How to Migrate from Zola to Kaiplan: Step-by-Step

Understanding What Each Tool Does

Before deciding how to migrate, it helps to be clear about what Zola and Kaiplan each do — because these tools serve partially different purposes.

Zola’s strengths:

• Wedding website builder with RSVP functionality
• Gift registry with broad retailer integrations
• Guest list with RSVP tracking tied to the wedding website
• Save-the-date and invitation design and printing
• Some vendor discovery features

Kaiplan’s strengths:

• Detailed budget tracking against actual vendor contracts
• Vendor management with payment schedule tracking
• Guest list and RSVP tracking in the same tool as budget and vendor data
• Public wedding website and RSVP flow connected to your guest list
• Seating connected to RSVP status
• Planning checklist tied to your wedding timeline
• No ads, no vendor marketplace, no sponsored placements

The key point: Zola’s guest list and RSVP features are tied to its public-facing wedding website and registry ecosystem. Kaiplan’s guest list, RSVP, seating, vendor, and budget tools live in the same planning workspace. These don’t have to conflict.

The most common migration pattern: Keep Zola active for registry if you need it. Switch to Kaiplan for budget tracking, vendor management, RSVP, seating, website publishing, and planning management. This isn’t a compromise — it’s using each tool for what it’s actually best at.

Step 1: Export Your Guest List from Zola

Zola allows you to download your guest list as a CSV. This is the most important export to do before migrating.

1. Log in to Zola
2. Navigate to Guest List in your wedding dashboard
3. Look for the Export or Download as CSV option
4. Download the file

The Zola export typically includes:

• First and last names
• Email addresses
• RSVP status (attending, declined, not responded)
• Plus-one information
• Meal preferences (if you’ve collected them)
• Party groupings

Save the file and open it to verify the data looks complete before proceeding. Rename the headers you want Kaiplan to import to its supported field names before uploading. Unsupported columns, including mailing addresses, RSVP status, and structured meal choices, should stay in your source spreadsheet for reference.

Step 2: Save Your Vendor Information

Zola’s vendor management features are less central than The Knot’s, but if you’ve been saving vendor contacts or quotes in Zola, capture them before migrating.

There is no bulk export for Zola vendor data. For each vendor you have saved in Zola:

1. Open the vendor record
2. Copy or note:
   • Business name
   • Contact name and email
   • Phone number
   • Any notes or quotes you’ve recorded

The quickest approach: open a Google Sheet, create a row for each vendor, and copy the relevant details. You’ll use this sheet when entering vendors in Kaiplan.

Check your email as a backup: Vendor conversations you initiated through Zola or outside it are likely also in your email inbox. If you miss a vendor detail from Zola, your email history with that vendor is the backup source.

Step 3: Note Your Budget Data from Zola

If you’ve been using Zola’s budget features, record your current budget numbers before switching:

1. Go to the Budget section in Zola
2. Note your total wedding budget
3. Note any category allocations you’ve set
4. Note any vendor amounts you’ve recorded

Zola’s budget features are more limited than Kaiplan’s, so there may not be much here. But if you’ve entered any numbers, capture them.

Step 4: Note Your Checklist Progress

Zola has a planning checklist. You don’t need to replicate it in full, but it’s useful to know where you stand before switching.

Spend a few minutes noting which major milestones you’ve completed:

• Venue booked
• Key vendors booked (photographer, caterer, florist, music)
• Save-the-dates sent
• Invitations sent
• Menu finalized
• Attire ordered

You’ll use this to mark tasks complete in Kaiplan’s checklist when you set it up.

Step 5: Create Your Kaiplan Account

Go to kaiplan.app and sign up. Set your wedding date and total budget from your account setup screen.

If you’re coming from Zola, your total budget should be whatever number you have set there or your actual planning budget.

Step 6: Import Your Guest List

1. Navigate to Guests in Kaiplan
2. Click Import
3. Upload the Zola CSV export
4. Confirm the CSV uses Kaiplan’s supported field names
5. Run the import

After import, scan through the guest list to verify names and email addresses are accurate. Correct any rows that look off, then use the Zola export as a reference to update RSVP statuses in Kaiplan.

RSVP status note: Zola may use terms like “Will Attend,” “Will Not Attend,” or “Awaiting Response.” Kaiplan uses statuses such as “Accepted,” “Declined,” and “Invited” for no response. Keep those values in your source spreadsheet and update them manually after import.

For a full walkthrough of the guest list features, see the guest list guide.

Step 7: Add Vendors to Kaiplan

Using your vendor notes from Step 2, add each vendor to Kaiplan:

1. Go to Vendors
2. For each vendor, click Add Vendor and enter:
   • Category
   • Business name and contact information
   • Booking status
   • Quoted or contracted amount
   • Deposit details (amount, due date, paid status)
   • Balance due date
   • Contract notes (any important terms)

Start with vendors you’ve already booked (complete information available), then add vendors you’re still evaluating.

If you’ve already paid deposits, mark them as paid in the vendor record so Kaiplan’s budget tracker shows accurate balances.

Step 8: Set Up Budget Categories

In Kaiplan’s budget section, create categories for each major spending area and enter your budget allocations. Common categories: venue, catering, photography, florals, music, attire, hair and makeup, cake, transportation, officiant, stationery, miscellaneous.

Once you’ve added vendors with their amounts, those amounts automatically populate into the corresponding budget categories.

For a detailed budget setup walkthrough, see the budget tracking guide.

Step 9: Configure Your Planning Checklist

In Kaiplan’s checklist section:

1. Mark the milestones you’ve already completed (based on your Step 4 notes)
2. Review upcoming tasks and adjust dates based on your wedding timeline
3. Add any custom tasks specific to your wedding

What You Don’t Need to Migrate

Some things in Zola don’t transfer to Kaiplan and don’t need to:

Wedding website: Your Zola wedding website stays on Zola. Kaiplan doesn’t have a wedding website feature. Your public wedding page, RSVP form, and wedding details page remain live and functional on Zola.

Registry: Your Zola registry stays on Zola. Registry management isn’t part of Kaiplan’s feature set. Guests can still access your registry through your Zola wedding website.

Save-the-dates and invitations: If you’ve designed or sent invitations through Zola, that history stays there. Kaiplan doesn’t handle invitation design or printing.

The Case for Keeping Both Tools

This is worth saying explicitly: you don’t have to fully leave Zola to use Kaiplan.

The tools serve different audiences within your wedding:

• Zola is what your guests see — the wedding website, the RSVP form, the registry
• Kaiplan is what you and your partner use — the budget, vendors, planning management

Keeping Zola active for the public-facing experience while using Kaiplan for planning management is a sensible workflow. You’re not paying for duplicate features — Zola’s wedding website and registry are free, and you’re paying for Kaiplan’s planning tools which Zola doesn’t match in depth.

The coordination between the two tools: As RSVPs come in through your Zola website, you’ll manually update those statuses in Kaiplan. There’s no automatic sync. But updating RSVP status in Kaiplan takes a few seconds per guest, and doing it as responses come in (rather than in a batch) keeps your guest list current.

After the Migration

Once your data is in Kaiplan, do a quick verification:

• Budget total matches your actual planning budget
• All booked vendors are entered with correct amounts
• Deposits that have been paid are marked paid
• Guest list has imported cleanly with correct RSVPs

From this point, maintain Kaiplan as your primary planning tool:

• When vendor quotes come in, enter them in Kaiplan
• When deposits are sent, mark them paid
• When RSVPs arrive (through Zola’s form or however you’re collecting them), update Kaiplan
• When checklist tasks are complete, mark them done

The value of the migration is that your budget, vendors, and guest list are now in one private planning tool rather than spread across multiple tabs in a platform that’s also trying to show you vendor ads.

See the pricing page for Kaiplan plan options, including the $50 one-time Lifetime with LAUNCH50 plan.