Togather vs Add to Event vs Direct Enquiries: The Commission Maths

Togather vs Add to Event vs Direct Enquiries: The Commission Maths

Every vendor eventually asks where the next booking should come from: the curated marketplace taking a slice, the leads site charging per quote, or the slow-built direct channel that costs nothing per booking and everything in patience. Most advice picks a tribe. The honest answer: these are three different products with three different price tags. The maths favours a mix. Here's how each one actually works and what a booking really costs through each door.

The Three Models

Strip the branding away. There are only three ways to buy bookings. Commission marketplaces (Togather is the big one) charge nothing upfront and take a percentage when you win. Pay-per-lead platforms (Add to Event leads here) charge you to quote, win or lose. They take nothing from the booking itself. Direct costs you marketing effort up front and hands you the whole booking value forever after. Each model moves the risk to a different place, which is the real thing you're choosing between.

Togather

Togather (rebranded from Feast It in 2023) runs a curated marketplace of over 1,500 vetted suppliers: caterers, venues, florists, photographers, bars. Clients describe their event, Togather matches a shortlist, you quote against a handful of genuinely comparable suppliers rather than a stampede.

The costs sit at the win: joining is free and Togather earns a commission on confirmed bookings, with the exact rate agreed when you join rather than published on the site. Factor it into your platform pricing rather than absorbing it, because a booking priced for direct margins loses money at marketplace margins.

What you're buying for that commission is deal flow you can't reach otherwise, corporate work especially. Big company summer parties and brand activations rarely land in a small vendor's inbox. They land on platforms with account managers and invoicing that procurement departments trust. That's the door Togather opens, and for plenty of suppliers it's the only realistic route into that market.

Add to Event

Add to Event is the open marketplace: a huge volume of enquiries (weddings, festivals, garden parties, everything between), with suppliers of every size quoting. The model is pay-per-quote: you buy credits, spending a few pounds each time you respond to an enquiry. The platform takes no commission on the booking value.

That model rewards discipline. The cost isn't the credit, it's the credits spent on enquiries that were never going to book anyone. The suppliers who make Add to Event pay learn to read enquiries coldly (real date, real budget, real detail?) and to respond fast, because the enquirer's attention goes to the first two or three decent replies. Speed and photo quality convert here more than price does.

Direct

Your website, your Google Business profile, your Instagram, the couple who saw you at a wedding and asked for a card. Direct bookings pay no commission and no credit fee. They compound too: every happy client is a referral engine you own outright.

The honest cost is time and patience. A direct channel takes seasons to build, not weeks. It needs feeding too (reviews, photos, a website that doesn't look abandoned). The trap is treating direct as free and the platforms as expensive. Direct is cheap per booking and expensive per hour. The platforms are the reverse. Early on, you don't have bookings to compound, which is exactly when the platforms earn their fees.

The Maths on a Real Booking

Take a £1,200 catering booking and run it through each door.

• Commission marketplace: at a typical marketplace rate in the 10-15% range, the platform's slice is £120 to £180. You paid nothing to quote and nothing for the lead.
• Pay-per-quote: say you convert one enquiry in six, at £5 of credits a quote. That's £30 of credits per win, whatever the booking size. Cheaper than commission on big bookings, and the ratio is everything: at one in fifteen, the maths sours fast.
• Direct: £0 marginal cost. The real cost is the hours plus the season it took to be findable.

Notice the shape: commission scales with booking value, credits scale with your conversion rate, direct scales with nothing. Which is why the sensible split changes as you grow, and why tracking where each booking came from is the most valuable admin habit on this page.

Side by Side

Playing Each Channel Well

On Togather: treat the profile like a shop window (recent photos, specific menus, fast responses) and treat the commission as your marketing budget rather than a tax. Reviews on the platform compound there, so ask for them where the booking happened.

On Add to Event: set a weekly credit budget and qualification rules first. Respond inside the hour where you can. A saved quote template you personalise in two minutes beats a bespoke essay sent tomorrow, which is exactly what our quote template is for.

On direct: capture everything. Every platform client who loved you is a future direct enquiry if you're findable, so the website, the Google profile, the thank-you email with your details, they all matter. Respect each platform's terms on taking first bookings off-platform (they all have circumvention clauses and they do enforce them). Repeat business and referrals afterwards are the long game. They're yours.

Questions Vendors Actually Ask

Which platform suits weddings vs corporate?

Togather's curation and account management lean toward corporate events and bigger private jobs. Add to Event's volume covers everything but shines for the small-to-mid market: parties, small weddings, local events. Wedding-heavy suppliers usually find fairs and referrals out-convert both.

Can I take a platform client direct next time?

Read the specific platform's terms before assuming. The general shape: the platform's booking belongs to the platform's model. Poaching it off-platform mid-negotiation risks your account. A client who comes back to you a year later through your own channels is a different story. Build the kind of follow-up that makes that happen naturally.

Are pay-per-quote leads real?

Mostly, though qualification varies. Some enquirers are comparing seventeen quotes for a party that never happens. The fix is your own filter: full date and venue and guest count gets a fast quote, vague one-liners get a polite question first. The credit stays in your pocket until the answer arrives.

Do I need all three channels?

Eventually, weighted by stage. Year one: platforms buy you bookings and reviews while direct doesn't exist yet. Year three: direct and repeat should be carrying the base load while platforms fill gaps and reach corporate work you still can't. If platforms are still your majority in year five, the direct channel is underfed.

How do I know which channel is actually cheapest for me?

Write down the source of every booking for one season, then divide what each channel cost you by the bookings it produced. Ten minutes a week. It settles every argument in this guide with your own numbers. Most vendors who do it discover one channel is quietly excellent and one is a habit they should have dropped a year ago.

The Bottom Line

Togather sells access, priced as commission. Add to Event sells volume, priced per quote. Direct sells independence, priced in patience. The commission maths isn't about finding the villain, it's about knowing your cost per booking through each door and feeding the doors that earn it. Track the source, price the platform work properly and keep building the channel nobody can switch off.

Last updated: August 2026. Platform models checked at publication; commission rates and credit pricing are set by the platforms and can change, so confirm current terms when you join.