Which alternative fits your group?
Start from the one requirement that decides it.
| Your main requirement | Start with |
|---|---|
| Finding new members who search by interest | Meetup |
| Charging for the night, to your own Stripe account, with no organiser subscription | One Ticket |
| A season pass for the regulars | One Ticket |
| Free RSVPs on a shared calendar | Luma |
One Ticket is our product. The rows that point elsewhere are why the table is worth reading.
Ready-made template
Saturday Bushwalk
Weekend hiking group, already set up as an event you can open now. Pick a date and a venue, change what you like, and publish. Nothing is saved until you do, and you can start without an account.
- A free place capped at twenty
- Required fitness and emergency contact questions
- Every Saturday, with the waitlist on
Discovery or the door
Two different jobs. Many groups need both.
| Meetup | One Ticket | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Finding a group | Selling a place in a room you already have |
| Who pays | The organiser, monthly | The buyer, per ticket |
| A quiet month | The subscription is still paid | Costs nothing |
| Taking money for the night | Ticket sales and member dues on a paid organiser plan | Every ticket to your own Stripe account |
What is a paid upgrade, and what is not
Meetup's Starter plan is free for first-time organisers; past it, a Standard or Pro subscription. On One Ticket there is no plan: every feature is on every account.
| Function | Meetup | One Ticket |
|---|---|---|
| More than two events a month, or more than ten people at one | PaidA Standard or Pro plan (the free Starter plan is one group, two in-person events a month, ten attendees) | FreeUnlimited events and attendees, on every account |
| A recurring event | PaidA paid plan | FreeA series with every session on one page, on every account |
| An online event | PaidA paid plan | FreeConnect Zoom and a meeting link is generated automatically for every session, or paste a Google Meet, Teams or any other link, on every account |
| Selling tickets or collecting member dues | PaidA paid plan | FreePaid tickets and subscriptions, on every account |
| More than three groups | PaidPro, paid per group | FreeAs many events and series as you run, on one organiser page |
| Analytics on your community | PaidPro (community metrics and data analytics) | FreeThe morning-after report: who came, who was new, who stopped coming, on every event |
Meetup alternatives compared
Functions as each platform describes them on its own site, checked on the dates in the sources list.
| Platform | Relevant functions |
|---|---|
| One Ticket | A series as one object; who is new, returning and missing after each session; season and monthly subscriptions; ticket money charged to your own Stripe account; your theme, font and cover |
| Meetup | Groups people find by interest; an organiser subscription; RSVPs |
| Luma | Event calendars, invitations and RSVPs, with paid events as an option |
| Eventbrite | Marketplace listing with search and recommendations |
A dashed underline marks a description still to be checked against the platform's own page.
One Ticket for a recurring room
Everything below follows from one decision: a series is one object, not a list of dates.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Who came back | After every session: how many came, how many had been before, who is new and who has stopped coming, by name, with an address to write to |
| Subscriptions | One subscription covers every session in a series. Each night's ticket is minted ahead of time |
| Paid out | Every ticket is charged to your own Stripe account. A new account is paid out to your bank two days after each event, once guests have said how it went; after a first clean event it is paid out as it sells |
| Fees | No platform fee on the ticket price. The buyer pays a booking fee: a platform tier of 35c to $1.45 a ticket, then 1.5% of the price above $100, plus card processing. On a $25 ticket that is $1.45 all in, so the buyer pays $26.45. Free tickets cost nothing |
| Refund if it changes | Move the date, start time or place after people have booked and every one of them can refund in full, booking fee included, until it starts, whatever your refund policy says. You are warned before you save, and everyone booked is emailed the new details |
| Refund requests | On a case-by-case event the buyer asks from their ticket. You have 3 days to refund or decline; a request nobody answers goes to One Ticket support, and your payouts are held until it is settled |
| Guest ratings | After each event, ticket holders rate it: stars and a few words. From 5 ratings the average shows under your name on every event page, good or bad. Notes are for you alone, and never say who wrote them |
| Scam protection | Every page is read before it can send an email, and our emails carry none of an organiser's own links or phone numbers. A new organiser's money is held until after the event, and anyone can report an event from its page |
| Verified tick | Earned by selling here: 3 past events, 25 tickets, no chargebacks, no ignored refund requests, and an average of 4 stars once there are 10 ratings. A chargeback or an ignored request takes it away at once |
| Block a person | Block an address from a ticket type, for this event or every one after it. No public list, no conversation at the door |
| Your page | Your colours, your title font, your cover. Nobody else's event on it |
| Import | Paste an Eventbrite link and the title, description, date, venue and ticket types come across |
| Not included | A marketplace. There is no search page and no audience to sell into; the people are the ones you bring |
Running both
| What moves | What happens |
|---|---|
| The group | Stays on Meetup, where new people find it |
| The paid night | Sold here. The Meetup listing links to the One Ticket page |
| The regulars | A season pass here, a ticket minted ahead for every session |
Sources and method
Every statement about another platform on this page is checked against a dated page from that platform, kept in this list. Where a claim could not be sourced it is not made. Comparative claims about a named competitor are advertising, and we treat them that way.
- Meetup organiser pricing: meetup.com/lp/pricing.
- Meetup Starter, the free plan, and what needs a paid plan: help.meetup.com: Can I organize a Meetup group for free?. Checked 4 October 2026.
- Meetup Standard and Pro subscriptions: help.meetup.com: Organizer Subscription prices overview and Meetup Pro features overview. Checked 4 October 2026.
- Luma pricing and features: luma.com/pricing.
- Eventbrite features: eventbrite.com.au/organizer/features.
- One Ticket fee schedule: 35c to $1.45 a ticket, then 1.5% of the price above $100, as on the pricing page and the fee calculator.
- One Ticket payouts: every ticket is charged to the organiser's connected Stripe account; a refund reverses that transfer and refunds the booking fee.
One Ticket
Sell tickets. Keep every dollar.