Curate Review: Overview, Features, Pricing & Alternatives in 2025

Event planning chaos slowing you down again?

If you’re constantly juggling proposals, shopping lists, and client communication, you know just how stressful running an event business can get.

The reality is, you’re probably wasting hours on repetitive admin work, which eats into your creative energy and profits.

Curate promises to fix this by automating proposals, managing recipes and inventory, and streamlining contracts—all in one place. After digging deep into every corner of the platform, I found how Curate stands out for florists, caterers, and event pros by uniquely centralizing daily workflows.

In this deep dive, I’ll show you how Curate actually helps you reclaim your time from manual busywork.

This Curate review covers key features, pricing, workflow strengths, critical limitations, and where it fits against other event management software—all to simplify your evaluation process.

You’ll walk away knowing the features you need to confidently decide if Curate is the right fit.

Let’s get started.

Curate Overview

Curate was born from direct event industry experience, a fact that’s immediately apparent when you use it. Based in St. Louis since 2013, their mission simplifies life for professionals.

What I find compelling is their sharp focus on small to medium-sized businesses—specifically for florists and caterers. You won’t see them chasing massive venues; their specialization in your kind of business is their key strength.

Their 2021 seed funding clearly fueled significant platform growth. As we’ll explore through this Curate review, that investment has pushed critical new features forward, especially for catering companies.

Unlike competitors like Caterease, which I often find overly complex, Curate is built for usability over complexity. It feels like it was designed by event pros who understand the need for speed and clarity in daily operations.

You’ll find them working with independent florists, creative caterers, and rental companies. These are businesses looking to professionalize their proposals and gain a real-time handle on costs and inventory.

From my analysis, their strategy is all about automating the entire proposal-to-production workflow. This practical approach connects client-facing proposals directly to your shopping lists and profitability tracking, addressing a core industry pain point I hear about constantly.

Let’s dive into their features.

Curate Features

Drowning in event planning tasks?

Curate features offer an integrated suite designed to streamline your event management, from initial client contact to final execution. Here are the five main Curate features that can transform your event business operations.

1. Proposal Generation

Tired of spending hours creating proposals?

Manual proposal creation often means slow turnaround times and inconsistent branding. This can delay client decisions and even cost you bookings.

Curate’s proposal feature lets you craft visually stunning, detailed proposals effortlessly. From my testing, the ability to include up to eight photos per line item really makes proposals pop and impress clients. What you get is a professional, interactive document that clients can view, sign, and pay from one link.

This means you can send out proposals much faster, improving your close rates and impressing clients right from the start.

2. Recipe and Shopping List Management

Struggling to manage your event costs and inventory?

Inaccurate cost tracking leads to missed profits and wasted resources. It’s a constant headache for florists and caterers.

Curate COGS helps you build profitable recipes by tracking every ingredient or stem count, automatically generating precise shopping lists. This feature is where Curate truly shines for cost control, preventing over-ordering and helping you consolidate wholesale orders for better pricing.

So, you can ensure profitability on every event, minimize waste, and streamline your purchasing process effectively.

3. Inventory and Rental Management

Overbooking rental items causing headaches?

Without proper inventory tracking, you risk double-booking items or forgetting crucial rentals. This leads to client dissatisfaction and last-minute scrambling.

Curate Rentals helps you manage your entire inventory, particularly for rental items, ensuring everything is accounted for. From my testing, I found this feature helps prevent overbooking and tracks item availability for all your events, keeping every detail organized.

This means you can confidently manage your assets, ensuring timely delivery and avoiding embarrassing mix-ups with clients.

4. Contract and Payment Processing

Are scattered contracts and payment methods slowing you down?

Chasing signatures and payments through multiple channels creates unnecessary administrative burdens. It wastes time that could be spent on clients.

Curate simplifies client interactions by integrating online contracts and payment processing directly into the proposal link. This feature allows clients to e-sign contracts and make payments instantly, reducing friction in the booking process.

What you get is a streamlined financial workflow, reducing administrative overhead and speeding up your cash flow significantly.

5. Client and Event Management

Is event information scattered across different tools?

Disorganized event details lead to missed deadlines and poor communication. This can derail even the best-planned events.

Curate helps centralize all event-related information, from contacts to custom game plans for each event. Here’s what I found: you can create custom internal tasks and client-facing milestones, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. This feature also supports user roles, limiting access for different team members.

So, your team gets a single source of truth for every event, ensuring seamless coordination and execution from start to finish.

You’ll appreciate how these Curate features seamlessly work together to create a cohesive event management ecosystem, saving you time and boosting your business’s profitability.

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Curate Pricing

Hidden costs can ruin a budget.

Curate pricing offers a modular structure, allowing you to select specific solutions for your event business, providing transparency and flexibility.

Plan	Price & Features
Curate Proposals	$100/month (starting) • Business reports • QuickBooks integrations • Digital signatures • Branding & payment processing
Curate COGS	$75/month (starting) • Recipe generation • Onboarding & training • Consumables management • Shopping lists
Curate Rentals	$75/month (starting) • Inventory tracking • Order management • Overbook alerts • Additional users: $30/seat

1. Value Assessment

Great modular pricing approach.

What I found regarding Curate pricing is that their modular approach lets you pay only for what your business truly needs. This avoids bundling unnecessary features, ensuring you get targeted value for your money based on your specific operational requirements.

From my cost analysis, this means your budget is optimized, focusing resources on areas that drive immediate ROI for your event business.

2. Trial/Demo Options

Evaluate before you commit.

While a free trial isn’t publicly available, you can schedule a virtual tour to see Curate in action. What impressed me is how they offer personalized demos that showcase the software’s capabilities relevant to your specific business type.

This allows you to evaluate the platform thoroughly before committing to any Curate pricing plan, reducing any budget-related guesswork.

3. Plan Comparison

Choose your perfect fit.

For most event professionals, starting with Curate Proposals makes sense for streamlining client interactions. What stands out is how you can add COGS or Rentals separately as your business needs evolve, avoiding immediate overspending.

This helps you match Curate pricing to actual usage requirements, allowing you to scale effectively without upfront budget strain.

My Take: Curate’s modular pricing is a smart move for event businesses, allowing you to tailor costs to your specific needs and scale efficiently as you grow.

The overall Curate pricing reflects transparent, modular value tailored to event professionals.

Curate Reviews

What do real customers actually think?

To give you the most accurate picture, I’ve analyzed numerous Curate reviews from real users on platforms like G2 Crowd and Capterra, focusing on common themes and genuine user experiences.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users seem genuinely happy here.

From my review analysis, Curate maintains consistently high ratings, often labeled as “Top Rated Software” across key review platforms. What impressed me most is how users frequently praise its transformative impact on efficiency, suggesting it genuinely delivers on its promise to streamline event operations.

This indicates you can expect a significant improvement in your business workflow.

2. Common Praise Points

Time and profitability are consistent wins.

Users repeatedly highlight significant time savings, especially in proposal generation and administrative tasks, often leading to increased close rates. What stands out in customer feedback is how professional proposals consistently wow clients, improving their decision-making process and overall satisfaction.

This means you can expect to impress clients more easily and reclaim valuable time.

3. Frequent Complaints

Integration and manual updates cause some friction.

While generally easy to use, some users, particularly florists, express a desire for more direct integrations with specific administrative tools like Honeybook. What’s noted in reviews is how manual updates for frequently changing supplier pricing can be a recurring, albeit minor, chore.

These challenges seem like manageable workarounds rather than major deal-breakers for most users.

Overall, Curate reviews reflect strong user satisfaction for streamlining event operations, with minor concerns regarding specific integrations.

Best Curate Alternatives

Navigating event software choices?

The best Curate alternatives include several strong options, each better suited for different business situations, budgets, and operational focuses.

1. Tripleseat

Managing a larger venue or extensive catering operation?

Tripleseat excels for hotels, restaurants, and unique venues with more complex booking and sales team requirements. From my competitive analysis, Tripleseat offers a more comprehensive sales and catering platform, geared towards managing multi-space venues rather than individual event businesses like Curate.

Choose Tripleseat if your priority is large-scale venue management over Curate’s streamlined simplicity for specific event pros.

2. Details Flowers Software

Is your business exclusively floral-focused?

Details Flowers Software offers deep floral-specific functionalities, excelling in recipe building and stem counting with an extensive flower library. What I found comparing options is that Details provides highly specialized floral design tools, making it a prime alternative if your needs are solely within the floristry domain.

Consider this alternative when your business requires a hyper-focused floral solution beyond Curate’s broader event professional appeal.

3. Caterease

Do you run a very large, complex catering business?

Caterease provides extensive features and customization options suitable for larger, more established catering operations needing highly specific workflows. From my analysis, Caterease offers deep customization for complex workflows, making it ideal for businesses willing to invest in a more intricate system than Curate.

Choose Caterease if your catering business demands maximum customization and you prioritize depth over Curate’s user-friendly interface.

4. Floranext

Need an integrated retail POS and e-commerce for your flower shop?

Floranext’s core strength is its comprehensive e-commerce and POS capabilities, allowing for website creation and online order management. Alternative-wise, Floranext integrates retail and event floristry, providing a full solution for online sales and in-store transactions in addition to event management.

Choose Floranext if your primary need is an all-in-one e-commerce and POS system for a retail flower shop.

The best Curate alternatives depend on your specific business type and operational scale rather than a generic feature list.

Curate Setup

Concerned about complicated software setup and training?

This Curate review section dives into what you can expect during deployment, focusing on practical preparation and realistic expectations for your business.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Is Curate easy to deploy?

Curate aims to simplify setup with “library starters” and easy item additions. What I found about deployment is that the web-based nature significantly reduces complexity, allowing quicker initial setup than on-premise solutions.

You’ll primarily focus on data input and customizing your library, rather than extensive technical configuration.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Minimal technical hurdles to overcome.

As a web-based application, Curate is accessible from any device, simplifying technical requirements. From my implementation analysis, Curate integrates well with common business tools like QuickBooks Online and Stripe, streamlining data flow.

Prepare for basic integration mapping with your existing accounting or payment systems, but expect no major infrastructure changes.

3. Training & Change Management

User adoption is often straightforward.

While designed for ease of use, some onboarding is beneficial, especially for features like Curate COGS. What I found about deployment is that the Curate team actively assists with data transfer, which smooths the transition for your users.

Invest time in initial training for new features and ensure existing data is accurately migrated for seamless user adoption.

4. Support & Success Factors

Expect strong vendor support throughout.

Users consistently praise the Curate team for their support, describing service as “10/10.” From my analysis, vendor responsiveness directly contributes to successful implementation, especially during data transfer and initial configuration.

Leverage Curate’s support team for any challenges and ensure your team is ready to embrace the streamlined workflows for success.

Overall, the Curate setup is designed for simplicity and strong vendor support, making its implementation accessible for most event businesses.

Bottom Line

Is Curate the right choice for your event business?

My Curate review provides a comprehensive assessment, helping you understand who will benefit most from this software and why, to guide your decision-making.

1. Who This Works Best For

Event professionals, especially florists and caterers.

Curate is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses and mid-market companies in the event industry, including independent florists and catering firms. What I found about target users is that you prioritize streamlined proposal generation and accurate cost management to boost profitability and reduce administrative burden.

You’ll succeed if your goal is to automate time-consuming tasks and present professional proposals efficiently to increase bookings.

2. Overall Strengths

Unmatched efficiency in proposal and COGS management.

The software excels by automating proposal creation, accurately managing cost of goods sold, and centralizing client interactions, leading to significant time savings. From my comprehensive analysis, Curate’s intuitive workflow enhances productivity immensely, directly translating into increased close rates and improved profitability for your business.

These strengths mean you can spend less time on paperwork and more time on creative work and client satisfaction.

3. Key Limitations

Manual pricing updates are a consistent requirement.

While powerful, you must manually input and update wholesaler pricing, as direct API integrations with some key administrative tools are not available. Based on this review, the absence of direct API integrations with platforms like Honeybook means some workarounds might be necessary for a fully seamless tech stack.

I’d say these limitations are generally manageable if you’re prepared for periodic manual updates and slight integration workarounds.

4. Final Recommendation

Curate receives a strong recommendation from me.

You should choose this software if you’re a florist, caterer, or event professional seeking an intuitive, all-in-one platform to manage proposals, costs, and client interactions. From my analysis, your business will significantly enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and ultimately grow revenue by leveraging Curate’s specialized features.

My confidence in recommending this solution is very high for event businesses aiming to streamline their operations.

This Curate review affirms its strong value for event management professionals seeking efficiency and profitability gains.