A shared spreadsheet — Google Sheets, Excel, Numbers — built by whoever is organising, with a tab for the guest list, a tab for dates, a tab for the budget and sometimes the itinerary. Free, flexible, and entirely under one person's control.
What it is good at.
- Holding decisions that do not scroll. The date is in a cell; it stays there.
- Arbitrary maths. A sheet will model anything — multi-currency, per-category budgets, a twelve-day itinerary with costs per leg — if you know the formulas.
- Costing nothing and needing no sign-up beyond the account most people already have.
- Giving the organiser a feeling of control. Everything is in one file that they built.
What it cannot hold.
Nobody else opens it
A sheet is the organiser's tool. The rest of the group gets a link, opens it once on a phone, cannot read it, and goes back to asking questions in the chat. The organiser is now maintaining a document for an audience of one.
Phones
Spreadsheets are built for a desktop and a mouse. Editing a cell on a phone — which is where the group actually is — ranges from awkward to impossible, so the group does not edit, and the organiser does it for them.
It still does not decide anything
A dates tab lists the options. It does not poll anyone, set a deadline, or close. The decision still gets made in the chat, or not, and then someone types the answer into the sheet.
The formulas break, and there are no photos
One person edits the wrong cell and the budget is wrong for a week before anyone notices. And the trip's photos will never live in a spreadsheet, so the after still scatters.
Seam by seam.
Made to be opened on a phone, by everyone
Every member can act — vote, claim a job, RSVP, add a cost — not just view. Nobody has to be taught the tabs, because there are no tabs.
The dates tab that closes
A date poll with a deadline and a visible tally. It produces an answer instead of holding a list.
A budget that does the maths and cannot be broken by a stray edit
Record what was paid, by whom, for whom. Net positions and settlement are computed, not typed. The free cost splitter on this site does the same for a one-off.
Notifications, and the album
People are told when there is something to do, rather than being expected to check a file. And the photos have somewhere to go that lives with the plan.
Which to use.
Keep what you have when…
If you are the only person who needs to see it, or the trip needs custom modelling — a multi-currency itinerary, a large budget with categories, a long expedition with costs per leg. A spreadsheet is still the right tool for arbitrary maths, and if you already have a sheet that works, keep it.
Use Kinora when…
When the point is that the group participates, on their phones, without being taught your file. The spreadsheet answers "where is the information?"; a shared plan answers "what has been decided, and what is mine to do?" — which is the question the group is actually asking.
Straight answers.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for planning a group trip?
Often, for the organiser. Rarely, for the group. A sheet holds decisions that a chat loses, but it is built for a desktop and a single owner, so the rest of the group tends to open it once on a phone and go back to asking questions in the chat. It works when one person is content to be the database.
Can I import my spreadsheet into Kinora?
Not as a file. A plan starts from a name and whatever you already know — the date, the place, who is coming — and the group fills in the rest. Most sheets have a few rows that matter; entering those takes a couple of minutes.
I just need to split the costs — do I need any of this?
No. The free trip cost splitter on this site does the settling with no account: add who came and who paid for what, and it gives you who owes whom in the fewest transfers. A spreadsheet can do the same if you know the formulas; the splitter is for when you would rather not.
What does a spreadsheet do that Kinora does not?
Arbitrary modelling. If your trip needs custom columns, exchange-rate lookups, a per-day itinerary with costs by leg, or anything a formula expresses more naturally than a form, the sheet wins and there is no shame in it. Kinora is for the common shape of a group plan, done well on a phone.
Try it beside what you already use.
One link in the chat. Free while the beta runs, no download, and nobody has to leave anything.