket for webpage changes the team can't make themselves.
Main features
- Banquet management
- Billing and invoicing
- Customer database
- Calendar management
- Booking management
- Customizable reports
5. Tripleseat
Pricing: Custom quote, plus a one-time $500 setup fee.
Tripleseat is a frequent point of comparison for restaurant groups evaluating Total Party Planner alternatives. It covers lead capture from web and social channels, event order templates, menu tracking, and calendar management, with unlimited users on every plan.
It carries the largest third-party review base of any platform on this list: 4.7 out of 5 stars across 575 Capterra reviews. Users like the modern interface and its integrations with tools like Opera PMS and Stripe.
The most common complaints are that Tripleseat emails sometimes get flagged as spam, there's no mobile app, and setup takes real attention to detail. Several reviewers on other platforms describe a difficult migration experience when switching to Tripleseat from a simpler tool.
Main features
- Lead capture (web and Facebook)
- Event order templates
- Menu tracking
- Calendar integration
- Guest discussion/communication center
- Multi-location account management
6. Think Cater
Pricing: Sous Chef at $199.99/month, Head Chef at $399.99/month, Executive Chef at $599.99/month, plus a one-time $250 onboarding fee.
Think Cater is a newer entrant that is built around order intake and back-of-house operations rather than event sales. It imports orders from PDFs, spreadsheets, and even photos of handwritten tickets, then automatically scales recipes, calculates ingredient-level food costs, and generates prep sheets, shopping lists, and pack lists. Its "Menu Matrix" tool flags which dishes are actually profitable, and it includes delivery routing and live order tracking.
It's worth a demo if you’re looking for features around recipe costing and kitchen prep automation rather than event/venue booking.
Main features
- Order import from PDF, CSV, JPEG, and PNG
- Recipe scaling and ingredient-level food costing
- Automated prep sheets, shopping lists, and pack lists
- Inventory updates tied to completed orders
- Delivery routing and tracking
7. CaterCamp
Pricing: Starter at $49/month, Professional at $99/month, and Business at $199/month. All plans include a 14-day free trial and 20% off with annual billing.
CaterCamp is another platform that competes with Total Party Planner, covering the lead-to-repeat-booking lifecycle: CRM and pipeline tracking, a menu builder with per-serving costing, automatic BEO generation, proposals and contracts, staff scheduling, equipment and rental tracking, a dietary/allergy database, and invoicing through Stripe or PayPal.
Like Think Cater, CaterCamp is fairly new and its entry-level pricing is the lowest on this list, which makes it worth a look for small drop-off or wedding caterers who don't need CaterTrax- or Tripleseat-level scale.
Main features
- CRM and lead pipeline
- Per-serving menu and cost builder
- Automatic BEO generation
- Staff scheduling
- Equipment and rental tracking
- Dietary/allergy tracking
- Client portal
8. MONKEY
Pricing: Contact MONKEY for custom pricing.
MONKEY focuses on multi-location restaurant brands running dedicated catering programs rather than single-location catering or off-premises operations, reporting 8,000+ locations served and $6 billion in catering revenue generated through its platform.
Its tools separate catering from day-to-day POS execution while keeping reporting connected, handle B2B account and billing structures (house accounts, tax-exempt customers, purchase orders), and manage catering-specific payment timing so edits don't trigger a cascade of refunds and re-charges.
This makes MONKEY a much better fit for enterprise and franchise restaurant groups scaling catering as its own revenue line than for an independent caterer or single venue comparing itself to Total Party Planner.
Main features
- Catering-specific ordering separate from POS, with connected reporting
- B2B account and billing management (house accounts, POs, tax-exempt customers)
- Delayed pre-authorization and end-of-event payment capture
- Guest-facing order edits up to a cutoff time
- Multi-provider delivery routing (in-house or third-party)
9. Spoonfed
Pricing: Contact Spoonfed for custom pricing.
Spoonfed is a solid option for institutional and corporate catering: universities, healthcare facilities, corporate dining programs, and venue catering, alongside the independent caterers and food service management businesses it originally served.
The platform's functionality is centered on catering and food service. It includes features for online ordering, automated back-office production, kitchen prep sheets and reports, and client acquisition tools.
Capterra reviewers give Spoonfed 4.5 out of 5 across 30 reviews. Ease of use, support, and time savings from automation come up repeatedly. The most common complaints are a menu-builder that's slower to use than it should be, no PDF invoicing for card payments, and a website interface that isn't smartphone-friendly.
Main features
- Online ordering
- Delivery scheduling
- Cloud calendar
- Production planning
- Multi-site management tools
- Group ordering
- Live reporting
10. Flex Catering
Pricing: Contact Flex Catering for custom pricing.
Flex Catering is an all-in-one platform covering online ordering, proposals, payments, and delivery for drop-off and corporate caterers, event venues, restaurants and QSR chains, grocery retailers, bakeries, and stadiums.
Beyond ordering, it offers booking and e-signature tools for events, more than 40 real-time printable kitchen reports, delivery dispatch with a driver app and route optimization, and integrations with QuickBooks and Xero.
Capterra reviewers rate it 4.9 out of 5, though on a small base of 12 reviews. Users like the automation around kitchen production and invoicing and call out responsive support; the recurring criticism is that the CRM feels dated next to the rest of the platform.
Main features
- Branded online ordering (B2B and B2C)
- Event and venue booking with e-signatures
- 40+ real-time kitchen reports
- Delivery dispatch and route optimization
- Accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero)
- Loyalty and lead management tools
How to Choose the Right Total Party Planner Alternative
The right platform depends more on what kind of business you run than on which tool has the longest feature list. A few questions to work through before you commit:
Are You Running Events, Catering, or Both?
Perfect Venue, Curate, and Tripleseat all handle event bookings and BEOs alongside catering. CaterTrax, Spoonfed, and MONKEY are built around order execution and are a weaker fit if you also need venue or event-booking tools.
What's Your Order Volume and Location Count?
CaterCamp and Think Cater are sized for single-location or small-team caterers. Perfect Venue, Tripleseat, CaterTrax's Enterprise path, and MONKEY are built for multi-location or franchise operations, and their pricing and onboarding reflect that.
What's Your Budget?
Start with the features you actually need, not the price you see first. Make a short list: event booking, recipe costing, staff scheduling, whatever matters for your business. Then check what each platform charges to deliver those features, per location if you run more than one site, since that's where the real cost usually shows up.
Caterease looks affordable at $99/month for the Express tier, but that's a single user with no add-on modules, whereas Perfect Venue offers unlimited users for all plans.
Tripleseat charges a one-time $500 setup fee on top of its monthly rate, so budget for that in month one rather than treating it as a surprise.
CaterCamp's $49/month Starter tier is the cheapest fixed cost here, and it's a solid fit if you're a small drop-off caterer who just needs the basics. But it caps you at 10 events a month and one user, so if you're already running more than that, you'll outgrow it fast and need to jump to the $99/month Professional tier anyway.
Our advice: price out your actual team size and event volume against each platform's tiers, not just the entry-level number on the pricing page. In our experience, the "cheap" plan and the plan you actually need are often two different line items.
Whichever direction you lean, use demos and free trials before you commit. Once a platform is in place, your day-to-day operations depend on it, so it's worth the extra week of evaluation up front!
Conclusion
Understanding what's out there before you invest in catering or event management software helps you land on the platform with the right features for your business, and that pays off in how efficiently you can run it afterward.
Choosing a catering and events software solution is a big decision, and your operations will depend on it once it's in place. Explore as many options as you reasonably can, and use demos and trials to find the platform that actually fits, rather than the one with the most features on paper.
Speaking of which, why not try Perfect Venue to see if it's a good fit for your catering business? It’s free to sign up — no credit card required!
Total Party Planner Alternatives FAQ
What is the best party planner software?
It depends on whether you're running catering, venue events, or both, and at what scale. Perfect Venue and Tripleseat suit venues that need event and catering management together. Caterease and Curate suit dedicated catering operations that want deep menu and recipe tools. CaterCamp and Think Cater suit smaller caterers on tighter budgets.
How much does Total Party Planner cost?
Total Party Planner doesn't publish pricing on its website; you'll need to contact its sales team for a quote. On G2, pricing is noted to start from $119 per month.
Is Total Party Planner a CRM?
Not primarily. TPP includes a built-in CRM for tracking leads and client relationships, but it's built as an all-in-one catering and event management platform rather than a standalone CRM.
What is the best free app for party planning?
Among the platforms in this guide, none currently offer a permanent free plan. Most (including Perfect Venue) offer a free trial or a money-back guarantee instead. CaterCamp and Think Cater both offer 14-day free trials with no credit card required if you want to test a platform before paying.
Is there a free Total Party Planner alternative?
No fully free, ongoing option exists among the major alternatives as of this update. Free trials are common (Perfect Venue, CaterCamp, Think Cater), but every platform on this list is a paid product once the trial ends.
