Visio is great for drawing the layout; ExpoFP turns it into a live floor plan exhibitors can book from and attendees can navigate.
Free to start
Build and test your plan before you pay
7-day trial
No credit card required
DIY from $149/mo
Organizer builds the map in FP Designer
No app needed
Attendees open the map in any browser
Microsoft Visio is a capable, familiar diagramming tool. Office managers, facilities teams and event admins already use it for org charts, process flows and network diagrams, and its floor plan and office layout templates make it a natural choice for sketching an exhibit hall. It fits neatly into Microsoft 365: files live in OneDrive or SharePoint, colleagues can comment, and Visio Plan 1 ($5/user/month, web) and Plan 2 ($15/user/month, web plus desktop, billed annually) are inexpensive. Plan 2 adds the desktop app and its larger shape library, which is where the fuller floor plan and office layout stencils live. For a quick, tidy layout that everyone in the office can open, Visio does the job well.
The gap shows up once the diagram has to run an event. A Visio floor plan is a static diagram. Booth status is shown by recoloring shapes by hand or tracked in a separate Excel sheet, and the plan reaches exhibitors and attendees as a PDF or PNG attached to an email or uploaded to the website. Every sale, swap or merge means editing the diagram, re-exporting and re-sending. Attendees can't search it for an exhibitor or get directions to a booth, and exhibitors can't reserve or pay for a space from it.
This page is for organizers who draw their floor plan in Visio and are looking for a Visio alternative for trade show floor plans: a tool that keeps the layout simple to edit but adds live booth availability, online booth reservations and payments, exhibitor profiles and mobile wayfinding, without the export-and-email routine.
| Feature | ExpoFP | Microsoft Visio |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose-built for event floor plans | Yes. Interactive floor plan platform for trade shows, expos, conferences, fairs and venues | No. General diagramming tool with floor plan and office layout templates |
| Drawing / editing booths | Drag, drop, merge and resize booths in the browser with FP Designer; changes go live instantly | Drag shapes from floor plan stencils; fuller floor plan tools in Plan 2 desktop |
| Import an existing plan | Upload an existing floor plan file or image and the ExpoFP team builds it, or draw it yourself in FP Designer | Can insert images or CAD drawings as a background (desktop); exports to PDF and images |
| Live booth availability | Yes. Exhibitors see availability on the map in real time | No. Shapes recolored manually; status usually tracked in Excel |
| Booth reservations | Exhibitors reserve directly on the map; organizer approves and tracks in one place | Not available; handled by email, forms or spreadsheets |
| Online booth payments | Exhibitors can purchase by credit card on the map (not on the Light plan) | Not available |
| Exhibitor profiles & directory | Logo, description and contacts attached to each booth; searchable directory | Text labels or shape data inside the diagram |
| Exhibitor self-service updates | Personal auto-login link; exhibitors fill in their profile, organizer approves | Not available; organizer edits the diagram |
| Attendee search & filters | Search by company, booth or category; category filters; bookmarks | Not available in an exported PDF/PNG beyond basic text search |
| Wayfinding / routes | Turn-by-turn routes, accessible routes across floors and buildings; blue-dot, GPS and QR positioning available | Not available |
| Mobile experience | Browser-based, mobile-ready; no app, no sign-in | PDF or image on a phone, or a Visio viewer link for people with access |
| Sharing & website embedding | Custom URL (yourevent.expofp.com), embed in websites and event apps, kiosks | Share via OneDrive/SharePoint inside your organization, or email/upload a PDF or image |
| Updating after changes | Edit once; every link, embed and kiosk updates instantly | Edit diagram, re-export, re-send, re-upload |
| Sponsorship / monetization | Sponsored listings, featured placements, banner ads, logos in booths, booth extras, packages | Not available |
| Analytics | Included on every plan: searches, booth views, routes, exhibitor activity, per-kiosk analytics | Not available |
| Cost | Free to start (7-day trial); DIY $149/mo; Light $990, Standard $1,500, Pro $2,100 one-time (≤100 booths; scales with booth count) | Plan 1 $5/user/mo; Plan 2 $15/user/mo (billed annually); basic Visio in Microsoft 365 included with many commercial Microsoft 365 plans. Check current pricing |
Here's how it usually goes. An event coordinator builds the hall layout in Visio from the venue's PDF, drops rectangles for booths and numbers them. The diagram gets exported to PDF and emailed to the sales team, the sponsors and whoever updates the website. Booth status sits in an Excel file on SharePoint, with sold booths colored green by hand in both places, when someone remembers.
Then the changes start. A sponsor upgrades to a double booth, an exhibitor drops out, the venue moves a food court. Each change means opening the .vsdx, moving shapes, re-exporting and resending, and asking everyone to "please use the attached version." Some people still forward the old one. Two reps offer the same corner booth because one of them was looking at last Tuesday's PDF. Exhibitors email logos that never make it onto the map. On show day, attendees squint at a printed layout or a PNG on their phone, can't search for the company they came to see, and the late additions are nowhere to be found.
Visio did exactly what it was asked to do: draw a clear diagram. The cost comes from making a static diagram serve as the live sales system, exhibitor directory and visitor map all at once.
| Step | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Sharing the plan | Export to PDF/PNG, attach to emails, upload to the website. | One live link at yourevent.expofp.com, embedded on your website and in your event app. |
| Selling a booth | Email, update Excel, recolor the Visio shape, re-export. | The exhibitor sees live availability, reserves (and can pay by card) on the map, and you approve it in one place. |
| Changing the layout | Edit the .vsdx, re-export, resend, hope everyone uses the new file. | Drag, merge or resize booths in FP Designer and the change goes live everywhere instantly. |
| Exhibitor details | Chase logos and descriptions by email. | Each exhibitor gets a personal auto-login link, fills in their profile, and you approve it. |
| Show day | Printed maps and static images. | A searchable mobile map with category filters, turn-by-turn wayfinding, kiosks with "you are here", and analytics on what visitors searched and visited. |
Upload your exported plan or draw it in FP Designer, and start selling booths on the map. Free to start, 7-day trial, no credit card.
Save the current layout as a PDF or high-resolution image (PNG). If your plan was traced over a venue drawing, grab that original file too.
On the Light, Standard or Pro plans, upload the file and the ExpoFP team builds the interactive map for you. On the DIY plan ($149/mo), recreate the booths in the drag-and-drop FP Designer in your browser, then merge and resize them as needed.
Bring in the exhibitor list you've been keeping in Excel, or connect ExpoFP to your registration, ticketing or CRM system so exhibitor data flows both ways. Send each exhibitor a personal auto-login link to add their logo, description and contacts for your approval.
Turn on booth reservation so exhibitors see live availability and can reserve or purchase by credit card directly on the map (online payments are not on the Light plan). Add sponsorship options such as featured placements, banner ads and logos in booths.
Publish at your custom URL, embed the map on your event website and in your event app, and set up kiosks for show day. Next year, copy the map and exhibitors to the new event instead of starting a new diagram.
Visio is still a good fit for internal planning: setup and teardown diagrams for crews, catering and AV layouts, seating charts for a board dinner, office and desk plans, and process diagrams that sit alongside your event plan. If your organization already has Visio through Microsoft 365, it's a convenient way to sketch an idea before committing to a layout, and nothing stops you keeping that sketch as an internal reference. When the plan has to be published, sell booths, carry exhibitor information or guide attendees around a venue, that's the point where a purpose-built event floor plan platform takes over.
Yes. Export your Visio diagram as a PDF or image and upload it; on the Light, Standard and Pro plans the ExpoFP team builds the interactive map from your file. On the DIY plan you can recreate the layout yourself in the drag-and-drop FP Designer, which usually takes far less effort than rebuilding it in Visio each year.
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Information on this page is based on publicly available product materials and may change over time. Microsoft Visio is a trademark of its respective owner. This is ExpoFP's own comparison and reflects our perspective based on publicly available information and user-facing product research.