Seating chart software vs Canva
Two different jobs that share a name. One of them Canva is genuinely the best tool for.
SeatingSorted vs Excel or Google Sheets
Seating chart software vs a spreadsheet
Checked August 2026The short answer
Under about 60 guests with no keep-apart rules, use the spreadsheet. Past roughly 80 guests, or the moment you have more than five pairs of people who must or must not sit together, the spreadsheet stops being a tool and becomes a filing system for a problem you are still solving in your head.
| Excel or google sheets | SeatingSorted | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | One payment per event |
| Setup time | Minutes | Minutes |
| Collecting RSVPs | You retype what arrives by text and email | Guests fill in a link; the list updates itself |
| Keep-apart rules | Held in your head, or in a comment nobody reads | Stated once, enforced every time the plan changes |
| Moving one guest | You re-check every rule by eye | Every rule re-checked automatically |
| Telling you a plan is impossible | No — it will let you build a broken chart | Names the pair causing the conflict |
| A printable chart | You format it yourself | Generated |
| Works offline | Yes | No |
| You own the file forever | Yes | Export to CSV any time |
Use Excel or Google Sheets when
- Fewer than about 60 guests, where you can hold the whole thing in your head.
- You already have a spreadsheet you like and only need to tidy it.
- You want something that works on a plane with no signal.
- Nobody in the room has a problem with anybody else in the room.
Use SeatingSorted when
- More than about 80 guests, where the number of pairs to check outgrows what anyone can hold at once.
- Guests are still replying, so the list moves under you.
- There are people who genuinely cannot sit together, and being wrong about it is expensive.
- More than one person is editing, and you have already lost a version.
The part people find out too late
The honest failure mode of a spreadsheet is not that it is hard to use. It is that it will cheerfully let you produce a chart that breaks a rule you set yourself three weeks earlier, and nothing will tell you until somebody sits down.
Comparisons age. This one was last checked in August 2026 — if something here is out of date or unfair, tell us and it gets corrected.