TLDR (Summary)
The best time tracking software for wedding planners is Plutio ($19/month).
Wedding planners need time tracking that captures hours across couple meetings, vendor coordination (10-14 vendors per wedding), design work, venue visits, and wedding day execution while connecting everything to wedding projects. Plutio tracks time per wedding, analyzes margin, and converts tracked hours directly to invoices for consulting work.
Wedding planners who track time across full engagements price future weddings based on actual effort data instead of gut estimates. When a $8,000 wedding turns out to take 120 hours instead of the estimated 60, that's the difference between $133/hour and $67/hour, a gap that compounds across every booking.
For additional strategies, read our freelance time tracking guide.
What is time tracking for wedding planners?
Time tracking for wedding planners is software that captures the hours spent on planning activities, connects that time to specific weddings, and provides data for margin analysis and billing.
The distinction matters: generic time trackers record hours. Wedding planner time tracking connects those hours to specific weddings, categorizes by activity type (couple meetings, vendor coordination, design, venue visits), and answers "how profitable was this wedding really?"
What wedding planner time tracking actually does
Core functions include starting and stopping timers for active work, manually logging time when timers aren't practical (like quick vendor calls or 5-minute email responses), categorizing entries by activity type, connecting all time to specific wedding projects, and generating reports that show where hours actually go across the 6-18 month engagement. Advanced platforms analyze margin by comparing flat-fee charges against actual hours invested. The difference between knowing "that wedding felt like a lot of work" and knowing "that wedding took 112 hours, 48 of which went to vendor coordination" is the difference between guessing and pricing based on data.
Standalone time trackers vs integrated wedding platforms
Standalone tools like Toggl Track or Harvest handle time tracking in isolation. Hours get tracked, but entries exist separately from your wedding management workflow. After each wedding, manually cross-referencing hours from Toggl with invoices from QuickBooks and projects from another tool creates unnecessary reconciliation work. Integrated platforms like Plutio connect time tracking with wedding projects, invoicing, and couple management. When time gets tracked, entries link to the wedding automatically. When weddings complete, margin reports show actual revenue per wedding against hours invested without any manual data compilation.
What makes wedding planner time tracking different
Wedding planners face unique challenges: most charge flat fees but need actual hour data for pricing future weddings accurately. A full-service wedding quoted at $8,000 might take 60 hours (great margin at $133/hour) or 120 hours (problematic at $67/hour). Without tracking across the 6-18 month engagement, pricing stays blind. Vendor coordination alone (managing 10-14 vendors per wedding including caterers, florists, photographers, DJs, venues, officiants, and more) can consume a large portion of total planning hours. Many planners drastically underestimate vendor coordination time because individual calls and emails feel small, but they add up to the largest single time category when actually measured.
When time tracking connects to wedding projects and invoicing, you get complete visibility into wedding economics. What did this wedding actually cost to deliver? Which service tiers are most profitable? Where is time being spent that could be optimized?
Why wedding planners need time tracking
Wedding planners who don't track time price future weddings based on gut feeling rather than data, and that gut feeling consistently underestimates the vendor coordination hours that dominate wedding planning work.
According to Freelancers Union survey data, a significant portion of independent professionals report earning less than expected on projects, often because they underestimate the coordination and administrative hours involved. Service professionals who price based on estimates rather than tracked hours tend to undercharge, because estimates consistently miss the small tasks that accumulate over months. For wedding planners charging $5,000-15,000 per wedding across 6-18 month engagements, the gap between estimated and actual hours can represent thousands of dollars in underpriced work per booking.
The pricing blind spot problem
Without time data, pricing becomes guesswork. A full-service wedding might seem like it takes about 60 hours, so the price lands at $8,000 ($133/hour effective rate). But actual tracking reveals it's 100 hours ($80/hour), with vendor coordination consuming far more time than estimated. The effective rate ends up 40% lower than expected. Over a season of 8-12 weddings, that blind spot compounds into tens of thousands of dollars in underpriced work.
The vendor coordination time sink
Coordinating 10-14 vendors per wedding is THE time-consuming activity. Each vendor requires contract review, payment tracking, confirmation calls, timeline coordination, and day-of management. A single vendor might generate 15-20 touchpoints over the planning period: initial outreach, proposal review, contract signing, deposit reminder, menu finalization, timeline coordination, confirmation call, and final walkthrough. Multiply by 10-14 vendors across 8-15 simultaneous weddings, and vendor coordination can consume a large portion of total planning hours. Without tracking, this entire category is invisible and gets systematically underpriced.
The scope expansion problem
Wedding planning scope expands naturally over 6-18 months. Couples add requests ("Can you also coordinate the rehearsal dinner?"), families get involved with their own preferences, guest lists grow from 120 to 180, and new vendors get added to the roster. HBR research describes how accumulated small stressors, each individually minor, create a compounding effect that degrades performance. Without time tracking, that extra work is invisible until the planner feels overwhelmed but cannot point to specific data showing why. Tracking makes overruns visible early, creating a factual basis for scope conversations or pricing adjustments rather than relying on vague "I'm feeling stretched" discussions.
The margin mystery problem
Some weddings feel harder than others. But without data, quantifying why or how much harder is impossible. Was the 200-guest wedding proportionally more work than the 100-guest wedding, or did it actually take 3x the vendor coordination? Did the destination wedding's coordination add 20 hours or 50 hours compared to a local wedding? Which service tier (day-of vs. full-service) actually delivers the best margin per hour? These questions stay unanswerable without tracked data across multiple weddings.
Time tracking isn't about surveillance. It's about business intelligence. Understanding where hours go across 6-18 month engagements enables better pricing, scope management, and business decisions based on data.
Time tracking features wedding planners need
The essential time tracking features for wedding planners capture planning hours across activity types while connecting to wedding projects for margin analysis and billing.
Core time tracking features
- Timer and manual entry: Start timers for active work. Add manual entries for site visits, calls, and quick activities. Both methods with equal accuracy.
- Wedding project connection: Every entry links to a specific wedding. Track hours across 8-15 simultaneous weddings without confusion.
- Activity categories: Categorize by work type: couple meetings, vendor coordination, design work, venue visits, administrative, wedding day execution. Understand where time goes.
- Description notes: Add context: "call with caterer about menu changes" or "venue walkthrough with couple."
- Mobile tracking: iOS and Android apps for venue visits, wedding days, and vendor meetings away from desk.
- Rounding options: Round entries to nearest 5, 10, or 15 minutes for billing practices.
Wedding planner-specific features
- Hour budgets per wedding: Set estimated hours and track actual against budget. Get alerts when approaching estimates, especially important across 6-18 month engagements.
- Margin reports: Compare flat-fee revenue against actual hours. See effective hourly rate per wedding. Identify which service tiers and wedding sizes are most profitable.
- Time-to-invoice conversion: Convert tracked hours to invoice line items for consulting or hourly billing. No re-typing entries.
- Team tracking: For planning firms, track everyone's time against shared weddings. Roll up total hours regardless of who worked on it.
Platform features that multiply value
- Per-wedding margin dashboard: Revenue from each couple's milestone payments sits alongside total hours logged. After a wedding, effective hourly rate calculates automatically without pulling data from separate tools.
- Category breakdown by vendor type: See how many hours went to florist coordination versus caterer management versus venue communication. Identify which vendor relationships consume the most planning time across your portfolio.
- Tracked-time-to-invoice conversion: For consulting arrangements or hourly overages, select logged entries and generate an invoice line item directly. No re-typing hours from a timesheet into a billing tool.
Time tracking becomes valuable when logged hours reveal true margins per wedding and inform future pricing. Time tracking that shows which weddings are actually profitable enables data-driven pricing for future bookings.
Time tracking software pricing for wedding planners
Time tracking software for wedding planners typically costs $0-18 per user per month for standalone tools, with integrated platforms providing time tracking alongside wedding management at similar prices.
What wedding planners typically pay for time tracking
- Toggl Track: Free basic, $9-18/user/month for advanced
- Harvest: Free for 1 project, $12/user/month unlimited
- Clockify: Free basic, $3.99-11.99/user/month for advanced
- HoneyBook: $36-129/month with time tracking included
Standalone trackers work for basic hour logging but don't connect to wedding management, contracts, or invoicing. When combining standalone time tracking ($9-18/month) with separate project management ($10-30/month) and separate invoicing ($10-20/month), total costs often exceed integrated platforms that include everything.
Plutio pricing (February 2026)
- Core: $19/month: Unlimited time tracking with margin analysis, plus contracts, invoicing, project management, and couple portals.
- Pro: $49/month: Custom domain, advanced automations, team collaboration.
- Max: $199/month: Unlimited team, full white-labeling, priority support.
The ROI calculation for wedding planners
- Pricing improvement: Weddings priced on actual hour data consistently capture more revenue than gut-based estimates, because estimates miss the accumulated vendor coordination time
- Scope visibility: Early awareness of hour overruns enables proactive scope management over 6-18 months
- Accurate consulting billing: Capture all hours for consulting and hourly work
- Business intelligence: Understanding which wedding types deliver the best margins guides service offerings and marketing focus
Time tracking ROI comes through pricing optimization. If tracking reveals you're undercharging by even 10%, correcting that on future weddings means one properly priced wedding covers years of software costs.
Why Plutio is the best time tracking for wedding planners
Every hour you log in Plutio already knows which wedding it belongs to, because the timer runs inside the same project where your vendor contracts, couple communication, and milestone invoices live.
Complete workflow integration
Track time in Plutio and entries connect to the wedding project automatically. When the wedding is complete, total hours appear alongside revenue for instant margin analysis. When invoicing consulting hours, tracked time converts to invoice line items with one click instead of re-typing entries from a separate timesheet. The complete picture from first couple meeting to final margin calculation lives in one place, so you never need to cross-reference spreadsheets or manually compile data from disconnected tools.
Margin analysis by wedding
See effective hourly rate per wedding: revenue divided by actual hours. A $8,000 full-service wedding that took 60 hours = $133/hour. One that took 120 hours = $67/hour. Over time, a library of actual effort data builds up. How many hours does a 150-guest wedding really take? How much more time does vendor-heavy coordination require? After tracking 10-15 weddings, patterns emerge that transform pricing from educated guessing into data-driven decisions.
Vendor coordination time visibility
Category breakdown shows what percentage of time goes to vendor coordination versus couple meetings versus design work versus administrative tasks. When tracking reveals 50% of hours go to vendor coordination across 10-14 vendors, you know to price that complexity appropriately or reduce the steps involved in vendor management. Seeing the exact hours per vendor category (caterer coordination vs. florist coordination vs. venue communication) reveals which vendor relationships consume the most time, information that informs both pricing and process improvement decisions.
Hour budgets and alerts
Set estimated hours during initial pricing based on your best data for that wedding type and size. Track actual against budget across the 6-18 month engagement with visual progress indicators showing how much of the budget remains. Get alerts when approaching estimates (at 75% and 90% of budgeted hours) so you can address scope expansion or pricing proactively rather than discovering overruns after the wedding is over.
Mobile tracking for field work
Wedding planning happens everywhere: venue tours, vendor meetings, tastings, rehearsal walkthroughs, and wedding day execution. Mobile apps capture field work alongside desk work so hours don't go unlogged just because they happened away from a computer. On a wedding day alone, 10-14 hours of coordination might pass, and without mobile tracking, that time often gets estimated rather than measured accurately.
Team time aggregation
For planning firms with multiple team members, everyone's time per wedding gets tracked individually but rolls up into total wedding hours for margin analysis. Lead planner, coordinator, and assistant all track separately, but the wedding report shows combined effort. Understanding that a wedding took 80 total hours (40 lead planner, 25 coordinator, 15 assistant) reveals where effort concentrates and whether task delegation could improve margins on future weddings.
Tracked hours, margin reports, and invoice conversion all live inside the same wedding projects where contracts and timelines exist. Instead of separate tools, you have integrated tracking that feeds business intelligence across every wedding you plan.
How to set up time tracking in Plutio
Setting up time tracking in Plutio takes 15-30 minutes for initial configuration, with the real value building as you track consistently across weddings.
Step 1: Define activity categories (10 mins)
Create categories matching your planning activities:
- Couple meetings: Consultations, planning sessions, presentations
- Vendor coordination: Calls, emails, meetings with the 10-14 vendors per wedding
- Design and planning: Floor plans, timelines, mood boards, creative work
- Venue visits: Tours, walkthroughs, setup supervision
- Administrative: Contracts, invoicing, internal organization
- Wedding day execution: Day-of coordination, timeline management, vendor direction
Step 2: Set up hour budgets (5 mins)
Add estimated hours to active weddings. As you track actual time across the 6-18 month engagement, you'll see how estimates compare to reality.
Step 3: Configure preferences (5 mins)
Choose rounding settings. Enable mobile tracking. Set default categories.
Step 4: Start tracking consistently
Start timers when you begin work on a specific wedding. Stop when switching tasks or switching to a different couple's wedding. Add manual entries for quick activities like 5-minute vendor calls or brief email responses. Aim for completeness over perfection, and accept that early data will have gaps while the habit develops.
Step 5: Review monthly
Analyze time data monthly: which weddings exceed hour estimates? Which categories consume the most time? What does margin look like across wedding types and service tiers? Monthly review catches patterns early, like discovering that vendor coordination consistently takes 50% more time than budgeted, so pricing gets adjusted before the pattern costs money across an entire season.
Common setup mistakes to avoid
- Not setting default hourly rates per service type: Configure rates for planning work, consultation time, day-of coordination, and administrative tasks during initial setup. Without default rates, margin reports show hours but not dollar values, and converting tracked time to invoices for consulting work requires manual rate entry every time.
- Tracking at too granular a level: Logging every 2-minute email reply as a separate entry creates tracking fatigue that kills the habit within weeks. Track in meaningful blocks: "vendor coordination - caterer" for a 30-minute session of emails and calls, not individual message entries. End-of-day reconciliation catches what timers missed.
- Forgetting to link time entries to specific weddings: Unlinked entries that sit in a general timesheet provide no margin insight. Every tracked hour should connect to a wedding project so that when the event completes, total hours and effective hourly rate calculate automatically. Build the habit of selecting the wedding before starting the timer.
Time tracking value compounds over time. The first month provides initial patterns. After a full wedding season, you have detailed data for pricing every service tier you offer.
Time categories for wedding planners
Activity categories organize time tracking data for meaningful analysis of where planning effort goes across 6-18 month engagements.
Recommended categories
- Couple meetings: Consultations, planning sessions, presentations, phone/video calls, in-person meetings with couples and families
- Vendor coordination: Calls and emails with caterers, florists, photographers, DJs, venues, officiants. Contract review, payment follow-up, confirmation calls
- Design and planning: Floor plans, seating charts, timelines, mood boards, creative work, design presentations
- Venue visits: Tours, location scouting, walkthroughs, setup supervision, breakdown
- Administrative: Contracts, invoicing, email management, organization, marketing
- Wedding day execution: Day-of coordination, timeline management, vendor direction, problem-solving
What category breakdowns reveal
- High vendor coordination: With 10-14 vendors per wedding, this category often dominates. If 50%+ of hours go here, price vendor complexity appropriately or simplify your coordination workflows
- High couple meetings: May indicate high-maintenance couples, unclear communication in early planning sessions, or an opportunity for premium high-touch pricing that reflects the extra attention
- High administrative: Process improvement opportunity through automation. If 20%+ of hours go to admin tasks like contract prep, invoice sending, and email management, automating those steps frees time for billable planning work
Categories transform raw hour totals into actionable data. Understanding where time goes across the wedding planning lifecycle enables focused improvement on the activities that consume the most hours.
Couple portals for wedding planners: time visibility
Couple portals can optionally display time tracking data for couples who want transparency, particularly for consulting or hourly arrangements.
When to share time data
- Hourly consulting: Couples receiving hourly bills expect time detail supporting charges
- Hybrid pricing: When flat-fee planning includes hourly overages for scope expansion
- Scope discussions: Sharing time data supports conversations about extra work and its impact
When to keep time data internal
- Fixed-price packages: Couples pay for outcomes, not hours. Time data is internal business intelligence
- Value-based positioning: Sharing hours can undermine perceived value for premium wedding planning services
Configuring time visibility
Portal permissions control what couples see. Share time summaries without detailed entries, share full logs with descriptions, or hide time tracking entirely. Configure per couple based on your pricing arrangement and the level of transparency that serves the relationship best. For hourly consulting arrangements, full time logs build trust by showing exactly where every billed hour went.
Time visibility is a strategic choice. Share when transparency serves the relationship. Keep internal when time data is business intelligence rather than couple information.
How to start using time tracking in Plutio
Migrating time tracking to Plutio takes 1-2 hours of active setup, with the real value building over the first 2-3 weeks as consistent tracking habits form across active weddings.
Step 1: Export historical data from current tools
If you are currently tracking time in Toggl, Harvest, or Clockify, export historical hour data as CSV for reference. Historical time data from disconnected tools has limited analytical value, but the export serves as a reference for setting realistic hour budgets on future weddings. If you have never tracked time before, skip this step and start fresh.
Step 2: Build activity categories and hour budgets
Create time categories matching your planning workflow: couple meetings, vendor coordination, design and planning, venue visits, administrative, and wedding day execution. Add estimated hour budgets to each active wedding based on service tier and complexity. These initial estimates will be refined as actual tracking data accumulates over the first few weddings.
Step 3: Connect integrations and configure preferences
Set default hourly rates for each service type if you bill consulting hours. Configure rounding preferences (nearest 5, 10, or 15 minutes). Enable mobile tracking on iOS or Android so venue visits, vendor meetings, and wedding days get captured. Install the desktop app or browser extension for office-based tracking.
Step 4: Import any relevant historical data
If your exported data from Toggl or Harvest is clean enough to import, map it to Plutio categories and link entries to active wedding projects. For most planners, starting fresh with accurate forward-looking data is more valuable than importing inconsistent historical records.
Step 5: Run parallel tracking for 2-3 weeks
Track all active wedding work in Plutio while building the daily habit. Review entries at the end of each day to catch missed activities. After 2-3 weeks, the routine becomes natural and daily reconciliation takes under 5 minutes. Accept that the first week will have gaps while the habit develops.
Step 6: Phase out old tracking tools
Once Plutio tracking is consistent (typically after 3-4 weeks), cancel standalone time tracking subscriptions. Export final archives from old tools before cancellation. Going forward, all time data connects to wedding projects for margin analysis and pricing intelligence.
Common migration pitfalls to avoid
- Trying to track every 2-minute task: Granular tracking creates fatigue that kills the habit. Track in meaningful blocks ("vendor coordination - florist, 30 min") rather than individual emails. End-of-day reconciliation catches what timers missed.
- Not linking entries to weddings immediately: Unlinked time entries provide no margin insight. Build the habit of selecting the wedding project before starting the timer so every hour feeds into per-wedding analysis.
- Expecting perfect data from day one: The first month of tracking will have gaps and inconsistencies. Partial data still reveals patterns, and accuracy improves as the habit solidifies. Do not abandon tracking because the first week was incomplete.
Once the tracking habit sticks, your next pricing conversation references real data: "Full-service weddings with 12+ vendors average 95 hours of coordination." That specificity replaces gut estimates and gives couples a clear picture of what their investment covers.
