Shot List Planner vs ShotLace
ShotLace is built for photography studios. Shot List Planner is built for the couple. If you're a photographer running a business, ShotLace is probably the better buy — this comparison explains why, and where the free tool wins.
| Shot List Planner | ShotLace | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Couples | Photography studios |
| Who pays | Nobody — free | The photographer |
| Auto-generates family formals | Peel-away builder | Yes |
| Mobile day-of checklist | Yes | Yes |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes |
| Second shooter sharing | Yes | Yes, PIN-protected |
| Guest headshots | With Seat the Day | No |
| Timeline management | No | Yes |
| Client questionnaires | No | Yes |
| Crew & venue coordination | No | Yes |
| Guest list integration | With Seat the Day | Couple re-enters party |
These aren't really the same product
ShotLace describes itself as a wedding photography workflow app for studios. It handles questionnaires, timelines, crew sharing, and day-of checklists — the operational spine of a photography business shooting many weddings a year.
Shot List Planner does one job for one wedding: it's the artefact you make and hand to whoever is shooting. That's a narrower product on purpose.
The genuinely clever thing ShotLace does
Its peel-away algorithm builds every family and group formal combination automatically once the couple fills in the wedding party, and it flags duplicates and overlapping shots. For a studio building eighteen of these lists a month by hand, that's real time back.
The free planner has a peel-away builder too, and it produces a similar ordering. The difference is scale: ShotLace is solving this problem repeatedly for a business, and it's built accordingly.
Where Shot List Planner is genuinely better
Faces
ShotLace works from names. Shot List Planner works from names and photographs — headshots attached to the people who appear most on your list. Nothing in a formals list solves “which one is Melinda” the way a face does, and it's the single most common friction point during family photos. Headshots are part of Seat the Day rather than the free tier.
Who does the data entry
In ShotLace, couples fill in their party details, family, vendors, and special requests through the photographer's questionnaire — typing the same names they already typed into their seating chart, their RSVP tool, and their planner's spreadsheet.
If you use Seat the Day, the connected version of this planner already has every guest, their side, their group, and their table. There's no re-entry step because the data is already there.
Who's in charge of it
ShotLace is the photographer's tool, so the shot list lives in their account and exists because they sent you a questionnaire. If your photographer doesn't use it, you don't get it. Shot List Planner is yours regardless of who you hired.
Cost
ShotLace is paid software for professionals, which is the correct model for what it does. [VERIFY] Check their current pricing directly — it wasn't published in a form worth quoting here.
Shot List Planner is free, and the paid tier is a different product entirely (a seating chart, $14 once).
Which one you should use
Pick ShotLace if…
- You're a photographer or studio, not a couple
- You need timelines, questionnaires, and crew logistics in one place
- You shoot enough weddings that saving 30 minutes each adds up
Pick Shot List Planner if…
- You're the one getting married
- You want your photographer to see faces, not just names
- You don't want to depend on which software your photographer bought
- You'd rather not pay for this
Comparison based on each product's own public pages, checked August 2026. Products change — if something here is out of date, tell me and I'll fix it.
Common questions
Is ShotLace better than Shot List Planner?
For a photography studio, yes — it does things this tool doesn't attempt, like timelines, questionnaires, and crew coordination across many weddings. For a couple planning one wedding, it's more software than you need and you'd be depending on your photographer to use it. They solve different problems.
Can I use both?
Yes, and some couples do. If your photographer already runs ShotLace, fill in their questionnaire properly and use Shot List Planner for what theirs doesn't cover — the face sheet especially. Print it and hand it over on the day.
Does ShotLace have guest headshots?
Not based on their public feature list as of August 2026. Their formals generation works from names and relationships rather than photos.
Build your shot list free
No account needed to start. Add your shots, flag the ones that matter, share a link your photographer can check off on their phone.
Free forever. The paid tier lives inside Seat the Day.