Meetup Alternatives: What 5 Platforms Actually Cost
Meetup’s organizer subscription now starts at $29.99 a month and caps you at three groups, so plenty of organizers have started hunting for Meetup alternatives. The good news is that the alternatives are cheaper. The catch is that none of them will move your members for you, and your member list is the thing you’re actually protecting.
We read every platform’s own pricing page on 5 September 2026. Here are the real numbers, the fee each one takes on a paid event, and a migration sequence that doesn’t lose half your group on the way.
On this page
What Meetup costs now
As published on Meetup’s own help pages on 5 September 2026: the Standard organizer subscription starts at $29.99 a month, $99.99 for six months, or $174.99 a year, and covers a maximum of three groups with unlimited events and attendees. Meetup Pro starts at $55 per group per month on a one month term, or $47 per group per month on a six month term, and is billed per group with no cap on the number of groups. There’s a one week free trial on Pro.
Meetup is explicit that these are starting points and that prices vary by location. There’s no free organizer plan.
For one group meeting monthly, $174.99 a year isn’t outrageous. It becomes a problem in two situations: when you run several groups and Pro’s per group billing multiplies, and when the group is a club or association that also needs dues, a directory and announcements, in which case you’re paying Meetup for events and something else for everything else.
Meetup alternatives, side by side
| Tool | Entry price | Priced by | Platform fee | Free trial | Publishes pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kannect | $29/mo, or $276/yr | People, 500 on the entry plan | 2% | 7 days, card required | Yes, in full |
| Meetup | From $29.99/mo, 3 groups | Number of groups | Not applicable, ticketing runs through a partner | Not published | Yes |
| Luma | Free, or $59/mo for Plus billed annually | Flat tiers | 5% on the free plan, 0% on Plus | Free plan, no expiry | Yes, in full |
| Eventbrite | Free, Pro from $15/mo | Per ticket, plus an optional subscription | 3.7% + $1.79 per ticket | Free for free events | Yes, in full |
| Heylo | Free, $19, $59 or $199/mo | Flat tiers | 5% + $0.59 down to 1% + $0.10 | Free plan | Yes, in full |
| Bevy | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | No |
Each Meetup alternative in detail
Luma
Pricing. The free plan covers unlimited events and unlimited guests, with 500 invites or newsletters a week and a 5% platform fee on paid events. Luma Plus is $59 a month, billed yearly at the same monthly rate with a stated 14% saving, and it removes the platform fee entirely and raises invites to 5,000 a week. An add-on takes sends to 100,000 a week for $800 a month. Stripe processing of roughly 2.9% plus $0.30 is separate and additional.
Best for. Groups that run frequent free events and want the nicest event page on this list. If you sell tickets regularly, do the arithmetic on 5% versus $59 a month: the break even is around $1,180 of ticket sales a month.
Where it stops. Luma is an events product. There’s no membership, no dues, no directory.
Eventbrite
Pricing. Free events carry no fees and are unlimited. Paid events carry a 3.7% plus $1.79 service fee per ticket, plus 2.9% payment processing per order. Eventbrite Pro starts at $15 a month and adds email marketing to up to 10,000 recipients a day.
Worth doing the sum. On a $15 ticket, the $1.79 flat component alone is nearly 12%. Eventbrite is priced for higher ticket prices than most community groups charge.
Best for. Free events at any scale, and paid events with tickets above about $40.
Heylo
Pricing. Base is free, Plus is $19 a month, Pro is $59 a month and Business is $199 a month. Members are unlimited on every tier. The transaction fee falls as you go up: 5% plus $0.59 on Base, 4% plus $0.49 on Plus, 2% plus $0.29 on Pro and 1% plus $0.10 on Business. Annual prices aren’t published.
Best for. Social clubs and interest groups that want a group chat, events and payments in one app and are willing to trade the fee for a low subscription while they’re small.
Bevy
Pricing. Not published. Bevy describes a model of base platform plus usage type plus add-ons plus implementation, with an interactive calculator, and everything routes to a demo. An implementation fee exists as a line item with no amount attached.
Best for. Companies running a chapter programme with a dedicated community team. It isn’t a like for like replacement for a Meetup group.
What every Meetup alternative loses you
Be honest with yourself about this before you switch. Meetup’s real product isn’t the event page. It’s that strangers in your city find your group without you doing anything. No platform on this list replaces that, and the cheaper ones replace it least.
So the question isn’t which platform is cheapest. It’s which of these two situations you’re in.
- You still need discovery. Your group is young, attendance depends on new faces every month, and most of the people at your last event found you through Meetup. Stay, and treat the subscription as a marketing cost rather than a software cost.
- You have a membership now. The same people come, you know their names, you’re starting to collect dues or ask for volunteers, and Meetup has become the place where you announce things to people you already know. That’s the point at which you’re paying a discovery platform to do a membership job, and moving makes sense.
A lot of groups do both for a season: keep a Meetup presence as the front door, and run the actual organization somewhere they control. That’s usually cheaper than it sounds, because Standard covers up to three groups.
How to move a group without losing members
- Don’t announce the move first. Set the new place up, put one real event on it, and make sure it works. An announcement that leads to an empty page loses people.
- Collect email addresses at the events you run before you move. This is the single most valuable thing you can do, and it takes a clipboard or a QR code. Meetup doesn’t hand you member contact details when you leave.
- Run the next event in both places. Post the event on Meetup with the new registration link. The people who care will follow one link.
- Expect to lose the lurkers, and let that be fine. A group of 800 members with 25 regulars is a group of 25. Moving surfaces that, and it isn’t a loss.
- Give people one reason the new place is better. A directory they can actually use, a way to pay dues that isn’t cash at the door, announcements that reach them. Not a note saying you’re switching platforms.
- Keep the old group alive for one season. Pin a post pointing at the new home. New people still search Meetup.
There’s more on the underlying problem in why community engagement fails and on what to do with new arrivals in member onboarding in the first 30 days.
Where Kannect fits
Kannect is our product, so check the pricing page yourself. It’s the option for the second situation above: a group that’s turned into an organization, with members, dues, events and someone who now has the job of keeping track of all three.
Memberships, properly. One membership type with multiple pricing tiers on every plan, or multiple membership types each with their own tiers on the higher plans. Custom application forms, manual or automatic approval, and a welcome flow that drops a new member straight into the conversation. Discounts and renewals are built in, so nobody’s tracking who gets the early-bird rate in a spreadsheet.
And the rest of the organization. A member directory with unlimited listings on every plan, and multiple directories side by side on the higher plans for sponsors, alumni, partners or your team. Groups and programs for chapters, committees and cohorts, each with its own conversation and analytics. A people database with statuses for member, alumni, donor, staff, parent and student, which members keep current themselves from the app. Events, broadcast email, a community website and a member app.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | People | Admins | Emails/mo | Platform fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 | $276 | 500 | 3 | 5,000 | 2% |
| Launch | $69 | $660 | 2,000 | 5 | 20,000 | 2% |
| Growth | $149 | $1,428 | 5,000 | 10 | 50,000 | 1.5% |
| Scale | $299 | $2,868 | 15,000 | 25 | 150,000 | 1% |
The part that matters most day to day is reach. Every opted-in member receives every announcement. No algorithm decides who sees it, and there’s no per-contact overage bill for sending it. Payments run on Stripe. You connect your bank once, and money from events, memberships, programs and donations lands in your own account, usually within three business days. Kannect never holds your money. Registered nonprofits pay 0% Kannect fee on donations.
Starter is $276 a year against Meetup Standard at $174.99. For the difference you get memberships with tiers, renewals and discounts, a directory, payments and announcements, rather than events on their own. What it won’t do is find you strangers. If that’s still the job, Meetup is doing something for you that this doesn’t replace, and plenty of groups run both.
Most organizations start with one job, usually events, payments or the directory, and bring the rest across as they need it. Setup is self-serve at no cost. If you’d rather we build the account for you, that’s an optional one time service starting at $150.
There’s a wider comparison in the best community engagement platforms, and we write separately for nonprofits and support groups.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Meetup cost for organizers in 2026?
As published on Meetup’s own help pages on 5 September 2026, the Standard organizer subscription starts at $29.99 a month, $99.99 for six months or $174.99 a year and covers up to three groups. Meetup Pro starts at $55 per group per month, or $47 per group per month on a six month term, and is billed per group with no group limit. Meetup states these are starting points that vary by location.
What’s the best free alternative to Meetup?
Luma has a free plan with unlimited events and guests, 500 invites a week and a 5% fee on paid events. Heylo has a permanently free Base tier with unlimited members and a 5% plus $0.59 transaction fee. Eventbrite charges nothing at all for free events. None of the three replaces Meetup’s ability to put your group in front of strangers.
Will I lose my members if I leave Meetup?
You’ll lose the ones who never really participated, and you won’t get member contact details out of Meetup when you go. Collect email addresses at the events you run before you move, run one event in both places with the new registration link, and keep the old group alive for a season with a pinned post pointing at the new home.
Is Luma cheaper than Meetup?
For free events, yes: Luma’s free plan costs nothing where Meetup Standard starts at $29.99 a month. For paid events it depends on volume, because Luma’s free plan takes 5% and Luma Plus removes the fee for $59 a month. The break even between those two is roughly $1,180 of ticket sales a month.
What does Eventbrite charge per ticket?
As published on 5 September 2026, free events carry no fees. Paid events carry a 3.7% plus $1.79 service fee per ticket and 2.9% payment processing per order. On a low priced ticket the flat $1.79 dominates: on a $15 ticket it’s nearly 12% before the percentage fees are added.
Should a club that collects dues use Meetup at all?
Meetup is a discovery platform rather than a membership system, so it has no dues, no member records and no directory. Many clubs keep a Meetup group as a front door for new people and run the actual organization on a membership platform. The Standard subscription covers up to three groups, which makes running both cheaper than it first appears.
Where the Meetup alternatives pricing came from
Prices for Meetup and all the Meetup alternatives above came off each platform’s own pages on 5 September 2026.
Related reading
- 12 best community engagement platforms, with verified pricing
- Kannect vs Mighty Networks, Circle and Bettermode
- Why members join and then go quiet
- How to build a community
- What community engagement actually means
- How to move your club off Meetup without losing members
- Eventbrite and Meetup got bought: what it means for your community
- Why communities lose engagement after the first event
- Event run-of-show template
- Free guides and templates
