Custom software for event planning companies, venue operators, wedding planners, and event tech startups who need booking, guest management, and vendor coordination tools built for how events actually run.
Spreadsheets and generic project management tools break down at 50 guests. They fail completely at 500. We build the purpose-built platforms that handle the complexity — booking, seating, vendor payments, and day-of coordination in one place.
Online booking and ticketing with deposit collection, upsells, and automated confirmation workflows
Guest management with RSVP tracking, dietary preferences, and seating assignments at scale
Vendor management portals with contract tracking, payment scheduling, and day-of communication
Interactive floor plan and seating tools with real-time capacity and assignment management
Summary
RaftLabs builds custom event management software for event planning companies, venue operators, wedding planners, and event tech companies. We develop online booking and ticketing platforms, guest management and RSVP systems, vendor management and payment tools, interactive seating and floor plan builders, day-of coordination mobile apps, wedding planning platforms, and event analytics dashboards. We ship in 12-14 weeks at a fixed cost.
3+Event management businesses in 3+ markets
·10-14Week delivery for event software
·100+Software products shipped
·FixedCost delivery
Event management software built for the coordination complexity you actually deal with
Running events is a coordination problem across guests, vendors, venues, and logistics — and the coordination surface grows faster than headcount. An event at 100 guests requires five times more vendor touchpoints than an event at 20. The planner who managed that with email and a spreadsheet hits a wall somewhere between their tenth client and their hundredth.
We build event management platforms that handle the real complexity — multi-vendor coordination, dynamic seating at scale, payment workflows tied to milestones, and day-of access from a mobile device on the venue floor.
What we build
Online booking and ticketing platforms
Client-facing booking flows with service and package selection, pricing configuration, and deposit or full-payment collection at the point of booking. Automated confirmation emails, contract delivery, and intake questionnaire dispatch. Upsell prompts for add-ons — catering, florals, AV — with pricing applied to the booking record. Ticketing for public events with seat selection, early bird pricing, promo codes, and QR code ticket delivery. Waitlist management for sold-out events with automated notification when capacity opens. Integration with Stripe and major payment processors for secure deposit and instalment collection.
Guest management and RSVP
Guest list management with RSVP tracking, dietary preferences, accessibility requirements, and plus-one management. Branded RSVP portal with custom questions configured per event. Automated reminder sequences for guests who haven't responded by a defined date. Guest communication tools for event-day updates, venue directions, and schedule changes. Check-in app for event-day guest arrival with QR code scanning or name search. Per-table and per-section guest count reporting for catering and venue management. Post-event survey delivery with aggregated feedback reporting.
Vendor management and payments
Vendor directory with service category, availability, and rate management. Vendor booking with contract management, milestone payment scheduling, and payment status tracking. Vendor portal where suppliers can view their brief, submit deliverables, and track payment status without email back-and-forth. Automated payment release triggers linked to event milestones — deposit on booking, balance before event date. Vendor performance rating and notes for repeat use. Multi-vendor event views showing which suppliers are confirmed, pending, and outstanding for each event.
Seating and floor plan tools
Interactive floor plan builder with drag-and-drop table and seating placement. Real-time capacity tracking by section, table, and total venue. Guest assignment with drag-and-drop between tables, dietary and accessibility constraint highlighting, and party grouping logic. Seating chart export for printing and venue sharing. Multi-room and multi-area layouts for venues with separate spaces. Floor plan templates for common venue configurations with custom override capability. Sync with guest list so new RSVPs appear immediately in the seating tool without manual import.
Day-of coordination apps
Mobile app for event coordinators managing the day from the venue floor. Run-of-show timeline with per-item status updates and real-time sharing with the team. Vendor contact directory with one-tap calling and messaging. Task assignment with push notification to the relevant team member. Guest arrival tracking with real-time count against expected headcount. Issue logging with photo capture and resolution tracking. Offline mode for venues with poor connectivity. Coordinator handover notes for multi-day events.
Event analytics and reporting
Event performance dashboards with revenue per event, booking conversion rate, average event value, and repeat client rate. Guest satisfaction reporting from post-event surveys with trend tracking across events. Vendor performance data across repeat engagements. Revenue forecasting based on confirmed bookings and pipeline events. Financial reporting with deposit received, outstanding balances, and vendor payment obligations by event and by period. Exportable reports for business reviews and planner performance benchmarking.
Problems we solve for event management businesses
Client enquiries and proposals managed in email chains with no pipeline visibility
When every client enquiry lives in a different email thread, you have no single view of what's at proposal stage, what's awaiting deposit, and what's confirmed. Leads slip through gaps between inbox and calendar. A CRM-connected proposal tool gives you a pipeline, not a pile of emails.
Event timeline coordination across multiple vendors with no shared system
Coordinating a florist, caterer, photographer, and AV team across separate email threads means every change requires five separate updates. A shared vendor coordination system means one update propagates to every party, and the run-of-show is always the current version.
Payment collection across deposits, instalments, and final balances tracked in spreadsheets
A spreadsheet tracking who has paid which instalment is a reconciliation risk at every event. Missed payments surface at the wrong moment. An automated payment schedule with milestone triggers and automatic reminders means you're not chasing balances the week before the event.
Supplier and vendor management with no contract or availability tracking
If your vendor list is a contact spreadsheet with no availability calendar, you're calling suppliers one by one to check whether they're free for a date. A vendor management system with availability, contract status, and payment history turns a manual process into a structured one.
Post-event client feedback and referral capture not systematised
The best time to ask for a review or a referral is within 48 hours of a successful event, when satisfaction is highest. If that follow-up depends on someone remembering to send an email, it won't happen consistently. Automated post-event surveys and referral prompts turn a manual task into a repeatable system.
Staff and equipment allocation across concurrent events without a scheduling board
Running two events on the same Saturday with a shared pool of staff and equipment requires a scheduling view that shows conflicts before they become crises. Without it, you're double-booking coordinators and discovering equipment shortages the morning of the event.
How we work with event management businesses
We map the full lifecycle of an event in your business: how enquiries arrive, how proposals are built, how vendors are booked, how guests are managed, and how the day-of coordination actually works. Discovery produces a fixed-scope document -- defined build, fixed cost, confirmed timeline -- before code starts.
Event management software has multiple users with different needs: the planner, the client, the vendor, and the day-of coordinator. We design the data model and permission structure so each party sees what they need and nothing they shouldn't, all connected to the same event record.
We build in two-week cycles. Your event coordinators test real booking flows, vendor portals, and day-of tools -- not prototypes. Payment workflows and guest management are tested with realistic guest list sizes, not five-person samples.
We recommend launching on a low-event period so your team has time to run live events through the system before peak season. Go-live includes full team training, data migration from existing tools, and direct support during the first live events on the platform.
The first season on a new event platform surfaces edge cases that discovery couldn't anticipate: venue layouts that don't fit the seating tool, vendor payment timing that needs adjusting, or a guest management flow that creates friction for a specific event type. We build iteration cycles into the engagement.
What to ask any event management software team
Booking and client management
Can the system handle your specific booking flow -- enquiry, proposal, deposit, contract, balance?
Does the client portal give couples or clients a self-service view of their event status?
Can payment milestones be configured per event type and contract value?
Does the proposal tool connect directly to the booking record without manual re-entry?
Vendor and day-of coordination
Can vendors log into a portal to view their brief and track payment without email back-and-forth?
Does the day-of coordination app work offline at venues with poor connectivity?
Can you manage staff and equipment allocation across concurrent events from one view?
Delivery and cost
Is pricing fixed before development starts, or hourly and subject to overruns?
Who owns the data and code after delivery?
What does ongoing maintenance cost after go-live?
Event management software development cost
Scope
Estimated range
Timeline
Client portal and proposal tool
Client portal and proposal tool
$25,000--$50,000
8--12 weeks
Event planning and timeline system
Event planning and timeline system
$30,000--$55,000
10--14 weeks
Vendor and supplier management
Vendor and supplier management
$20,000--$40,000
6--10 weeks
Full event management platform
Full event management platform
$75,000--$140,000
14--22 weeks
Frequently asked questions
Off-the-shelf tools cover the core use case well for many event businesses — client communication, basic booking, and ticketing for standard event formats. Custom software is the right choice when: your booking logic, vendor payment workflows, or package structure is complex enough that configuring around platform limits takes more time than the tool saves; you're managing a high volume of events with multiple coordinators and need shared visibility without manual status updates; you want to sell the software to other planners or venues as a product; or your venue has a specific floor plan and capacity management requirement that generic tools handle poorly. The threshold is usually around the point where you're spending more time maintaining your tool workarounds than the tool is saving you.
Yes. The most useful wedding planning platforms connect both sides — the couple's planning checklist, budget tracker, and guest management on one side, and the vendor's brief, contract, and payment status on the other, linked to the same event record. The couple sees their wedding in one place. The planner coordinates vendors from the same platform. The vendor logs into their portal to submit deliverables and check payment status. We've built multi-sided platforms across other industries — the architecture pattern is the same. The specific workflows for weddings (payment milestones, vendor categories, seating) are configured during discovery.
Yes. Payment integration with Stripe is standard on every booking platform we build — deposit collection, instalment scheduling, and automated payment release. Calendar integration (Google Calendar, iCal) for event scheduling and coordinator availability. Accounting integration with Xero or QuickBooks for revenue and payment reconciliation without double entry. CRM integration for businesses managing a high volume of enquiries before conversion to a confirmed booking. Integration scope is always defined during discovery because complexity varies by system and the specific data flows required.
A focused booking and guest management platform typically runs $30,000–$60,000. A full platform covering booking, guest management, vendor coordination, interactive seating, a day-of mobile app, and analytics typically runs $70,000–$130,000. Wedding planning platforms built as a product to sell to other planners or venues are scoped individually based on the user model and feature scope. Cost depends on the number of event types, vendor workflow complexity, and whether you need mobile apps alongside the web platform. We price every project at fixed cost, agreed before development starts.
Events and weddings software by product
Event Management Software -- enquiry and proposal management, event planning workspace, vendor management, client portal, and budget tracking
