Planout

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  Make Plans happen

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  Planout Icon

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Inspiration

Back in college, trips just happened. Someone would say "Goa this weekend?" and by Friday night six of us were in a car. No planning, no app, no problem.

Then everyone got busy. Jobs, families, different cities. The group chat would light up — "let's do a trip!" — and then die the same way every time: forty messages, three date polls, two people who couldn't make any of them, and the whole thing quietly dropped. We'd go a year without meeting, not because we didn't want to, but because nobody could find a weekend that worked for everyone.

I realised the hard part was never deciding where to go. It was finding when. We were trying to solve a scheduling problem in a chat window.

What it does

The first thing it does is sync everyone's calendar into the group, so I can actually see when all my friends are free — no polls, no guessing. That one lit column where everyone's available is the whole idea (it's the app icon too). Once you have the date, the rest — the itinerary, splitting the bill, what we'll play that night — follows naturally. Planout is the app I wish we'd had so we'd never have lost countless years and memories.

On top of that:

Events & itinerary — create a plan, lay out the day stop by stop. Expense splitting — Splitwise-style, so nobody has to do the awkward follow-up. Game Night — a built-in section with multiple games for when the group is actually together.

How we built it

Flutter, one codebase for iOS and Android.

I built the calendar sync first — if that didn't work, nothing else mattered. Members' calendars come into the group, and the app finds the slot where everyone's free. That grid became the app icon. The event, itinerary, Splitwise-style expenses and Game Night all hang off that one agreed slot.

For money, I tried a free trial and threw it out — nobody plans trips weekly. Now the free tier is the trial: one group, one plan, forever. Pro unlocks unlimited. RevenueCat handled the rest — one entitlement listener, one guard on "create group" that opens the paywall, offerings from the dashboard so I can change pricing without a release. I never touched a receipt.

The intro is the bit I'm proud of: the app icon morphs into a grid and the lit column scatters as you swipe, all in one CustomPainter, no packages. Two themes — paper by day, midnight at night.

Challenges we ran into

Getting everyone's calendar in. Friends use different calendar apps, different time zones, and some wouldn't give access at all. Finding "when is everyone free" is easy on paper and messy with real permissions and real people. I had to make it work even when one or two members hadn't synced.

Deciding what free means. I started with a free trial and it felt wrong — nobody plans a trip every week, so a 7-day clock expired before anyone needed Pro. I removed it and made the free tier itself the trial: one group, one plan. That took longer to decide than to build.

Design that doesn't shout. I wanted the grid everywhere. I tried it behind content, in colour, heavier — every version made the app harder to read. It ended up at 2% opacity in the app bar only. Learning to delete things I liked was the hardest part.

Scope. Shared photos and Stamps were almost in. I hadn't decided on photo storage, so instead of shipping something half-done, they became "coming soon."

Accomplishments that we're proud of

It actually solves the problem. I can open Planout and see when my friends are free. No polls, no forty-message thread. That alone was worth building. Game Night. Most planning apps stop at the plan. Planout has a built-in set of games for when the group is finally together — so the app that got you to the trip is also the one you open at the table. Watching friends put their phones in the middle and play instead of scrolling was the point of all this.

What we learned

The hard problems weren't technical. Calendar sync, animations, expenses — all solvable. Deciding what "free" means, what to cut, and why people stop meeting their friends took far longer.

Let the tool do its job. RevenueCat removed a whole class of work I used to do by hand — receipts, restores, cross-platform entitlements. Setting it up early meant I could change the pricing model twice without touching store code.

Build the core first. Starting with calendar sync instead of screens kept everything else honest. If the slot-finding didn't work, nothing else deserved to exist.

Delete what you love. The best version of the grid was the one you can barely see.

What's next for Planout

Public events. Open plans anyone can discover and join — the group no longer has to be people you already know.

Hosting. Let anyone host an event: set the date, cap the spots, manage who's coming. Planout becomes the place you run the plan, not just agree on it.

For travel itinerary people. A version built for those who plan trips for a living or for fun — richer itineraries, shareable plans, and groups that form around the trip itself.

Points & rewards. Creating groups, adding events and inviting friends earn points that unlock things in Game Night.

Memory & Stamps. Shared photos for every plan, and collectible marks for the things you've actually done together.

Built With

• claude
• flutter
• snitch