Luma vs Partiful
If you want a full events platform — published pricing, recurring events, calendars with subscribers, and established ticketing — choose Luma. If you’re throwing a casual party and want animated invites your friends can RSVP to with just a phone number, Partiful is built for that.
Pricing
Luma: Free events are free. For paid tickets, Luma Plus has a 0% platform fee — you pay only Stripe processing (2.9% + 30¢), so a $20 ticket costs $0.88 in fees. On the Free plan, paid tickets incur a 5% platform fee plus processing ($1.88 on a $20 ticket).
Partiful: Free events are also free. For paid tickets, Partiful doesn’t publish pricing — fees vary by event size and ticket price, and you only see the exact fee when setting up tickets. Across the public ticketed events we reviewed on Partiful, the standard fee was 10% + $2.00 per ticket. Partiful says its service fee covers payment processing, so nothing extra is added on top.
| Ticket price | Luma Plus | Luma Free | Partiful (10% + $2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.59 | $1.09 | $3.00 |
| $20 | $0.88 | $1.88 | $4.00 |
| $50 | $1.75 | $4.25 | $7.00 |
On 100 tickets at $20, that’s $88 in fees on Luma Plus versus about $400 on Partiful. The flat $2 per ticket weighs most on lower-priced events: on a $10 ticket, the fee is 30% of the price.
Cash Flow: With Luma, funds are paid out to your Stripe account as guests purchase tickets, following Stripe’s standard rolling payout schedule (typically 2 days in the US) — or within minutes with Stripe’s Instant Payouts, for eligible accounts. You can use ticket revenue for venue deposits and vendors well before the event date.
Pricing checked in September 2026 — Partiful’s fees aren’t published and may change. See Partiful’s fees article for their latest details.
How They Compare
Partiful is built for casual parties: animated invite pages, guests RSVP with just a phone number, and updates go out over text message. It works well for inviting friends to a birthday or house party, and each event is a one-off.
Luma is built for hosts who run events regularly — from dinner parties to meetups to conferences. Events live on a calendar that guests can subscribe to, you can set up recurring events, and you can reach your audience by email, SMS, and event chat. Partiful is text-first — guests invited by email get blasts by email until they RSVP, after which updates arrive by SMS or push — with limits on how many blasts you can send per event. Luma also connects to the rest of your tools — Zapier, an API, embeds, and CRM integrations — while Partiful’s integrations are limited to calendar sync (Google and Outlook), with no public API.
On ticketing, Partiful launched paid tickets in June 2026 — its first paid product. It covers the basics (free and paid tiers, promo codes, capacity caps, QR check-in), but it’s early: no ticket add-ons, no waitlist for ticketed events, US hosts only, and hosts can’t issue individual refunds from the dashboard. Luma has run paid ticketing at scale for years, with waitlists that work for paid events, add-ons, coupons, and flexible refunds.
Where Luma Shines
- Published, lower fees: 0% platform fee with Luma Plus and a published 5% on the Free plan, versus unpublished fees you only see during ticket setup.
- Built for recurring events: Calendars with subscribers, recurring events, and newsletters for hosts who run more than one-off parties.
- Curate a paid guest list: Require approval works with paid tickets — guests’ cards are held when they apply and only charged if you approve them. Paid waitlists work the same way, so you can fill sold-out spots without chasing payments.
- Paid memberships: Sell monthly, yearly, or one-time memberships that give members access to your events — recurring revenue, with Luma handling the billing.
- Mature ticketing: Used for years from free meetups to multi-thousand-person conferences, with ticket add-ons, individual refunds, and hosts outside the US.
Why You Might Choose Partiful
- Playful, expressive invites – Animated themes, effects, and fonts make the invite feel like part of the party. Google Play named it Best App of 2024.
- Text-message-first – Invites and updates arrive over SMS, which is how a lot of friend groups already make plans.
- Social momentum – Visible guest lists, comments, and reactions build hype among guests.
Migrating from Partiful to Luma
- Export your guest list from Partiful (their guest list supports CSV export) and use it to invite people to your Luma events.
- Create your event on Luma — it takes under 2 minutes.
- Connect your Stripe account on Luma to accept payments for ticketed events.
- Share your new Luma event links, and set up a Luma calendar so guests can subscribe to all your future events.
- For large migrations, contact support@luma.com and we can help.
FAQs
Can my community list Partiful events on a Luma calendar? Yes — Luma calendars can accept external event submissions from platforms like Partiful, which is handy while you transition.
Will guests need to create a Luma account? Only if they want to join event chat; they can RSVP with just an email.
Does Luma have fun invite designs too? Yes — themes and visual effects let you personalize your event page, with a look that also works for professional events.