Honest comparison
Curate vs CaterKit
The short version: Curate is proposal software that pays for itself per proposal — and you pay for the jobs you lose. Its plans start at $275/month and run a proposal quota: on the entry tier, you get about 240 proposals a year, and declined inquiries count against it, with $200 per extra 100 on top (verified July 2026). CaterKit is flat — Solo $79/month, Pro $149/month — with no per-quote or per-lead limit, ever. Quote as many jobs as it takes to win one.
Curate grew out of the floral world, and its quota model is priced for high-volume events-and-floral shops sending hundreds of design-heavy proposals a year. CaterKit is for the caterer at the other end of the volume curve — the one quoting 2 to 15 events a month, watching every fixed cost, and never owing money on a job they lost.
Side by side
Here’s the model, side by side, with Curate figures verified July 2026:
| What matters | Curate | CaterKit |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $275/mo (Growth, ~240 proposals/yr) · ~$333 (Premium) · $500 (Scale, unlimited) | Free to start · Solo $79/mo · Pro $149/mo, flat |
| Proposal limit | Yes — a quota. Declined inquiries count against it. +$200 per extra 100. | None. No per-quote or per-lead limit on any plan, free included. |
| Extra users | +$30/mo | Solo & Pro are single-seat. Team includes 3 seats, then $15/seat/mo or $144/seat/yr, up to 15. |
| Rentals add-on | +$50/mo | — |
| Recipe / portion costing | Profitability-oriented | Per-portion recipe costing with live margins, on every plan (free holds 15 recipes). |
| Menu import | None | Photograph a menu. Costed recipes come back as drafts you review before they count (5/50/150 imports a month by plan). |
| Event-day lists | None | Shopping, prep & pack lists build themselves from the menu you sold, offline and printable. |
Curate pricing verified July 2026 from their public pricing pages. Their current numbers may differ, so always check their site. Rows we can't verify say so.
The quota is the problem
Sit with the quota row for a second, because it’s the whole argument. A proposal quota that counts declined inquiries means you’re billed for the "no." You quote a job, the client goes another way, and that quote still spent one of your 240. Quote freely enough to win — send a revision, chase a lead, price a maybe — and you march toward the $200-per-100 overage. The pricing quietly discourages the exact behavior that wins catering jobs: quoting fast, quoting often, and following up.
The caterer nobody built for
The cleanest description of who this hurts came from a Curate user, in her own words:
Pricing is a little high for the very sporadic use we do. I would LOVE it if we could pay for a ‘1-6’ per year just to crank out that handful.
That’s a minority voice in Curate’s reviews — but it’s precisely our customer, asking out loud for the thing CaterKit is. You don’t need a 240-proposal plan to quote six great events a year. CaterKit’s free tier lets you quote without a subscription at all, and Solo is a flat $79/month whether you send three quotes this month or thirty.
(That reviewer is cited as a "low-volume event professional": Curate’s base skews floral, and she is not confirmed to be a caterer. The plea is the point, whatever she caters.)
The promises, line by line
- No setup fees. Neither of us charges one — good. Hold the rest of the line.
- Clients pay you directly — your money lands in your own accounts and never sits in a CaterKit balance. Your deposits land in an account you own, on your own payment links or on integrated payments.
- No per-quote quotas. This is the one. Curate meters proposals and bills for declined ones. CaterKit never limits quotes — on any plan, free included.
- Price changes never sneak up on you. Flat, published pricing. Any change comes with 30 days’ notice, and annual billing sets your rate for the year.
- Export everything, free, on every tier, forever. Recipes, clients, events, quotes — CSV or JSON, subscribed or not.
FAQ
Is Curate good software?
Curate is proposal software for high-volume, design-first events businesses, and it’s priced like it: plans from $275/month with a proposal quota that counts the jobs you lose. For a caterer, the real question isn’t polish — it’s whether you want to pay per proposal. CaterKit never meters your quotes, on any plan, free included.
How much does Curate cost?
Plans start at $275/month (Growth, ~240 proposals/year), with Premium around $333 and Scale at $500/month for unlimited proposals plus a customer success manager. Extra proposals are $200 per 100, extra users $30/month, and the rentals add-on $50/month (all verified July 2026).
Do declined leads really count against the Curate quota?
Yes — the proposal quota counts inquiries whether or not they book (verified July 2026). That’s the practice promise #3 exists to reject: you should be able to quote a job you might lose without paying for the privilege.
Does CaterKit limit how many quotes I can send?
No. There’s no per-quote or per-lead cap on any plan, including free. Send as many quotes, revisions, and follow-ups as it takes to win the job.
I only cater a few events a year. Is CaterKit overkill?
No — that’s who it’s built for. The free tier gives you 2 new events a month, 15 recipes, and 5 menu imports with no card and no expiry. When you outgrow it, Solo is a flat $79/month, not a 240-proposal commitment.
Try the other way, free
the same branded page your client would accept on their phone, built from a photographed menu, with no setup fee between you and your first job.
Or see the full pricing page. It lists every limit and every price, so there are no surprises at checkout.