Tool profile
Curate: cost, fit and limits
Curate is a catering proposal and operations platform made by Curate that combines proposals, a customer portal, recipes, purchase orders and event pipelines for caterers, with AI Assist and an AI Assistant app described by the vendor for insights and faster proposal writing.
What to know first
Curate sells three tiers, Basic, Growth and a top tier, and publishes no prices; buyers request a demo. Basic covers proposals, a customer portal and e-signature contracts. Growth adds recipes, forms, production notes, purchase orders and shopping lists. The top tier adds API access and a Galley integration. The AI Assistant is described as an add-on app, and Ecommerce and Multi-Location are add-ons too.
Curate at a glance
| Maker | Curate, Not stated on the vendor pages |
|---|---|
| Free plan | No |
| Entry price | Quote only |
| API access | Yes |
| Category | Best AI Catering Software in 2026, rank 2 of 11 |
| Website | curate.co |
Who Curate is best for
Proposal-heavy caterers
The proposal builder links line items to a customer portal and e-signature contracts, so a client can review and accept pricing without a PDF going back and forth by email.
Kitchens that buy ingredients per event
Growth turns recipes and linked line items into purchase orders and shopping lists, which suits a team that orders per job instead of working from standing stock.
Caterers with accounting needs
Custom properties, account codes and calculated properties let a finance person map event line items to ledger codes, and QuickBooks is among the named integrations.
Curate plans and pricing
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Not published | Proposals and customer portal, contracts with e-signatures and one saved print template. No recipes or purchase orders. Annual billing only. |
| Growth | Not published | Recipes, forms, production notes, purchase orders, shopping lists, three saved print templates, three custom reports and integrations. |
| AI Assistant app | Not published | An add-on app described as giving instant insights and faster proposal generation. The vendor's pricing page lists it separately from the three tiers. |
| Add-ons | Not published | Ecommerce and Multi-Location are sold as add-ons. A monthly and annual toggle reads Annually 2 months free. |
Checked November 2026.
What Curate does
- Proposal builder
- Proposals pair line items with a customer portal, and contracts accept e-signatures. Basic includes this layer, which makes it the cheapest route into Curate for caterers who only need clean quotes.
- Recipes and production notes
- Recipes, production notes and linked line items arrive on Growth. They let the kitchen read prep instructions from the same record that holds the client's order and price.
- Purchase orders and shopping lists
- Growth generates purchase orders and shopping lists from event contents. Account codes and calculated properties help finance staff categorize costs without retyping each line into the accounting system.
- Pipeline and timeline
- Pipeline management and event timeline planning track leads from inquiry to booked job, and saved configurable prints produce the documents staff carry on the day.
- AI Assist
- The vendor lists AI Assist as a feature and an AI Assistant app for insights and proposal speed. The pages give no detail on models, prompts or which fields the assistant reads.
How Curate handles your data
The pricing page links to a privacy policy, but the pages we read did not state whether customer data trains AI models, how long records are kept, or where data is hosted, so the vendor's policy was not checked for those points. No certification appears on the pages opened. Because the AI Assistant is sold as an add-on app, ask whether enabling it sends proposal content and client details to an outside model provider, and whether it can be limited to selected users or events.
Where Curate falls short in practice
- Prices need a call. None of the tiers shows a price, so a buyer cannot compare Curate against printed-price tools without booking a demo. Annual-only billing on Basic also commits a small shop for a year.
- Basic is a proposal tool only. Basic has no recipes, forms, production notes, purchase orders or integrations. A caterer who wants kitchen documents has to start at Growth, which pushes the real entry cost above the cheapest tier.
- AI sits outside the tiers. The AI Assistant is an add-on app rather than part of Basic or Growth. Whether it fits a budget depends on a price the pages do not show.
Works with
Alternatives to Curate
Curate: common questions
Does Curate include AI in every plan?
The pricing page lists AI Assist as a feature and an AI Assistant app as an add-on. It does not state which tier includes which AI part. Ask the sales team for a written list of AI features per tier and the price of the Assistant app.
What does Curate Growth add over Basic?
Growth adds recipes, forms, production notes, purchase orders, shopping lists, three saved print templates, three custom reports and integrations. Basic has one saved print template and none of these kitchen and purchasing tools, so a caterer who cooks to order will outgrow it quickly.
Does Curate have an API?
The top tier lists API access along with a Galley integration and expanded support. Growth lists integrations, and Basic lists none. If you want to push event data into your own reports, confirm which endpoints are available and whether the API is read-only.
How is Curate billed?
The pricing page offers a monthly and annual toggle, reading Annually 2 months free, and says Basic is billed annually only. No price is shown, so the amounts come from a demo. Confirm contract length, renewal terms and any setup fee in the written quote.
Can Curate run several locations?
Multi-Location is listed as an add-on, as is Ecommerce. The pages do not say how many locations each add-on covers or what it costs. Ask for the location limit in writing before you plan a rollout across kitchens or brands.