WedCost is a personalized US wedding budget tool that catches hidden costs before you sign vendor contracts. You take a 2-minute quiz, then unlock a Wedding Pass ($49 one-time) with a live budget calculator, an AI chat trained on your numbers, and alerts for costs specific to your venue, region, and guest count.

How is WedCost different from The Knot's budget tool?

The Knot uses national averages — the same numbers for every couple. WedCost builds your budget from your specific venue type, region, and guest count, and focuses on the hidden costs (service charges, overtime, scope creep) that The Knot's tool doesn't surface. The Knot is great for inspiration and vendor discovery; WedCost is built for cost forecasting.

How much does a Wedding Pass cost?

$49 one-time. No subscription. No recurring charges. Access lasts through your wedding date, or 6 months if you don't have a date yet. If it doesn't surface at least one cost you didn't know about, we refund the full $49.

Is there a subscription?

No. WedCost is a one-time $49 payment. Two optional one-time add-ons exist after checkout (Partner Access for $12, Vendor Negotiation Mode for $19), but nothing recurs — ever.

How long does access last?

Through your wedding date, based on your quiz answer. If no date is set, you get 6 months of full access. Either way, unlimited use the entire time.

Can my partner use it too?

Yes. The Pass works on any device — you can share the login, or add Partner Access for $12 to give your partner their own login and a shared dashboard view.

What's the refund policy?

100% money-back guarantee. If your Wedding Pass doesn't surface at least one cost you weren't expecting, email us and we refund the full $49. No forms, no questions, no time limit.

Where do WedCost's numbers come from?

10,474 real US weddings analyzed from The Knot Real Weddings Study 2025 and Zola 2026 pricing data, plus our own region-specific vendor analysis across all 50 states. Your estimates are built from the subset of weddings matching your venue type, guest count, budget range, and region — never a national average. See https://wedcost.com/methodology for full details.

Does WedCost cover destination or international weddings?

Yes for destinations leaving from the US. For weddings fully outside the US, we still provide the framework, but the underlying vendor pricing dataset is US-focused — we tell you upfront where the numbers start to diverge.

How accurate is the AI chat?

The AI is loaded with your quiz answers (venue, region, guest count, budget, timeline) and cross-referenced against the 10,474-wedding dataset. It's not a generic ChatGPT wrapper — it answers based on your numbers. For questions outside its data, it says so rather than guessing.

Can I change my quiz answers later?

Yes. The Pass supports unlimited re-runs. Change your venue, guest count, date, or budget any time — hidden cost alerts, budget categories, AI chat context, every part of the Pass updates together.

What happens if my wedding is postponed or canceled?

Your Pass stays active through the original wedding date. If you reschedule, email us and we extend it to the new date at no charge. If the wedding is canceled entirely, we honor the full money-back guarantee regardless of how much time has passed.

Yes. Quiz answers are used only to generate your Pass. We never sell your data. We don't share individual couple data with vendors. Your email is used only for your account and occasional (opt-out) product updates.

Do I need to create an account before the quiz?

No. The quiz is 100% free to take and requires no account, no email, no card. You only enter an email after you see your results, to save your Pass.

WedCost is built by 13Bapps, an independent software studio. Not backed by a wedding industry brand, not owned by a vendor network. That independence is the point: our incentives are aligned with the couple, not the vendors.

If you catch one service charge you didn't know about, the Pass pays for itself 10x over (typical service charge gap: $2,800–$6,500). The average WedCost user surfaces $2,800+ in unexpected costs. If you find nothing, you get the $49 back.

What are the most common hidden wedding costs in the US?

Based on 10,474 weddings, the top six are: (1) service charges on catering (18-22%), (2) day-of coordination fees ($800-$2,500), (3) vendor overtime (25-50% per hour), (4) gratuities not included in contracts (15-20%), (5) corkage and bar minimums, (6) tent, generator, and restroom rentals for outdoor venues. Your Pass flags the ones that apply to your specific profile.

How long does the quiz take?

About 2 minutes. 14 questions, most single-tap. You see your Budget Confidence Score, realistic total range, and top risk category before you're asked to pay anything.

Does WedCost cover same-sex weddings?

Yes. The entire tool is role-neutral — you pick your role in the first question (bride, groom, one of the partners, helping someone plan), and every downstream calculation treats all configurations identically.

Can I use WedCost for a vow renewal or second wedding?

Yes. The tool is based on event structure (venue, guests, vendors) — not on whether it's a first marriage. Couples renewing vows or planning second weddings use WedCost the same way.

Methodology — How WedCost Builds Your Estimate

Name: Wedding Pass
Brand: WedCost
Price: 49.00 USD
Availability: InStock

The dataset (10,474 weddings)

WedCost estimates are built from 10,474 real US weddings across all 50 states, drawn from three sources:

The Knot Real Weddings Study 2025 — the largest annual US wedding survey. Vendor contracts, paid totals, regional breakdowns.
Zola 2026 pricing data — live vendor quote data. Catches pricing shifts faster than annual surveys do.
Region-specific vendor analysis — our own quarterly refresh across all 50 states, focused on service-charge patterns, venue fee structures, and common add-ons.

How your numbers are built

Your quiz answers (venue type, guest count, budget range, region, timeline) are matched against the subset of weddings in the dataset that share those attributes. Estimates come from that matched subset, not from a national average.

For example: if you select a hotel venue in the Midwest with 150–199 guests and a $40K–$60K budget, your estimates draw from the ~480 weddings in the dataset matching that profile — not the full 10,474.

Hidden cost alerts work the same way. We flag the cost categories that most frequently surprised couples in your matched subset, with the dollar range observed in those weddings — not a generic warning list.

What we explicitly do not do

We do not use national averages as the headline number.
We do not promote vendors or take vendor commissions. Independence is enforced — see About.
We do not invent precision. Where the matched subset is small (< 50 weddings), the Pass shows a wider range and labels the confidence accordingly.

Update cadence

Quarterly. The vendor analysis dataset is refreshed every three months. The Knot and Zola feeds are updated annually as new releases ship. Each estimate carries a dataAsOf stamp visible inside the Pass.

Privacy

Individual couple data is never sold or shared with vendors. Your quiz answers are used only to generate your personalized Pass. The 10,474-wedding dataset is fully aggregated and anonymized.

Who built this

WedCost is built by 13Bapps, an independent software studio. We are not owned by, sponsored by, or paid by any wedding vendor, planner network, or industry publication.