BEO HQ vs Planning Pod
Planning Pod is a broad event and venue management platform priced by how many events you run at once; BEO HQ is a focused document generator at a flat monthly rate.
Planning Pod is one of the few platforms in this category that takes banquet event orders seriously rather than treating them as an afterthought, and it backs that with a genuinely wide toolset: bookings and a venue calendar, floor plans, budgets, checklists, guest and seating management, invoicing, and payments. For a venue coordinating a lot of moving parts, that breadth is the appeal.
Its pricing works differently from most, and it is the thing to understand first. Planning Pod charges by how many events you are managing at a time, so the bill scales with your volume. Published listings show tiers around $74 per month for up to 10 active events, $109 for up to 25, and $159 for up to 50, with a separate venue management plan listed at $149 and custom quotes above 75 events. BEO HQ is $19 or $39 per month no matter how many events you run.
| Feature | BEO HQ | Planning Pod |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $19 to $39, flat | About $74 to $159 by volume |
| Pricing model | Flat, unlimited events | Scales with concurrent events |
| Cost when you get busier | Unchanged | Moves up a tier |
| Free tier | 1 watermarked BEO + 1 invoice | No free plan advertised |
| Try without an account | Yes, ungated BEO builder | Demo or signup first |
| BEO generation | Core feature | Yes, genuinely supported |
| Proposals, contracts, e-sign | Yes, on Pro ($39) | Yes, built in |
| Floor plans and seating | Not included | Yes |
| Budgets, checklists, guest lists | Not included, by design | Yes, full planning suite |
| Invoices and exports | QuickBooks and CSV on Starter | Invoicing with in-app payments |
| Learning curve | Minutes, one event record | Platform onboarding expected |
| Best for | Caterers who need documents | Venues and planners managing everything |
Choose Planning Pod if...
- You need floor plans, seating charts, budgets, checklists, and guest lists alongside your event documents.
- You are a venue or full-service planner coordinating many details per event, not just producing paperwork.
- You want to collect payments inside the platform rather than through your own processor.
- Your event volume is steady enough that a volume-based tier is predictable for you.
Choose BEO HQ if...
- Your bottleneck is documents: BEOs, proposals, contracts, invoices, and quotes, generated fast from one event record.
- Your volume swings with the season and you would rather not have your software bill swing with it.
- You want to produce a real BEO today without a demo, an account, or a card.
- You already have a way to collect payments and do not need a planning suite on top.
Flat pricing versus pricing by event volume
Planning Pod's model is honest about what it is: you pay for the volume you actually run, and its own site says pricing is based on how many events you manage at a time. For a venue with steady year-round bookings, that is predictable and fair. For a caterer whose autumn looks nothing like February, it means the software gets more expensive exactly when you are busiest and least interested in thinking about it.
BEO HQ is $19 for Starter and $39 for Pro whether you run three events a month or thirty. Annual billing is $190 and $390. Unlimited documents are included from Starter up, so a heavy season costs the same as a quiet one. Neither model is inherently better, but they suit different shaped businesses, and seasonality is the thing to check before you pick.
The one competitor that takes BEOs seriously
Worth saying plainly: Planning Pod actually produces banquet event orders and publishes real content about them, which most of the bigger platforms do not. If you compared the two purely on whether a BEO comes out the other end, both pass. This is not a case where the incumbent has a checkbox feature.
The difference is everything around it. Planning Pod surrounds the BEO with floor plans, seating, budgets, checklists, and guest management, and you configure your way into it. BEO HQ surrounds the BEO with the other four documents the same booking needs, and nothing else. If the planning suite is what you came for, that breadth is the product. If it is not, it is setup you do once and features you scroll past forever.
Is BEO HQ a good Planning Pod alternative?
If you use Planning Pod mainly to turn out event documents and you rarely open the floor plans, budgets, or checklists, then yes. BEO HQ produces the same core paperwork from one event record for a flat $19 to $39, and you can compare the output against what you send today before paying anything.
If your work genuinely lives in the seating charts and the checklists, BEO HQ is not a replacement, and switching would mean rebuilding that elsewhere. Caterers who need production detail rather than planning detail may find the gap smaller than expected: BEO HQ generates a kitchen sheet and a packing list from the same event, with no prices shown, for the team working the floor.
Trying before switching
The BEO builder on the BEO HQ landing page is ungated, so you can run one of your real upcoming events through it and export a real PDF without signing up. That is the fastest honest test of whether the output clears your bar.
From there the free tier covers one watermarked BEO and one invoice, and Starter removes the watermark at $19 per month. You can decide in an afternoon without booking a demo.
One price, however busy the season gets
Build a real BEO on the landing page without an account. Starter is $19 per month with unlimited events, and Pro is $39 with e-signature and your whole team.