Altessa vs Joy: Wedding Planning App Comparison

Update, October 16, 2026: The Knot Worldwide agreed on October 14 to acquire Zola. The deal hasn't closed, and both companies say Zola will continue as its own brand. What the deal means for couples is here.

Joy is the better free wedding website and registry, Altessa is the better planning tool, and the two overlap so little that most couples who ask this question should probably use both. I built Altessa, so this is a comparison written by one side of it; I've kept every Joy fact to what Joy says on its own site as of October 2026, and I've tried to be as plain about where Joy wins as where it doesn't.

Side by side

One-time purchase vs free with a registry

Joy's pricing page says it is free to use and that it makes money when guests buy items from your registry that Joy sells, plus optional upgrades. That's an honest model and a good one for a website, because the website is where the registry lives. It also means the planning tools are the on-ramp, and a business shapes its on-ramp around where the money is.

Altessa's model is the purchase. You start free with no card, and when you want the full planner you pay once: 80 dollars for Core, 120 for Premium, 40 to move up later. There's no registry, no marketplace, and no ad. That follows from the model: when the couple is the only customer, the product gets to be quiet. I've written about the honest guide to the planning apps, including the ones that compete with mine.

Layout builder and seating vs Joy's guest tools

This is the real split. Joy's guest list is strong on its own terms: a link that collects addresses, RSVPs for every event with tags so a household only sees what it's invited to, email save-the-dates and reminders sent from the list, and address export formatted for envelopes. If the job is getting two hundred people to the right event with the right answer, Joy does that well and for free.

What Joy doesn't document on a product page is the room. A blog post mentions a built-in seating chart that syncs with the guest list, but I couldn't find it on Joy's product or help pages, so test it before you plan around it. Altessa's layout builder draws your venue to scale in feet or meters, or imports the PDF the venue gave you, places round tables from 4 to 7 feet and 6 and 8 foot banquets with editable seat counts, and seats guests at the seat, with a PDF of the floor plan and a card per table for the venue. It's Premium only, which is the honest caveat: Core at 80 dollars doesn't include it.

Budget and timeline

Joy lists a planning dashboard and offers a budget tracker on its blog; I couldn't find an in-product budget or checklist. Altessa's budget is a payment schedule: each vendor has a quote, a deposit and a balance with their due dates, and payments logged as they go out, so the question of what's owed this month has an answer. The timeline dates its milestones backward from your wedding and pushes them to Google Calendar, or exports an .ics file with a reminder a week before each. The percentages the schedule starts from are here.

Platform and privacy

Joy has apps on iOS and Android. Altessa runs in the browser on a laptop or a phone, with nothing to install, and the layout builder works on both. On privacy, Joy's policy says it sells certain personal data to third parties as the CCPA defines the term and shares with ad networks for behavioral advertising, with an opt-out page. Altessa's says it doesn't sell wedding planning data or share it with advertisers or vendors, that deletion is a button in Settings with no emailed codes, and that export has no email gate.

Which couples should pick which

Pick Joy if you want a free, good-looking website with per-event RSVPs and a zero-fee registry, and your planning needs are a list and a dashboard. Pick Altessa if the budget, the vendor payments, the dated timeline, and the floor plan are what keep you up at night, and you'd rather pay once than be the on-ramp to a store. Pick both if you want Joy's website facing your guests and Altessa holding the plan behind it. That last one is the setup I'd suggest to a friend, and it costs 80 or 120 dollars total.

Where Altessa fits

Altessa's site is one page that links to wherever you registered; the registry and the full guest-facing website are Joy's job. Altessa's job is the one place the plan lives, where a yes from the cousins adds two chairs at table nine and two plates on the catering line without anyone retyping anything. If that's the problem you have, it's built for you. If the website is the problem, Joy is better at it.

Questions people ask

Is Altessa better than Joy?

For planning, yes: budget with deposits and due dates, a dated timeline with calendar sync, and a to-scale floor plan with seat-level assignment. For a free website and registry, Joy is better. Many couples use both.

How much does Altessa cost compared to Joy?

Altessa is a one-time 80 dollars for Core or 120 for Premium, free to start. Joy is free, with a custom domain at about 19.99 a year and paid extras for texting and premium designs, and it earns on registry items it sells.

Does Joy have a floor plan or seating chart?

A Joy blog post mentions a seating chart, but as of October 2026 I could not find one on a Joy product or help page. Altessa's layout builder is a to-scale floor plan with seating, in the Premium tier.

Can I use Joy and Altessa together?

Yes. Keep the website and registry on Joy and run the budget, guest list, timeline, and layout in Altessa. Neither requires the other.

Armin Korsos is a filmmaker who spent nine years shooting weddings before building Altessa (altessa.studio), an all-in-one wedding planning workspace that replaces the spreadsheet.