Ode Business for venues, planners and suppliers

Ode is a UK wedding website builder: the couple builds a page for their day and shares one link, and guests open it in their browser to RSVP with meal choices, see the running order, find the venue, search the seating plan and add photos to a shared album. Behind the page the couple has a builder with live preview, guest-list RSVP, a seating planner with PDFs, a budget, a task list and insights. Couples usually buy it one wedding at a time; this article is about the other way in.

Ode Business is the subscription for a business that wants to include a wedding website in what it sells: a venue, a wedding planner, a photographer or any other supplier. Instead of one event bought at a time, you create an event for each couple you work with and invite them; they get the full Ode studio with nothing to buy, and build their own wedding website, collect their own RSVPs and run their own album. Nothing needs you after the invite. The photo album is the only thing measured, and it comes from a monthly pool.

The three plans differ only on the album pool and the team. Essential is the same account without a pool, on one login: the couple buys their own album on the event if they want one, or you top up photos to add it. Pro adds a monthly pool and three seats; Max the biggest pool and unlimited seats. Pick by how many albums you expect to add and how many people need a login. Any business can pick any plan and move between them from the Billing tab at any time. Everything below applies to all three unless it says otherwise.

Charging for the album: nothing on the couple’s page shows what an album cost you. The table under the plans on the Ode Business page shows what each size costs you on each plan against what the couple would pay us for the same album on their event. Fold it into the package, list it as an extra at that price, or let the couple buy their own; all three work, and growing an album later costs only the difference.

Getting an account

Press Start free on the Ode Business page (or the venues, planners or suppliers page): create your login, name your business, pick a plan and choose the free trial or subscribe today. The first 30 days are free with a card on file. Once you are on an account, signing in takes you to its page rather than to a single event. A group of venues, or a pool bigger than Max, is the one case to write to us first, at hello@ode.events.

Creating an event on the account

The team

The Team tab on the account page lists everyone with access. The account owner invites colleagues by email; the invite works the way a co-organiser invite does and expires after seven days. Everyone on the team can create, edit and publish every event on the account and invite couples. Only the owner adds or removes team members. Essential is one login, Pro includes 3 seats and Max has no seat limit.

The photo pool and albums

Pro and Max come with a monthly allowance of photos: 3,000 on Pro, 10,000 on Max. Essential has none. When you add an album to an event you pick a size, and that many photos leave the month’s allowance at once:

• Small: 150 photos, open for 30 days.
• Standard: 300 photos, open for 3 months.
• Large: 1,000 photos, open for 6 months.

The album opens on the event’s album date, the wedding day unless the couple moves it, and closes after its window, exactly as a retail album does, so adding an album in January for a June wedding uses January’s allowance and stores photos from June. Unused allowance does not roll over. A busy month can buy photos outright, 3p each from 300, which never expire and sit in a reserve. Once photos are on an album they stay there: an album can grow, never shrink.

To add one, press Add album on the event’s row on the account page. The studio itself has no album controls; the couple sees the album’s state there and asks you for changes. Choose the size carefully: an album can be grown later, before or after it opens, but never released or made smaller. The Pool tab shows what is left this month, the reserve, the top-up button and a history of every album and payment.

Templates

Templates are optional. Press New template on the account page and build the starting point you would like couples to have, with your venue section, FAQ and palette. A template is made as one from the beginning: it is never published, never counted, and a real event never turns into one, and it is only a website: the studio shows Content, Design and Settings, with no tasks, budget, guests or album. Use template opens the creation wizard for the couple’s names, date and address and copies the template’s sections and images into the new event, which the couple then builds on. To remove a template, delete it from its Settings like any draft.

If the couple wants more

Albums on your events come from your pool, so a couple who wants a bigger one asks you, and you grow it with Grow album on the event’s row. Only the difference leaves the pool, and the bigger size brings its longer window: grow to Large and the album stays open for 180 days.

Monthly or annual

Every plan is billed monthly or annually; annual is 10 months’ price for the year, so 2 months free: Essential £9.99 a month or £99.00 a year; Pro £49.00 a month or £490.00 a year; Max £99.00 a month or £990.00 a year. The photo pool is monthly either way, turning over on the same day each month as your renewal date. Switching between monthly and annual takes effect from your next invoice, and so does any plan change on an annual subscription; a busy month in between is what top-ups are for.

Changing plan

Switch between plans from the Billing tab whenever you like, trial included (nothing is charged during the trial; the plan you are on when it ends is what the first invoice is for). Once paid, an upgrade can start now or from your next invoice. Now means a new month starts today: the new price is charged straight away, your renewal date moves to today, and the full bigger pool is yours at once; the rest of the old month is not credited, since its photos were yours to use. From the next invoice means nothing changes until the month you have paid for ends, so nothing is lost. A downgrade always takes effect from the next invoice, so the pool you paid for stays until then and nothing is refunded; you can change your mind before that date. Albums already added are never affected either way.

Cancelling

The subscription stops from the billing page. The plan and its pool run to the end of the period you have paid for; the Billing tab shows the date, and you can reactivate before then. Nothing already live is switched off when it ends, on any plan: every website stays live, every album you have already added runs its full window, and the couples keep their access. You only lose the ability to create new events and add new albums. An album a couple bought is theirs regardless. The usual retention rules apply to every event on the account, subscribed or not: replies are deleted 90 days after the wedding, photos when the album closes, and the event itself a year after the wedding once the album has closed, with a notice to you and the couple beforehand.

Essential costs £9.99 a month or £99.00 a year, with the same 30-day trial as every plan.