We put SeatPlan to the test - can it find the best theatre seats for your budget?

We all love a theatre bargain. But finding the cheapest ticket isn't necessarily the same thing as finding the best seat for your budget.

With so many shows playing across London - and ticket prices changing depending on the date, performance and where you sit - working out where your money is best spent isn't always straightforward.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to see. Other times, you have a date and a budget and simply want to know: what can I see and where can I get the best possible seat for what I want to spend?

That's where SeatPlan comes in. The service lets you compare shows, ticket prices and, importantly, real seat views in one search, helping you weigh up not just how much a ticket costs, but what you're actually getting for your money.

We decided to put it to the test.

What can you get for under £20?

First things first: we set ourselves a challenge.

Rather than choosing a show first, SeatPlan allows you to set the maximum amount you're willing to spend and see what's available within your budget.

So, we gave ourselves just £20 per ticket and hit search.

Among the results was Avenue Q for just £15 per ticket, reduced from £25 - a saving of £10 per seat.

But what makes the search particularly useful is that price isn't the only information you're given. We could immediately see a photograph showing the view from the best-value seats, in this case Royal Circle L34–35, before going any further with the booking.

That's an important distinction. Rather than simply asking "What's the cheapest ticket I can find?", you can start considering "What's the best seat I can get for the amount I want to spend?"

Finding the best options for your budget

Next, we put the filters to work.

We chose Monday 7 September, set ourselves a maximum budget of £40 per ticket and told SeatPlan we wanted a musical starting between 6:30pm and 8:30pm.

That brought our search down to just eight results.

Among them was Beetlejuice at £35 per ticket, with a photograph of the view from the best-value seats in Stalls ZA23–24 displayed alongside the result.

There are additional filters for running time, seating section and seat ratings too, so you can get considerably more specific.

And this is where the idea of finding the best seats for your budget becomes particularly helpful. If you're happy to spend up to £40, you don't necessarily have to automatically choose the cheapest £20 or £25 option. Being able to compare prices, locations and seat views means you can decide where that £40 is best spent.

What if you're booking for a group?

Finding one or two theatre tickets is one thing. Trying to find good seats for a whole group - without blowing everybody's budget - can be a very different story.

SeatPlan currently lets you search for up to eight tickets at once, so we decided to put that to the test too.

We kept the date as 7 September and our maximum budget at £40 per person, but this time searched for eight tickets.

One of the options that came back was Moulin Rouge! The Musical at £29.27 each.

That sounded pretty impressive for a group of eight - but could we actually sit together?

We clicked through to the seating plan and found eight seats together in Grand Circle Row M, seats 23–30, all priced at £29.27 each.

The total for all eight came to £234.16.

This was probably one of the features we found most useful. Anyone who's ever tried organising a birthday, family outing, work trip or simply a theatre visit with a particularly large group of Besties will know that finding enough seats together - while keeping everybody within budget - can involve a fair bit of searching.

Being able to start by asking "What's the best option for eight of us if nobody wants to spend more than £40?" makes the process considerably simpler.

A cheap ticket isn't always the best-value ticket

This is perhaps the most important part.

We've probably all spotted an amazingly cheap theatre ticket and immediately wondered: but what will I actually be able to see?

SeatPlan's audience-submitted seat-view photos and reviews help answer that question.

As we found throughout our searches, photos of the view from the best-value seats appeared alongside the results, so we weren't judging each option on price alone.

Once you head into the seating plan, you can explore individual seats in more detail, with ratings, reviews and photos available for many of them.

That means you can compare your options and decide whether you'd rather save a little money or spend slightly more for a seat with a better view.

Ultimately, the best seat for your budget isn't necessarily the cheapest one - it's the one that gives you the experience you're happiest with for the amount you're prepared to spend.

So, what's our verdict?

Having put SeatPlan through a few different scenarios, we think its real strength is helping you make your budget work harder.

Our searches found a £15 ticket to Avenue Q, narrowed a £40 musical search to eight options and even found eight seats together for Moulin Rouge! The Musical for less than £30 per person.

But more importantly, we could look beyond those prices and see where we'd actually be sitting and what the view could be like.

If you already know the exact production, performance and seats you want, you may naturally start your search with that particular show. But if you've got a date, a budget or simply fancy a spontaneous theatre trip, SeatPlan gives you another way to approach the search.

Instead of simply hunting for the cheapest ticket, you can look for the best seats for your budget.

And for us, that's where the real value lies.

So, Besties, next time you're planning a theatre trip, set your budget and see just how far it could take you.

Explore SeatPlan and find the best theatre seats for your budget.