Search for a free seating chart generator and you'll find a dozen tools that all say "free" on the first screen. Most of them are, for the part where you move names around. The differences show up later: when you want to print, when your list passes a certain size, or when you notice the tool wanted an email address before it let you start. Here's what "free" tends to cover, where it tends to stop, and what to check before you put an evening into one.

What "free" usually covers

Nearly every free generator lets you do the planning itself at no cost:

  • Type or paste a guest list. The better ones take a straight paste from a spreadsheet, one guest per line, instead of making you add people one at a time.
  • Draw the room. Round tables, long tables, a head table, sometimes a dance floor and a bar so you can see what's near what.
  • Drag people into seats. This is the core of every tool, free or paid.
  • Some kind of on-screen preview of the finished chart.

If that's all you need, and you're happy to screenshot the result, a free tool will get you there. For a 40-guest dinner, it's often the whole job.

Where the free part usually stops

The limits aren't hidden, exactly, but they're rarely on the first screen. The common ones:

  • A guest cap. Some tools are free up to a set number of guests and charge once you pass it. One browser tool we looked at this month is free to 40 guests, which covers a small dinner but not the average US wedding of around 117.
  • An account wall. Wedding-website suites often include a free seating chart, but you sign up first, and your guest list lives on their servers from then on.
  • Printing and export. This is the most common line. Planning is free; a clean, print-sized file costs money, or the free version carries a watermark.
  • Auto-seating. Some free tiers make you place every guest by hand. That's fine at 50 guests and slow at 150, especially when RSVPs change the week before.
  • Rules. Very few free templates know that two people must share a table or that two others must not. A spreadsheet or a Canva layout can't warn you; you check by eye. Our comparison of free templates goes through that gap for Canva, Sheets, Excel and Word.

None of this makes a tool dishonest. Somebody has to pay for the servers and the time. It just means "free" is a question with a follow-up: free for which part?

Five checks before you paste your list in

  1. Can you start without signing up? If the first screen asks for an email, your guest list is going to live somewhere other than your laptop. That may be fine for you. Decide on purpose.
  2. Is there a guest limit? Look for it on the pricing page, not the home page. If there is one, check it against your list with plus-ones counted, not your invitation count.
  3. What does the printed output cost? Open the export or print screen before you do any real work. If it's paid, note the price and whether it's per event, per month, or once.
  4. Does it handle keep-apart pairs? Every family has at least one. A tool that can't hold that rule leaves you checking every table by hand after each change.
  5. Can you get your data back out? A backup file, a CSV, or at least a copy-paste of the list. If the site goes away, you should still have your seating plan. (Planners who were using Prismm, which is shutting down at the end of 2026, know why this one matters.)

How the numbers work for a real wedding

Take 120 guests on 60-inch rounds seating 10. That's 12 tables before you add a head table or a kids' table, and the table math article walks through how that changes with 72-inch rounds or long tables. At that size, three things take most of the time:

  • Getting the list in. Retyping 120 names is an hour you don't need to spend if the tool takes a paste.
  • The rules. Divorced parents, the uncles who don't speak, the couple who should be near the grandparents. If you're working through those, the divorced-parents guide shows how to write them down as rules before you seat anyone.
  • Re-doing it after late RSVPs. A tool that re-seats around your rules in a few seconds saves more time here than anywhere else.

A free generator that handles all three is worth more than one with nicer fonts.

What you get free in Seatwise, and what you don't

Since we make one of these, here's our own line, stated plainly.

Free, with no account, for lists up to 2,000 guests:

  • Paste your list one guest per line, or paste a CSV with a header row. Rohan & Kavya Sharma becomes two guests in one household. Leo Marchetti + Guest becomes Leo and a "Guest of Leo" who always sit together.
  • Round tables (1 to 40 seats), rectangles, a head table, and a dance floor, stage, bar and entrance on the canvas.
  • Keep-together and keep-apart rules, set from each guest's editor. Households are kept together without a rule.
  • Auto-seat. It seats every guest marked RSVP Yes, keeps households whole, treats keep-apart as a heavy penalty, mixes groups a little and balances table sizes. It tries up to 300 layouts in a second or two and keeps the best one. If you don't have enough seats, it adds 8-seat round tables to cover the shortfall.
  • A Conflicts list and a warning badge on any table where a keep-apart pair ends up together or a household gets split.
  • Undo for the last 60 steps, several events side by side, read-only share links, and a JSON backup you can keep.
  • On-screen previews of all four exports: floor plan, per-table lists, an alphabetical "Find your seat" board, and an escort-card CSV.

Your list stays in your browser's own storage. Nothing is uploaded, which also means clearing your browser data clears the plan, so keep the JSON backup.

Not free: printing and copying those exports. You can see every export on screen for free, with a small "Made with Seatwise" line at the foot. A $12 Pro key, paid once for one event, turns on Print (including Save as PDF) and Copy as text for all four exports, as many times as you need. Planners running several weddings a year can buy a Planner licence at $49 a year, which covers every event in that browser and puts the planner's own name and logo on the print views.

One free exception: if all you need is the sign at the door, the find your seat sign maker is a separate free page. Paste names with table numbers, pick 18x24, 24x36, A1 or A2, and print or save a PDF. It carries one small "Made with Seatwise" credit line and nothing else.

FAQ

Is there a seating chart generator that's free all the way through, printing included? Some are, usually because they're part of a wedding website or registry that pays for them another way. Expect to create an account. If you'd rather not, the trade is usually a small one-time fee for the printed output.

Do free generators do auto-seating? Some do and some don't. Check before you import, because placing 150 guests by hand is the slowest part of the job.

Is it safe to paste my guest list into a free tool? Check whether it uploads the list. A tool that needs an account stores your guests on its servers. A browser-only tool like Seatwise keeps them on your device, and you're responsible for the backup.

What's the cheapest way to get a printed chart? Plan in a free tool, then either pay for its export or type the final list into the free sign maker above. For sizes, fonts and print shops, see find your seat sign: sizes, fonts, and where to print it.