Best Event Registration Software in 2026: Free and Paid Compared

Event registration software is the tool that turns "register here" into a guest list you can run an event from: the form, the tickets, the payments, the confirmations, and the check-in data at the end. Free tools handle the form well. The real differences between platforms show up in every step after it.

This guide compares 11 event registration platforms, free and paid, as of September 2026. For each one you get who it suits, what the free plan actually includes, what paid tickets cost, and what to watch for. There is also a worked example of the fees on a 200-guest paid event, because "free" and "low fee" mean very different things once tickets cost money.

SOURems is one of the platforms compared, and we say plainly where it fits and where it doesn't. Every other entry is written to stand on its own.

How we compared. Every plan limit, fee and feature below was checked on the vendor's own website on 23 September 2026. Fees are US pricing unless stated. Where a vendor doesn't publish something, we say so rather than guess.

The best event registration software by need

• Best free option for public events: Eventbrite. Free events carry no fees, with no cap on how many you publish.

• Best free option when you approve guests: Luma. Approval, ticket types and check-in are all on the free plan.

• Lowest fees on paid tickets: Hi.Events, at 1.25% + $0.60 per ticket, or no platform fee if you host it yourself.

• Best for a simple list: Google Forms. Free, but no payments, tickets or check-in.

• Best for custom forms with approval routing: Jotform.

• Best for invite lists and galas: RSVPify.

• Best for training and CE events priced per attendee: Eventleaf.

• Best for Zoho users running multi-session conferences: Zoho Backstage.

• Best for conferences that want an attendee app: Whova.

• Best for enterprise event programmes: Cvent.

• Best for corporate events, galas and exhibitions in Southeast Asia: SOURems, for approval, seating on the ticket and WhatsApp confirmations in one system.

What "free" actually means on each platform

Two patterns stand out. First, "free" almost always means free events: the moment a ticket has a price, every platform takes a cut or a subscription. Second, the free plans differ most in the steps after the form, which is where an event actually gets hard to run.

The 11 best event registration platforms in 2026

1. Eventbrite

Best for: public events that want to be found, and free events that should cost nothing.

Eventbrite's pricing page is clear on the headline: publish unlimited free events at no cost, with no ticket fees on free tickets. Registration covers custom questions, including conditional follow-ups and questions shown only for certain ticket types, unlimited ticket types with their own price and capacity, QR tickets, a free check-in app, and a waitlist that offers released tickets automatically.

Paid tickets in the US carry a 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per ticket plus 2.9% payment processing per order. Buyers pay by default, or you can absorb the fees. Published pricing covers the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland.

Pros

• Free events are genuinely free, at any size

• Marketplace discovery brings in people who didn't know about your event

• Waitlist and check-in app included

Cons

• The most expensive platform in our paid example: $1,018 in fees on $10,000 of tickets

• No application-review step; the closest is making an event invite-only

• Published pricing covers only six countries

2. Luma

Best for: community, meetup and startup events that need an approved guest list for free.

Luma's free plan is the most generous in this guide: unlimited events, unlimited guests per event, 500 invites a week, check-in, ticket types, group purchasing, coupons, and "require approval" for registration. On paid tickets with approval, the card is authorised when the guest registers and charged only when you approve them. Capacity per ticket type and per event, waitlists (including paid ones), custom registration questions and a QR code for every guest are included.

Paid tickets carry a 5% platform fee on the free plan, plus Stripe's card fee. Luma Plus costs $59 a month billed annually and drops the platform fee to 0%, adds 5,000 invites a week, tax collection and a check-in manager role.

Pros

• Approval on the free plan, with payment taken only after approval

• Coupons, group purchasing and waitlists without a subscription

• Ticket types, capacity and a QR code per guest on the free plan

Cons

• The 5% platform fee adds up: $850 in our 200-ticket example

• Luma Plus only pays for itself once platform fees pass $708 a year, roughly $14,000 of ticket sales

• Card payments are processed through Stripe

3. Hi.Events

Best for: the lowest fees on paid tickets, or open-source ticketing you host yourself.

Hi.Events charges nothing on free events and 1.25% + $0.60 per paid ticket, with no monthly fee and no contract. The fee is added at checkout by default, or you can absorb it. It is also open source: you can self-host it free under the AGPL-3.0 licence, keeping the "Powered by Hi.Events" link and publishing your changes, with no platform fee at all. Commercial licences start at €499 a year.

Registration questions can be asked per order or per ticket, capacity can be set per product or shared, and there are waitlists and QR check-in lists. Offline payments and invoices are supported alongside Stripe.

Pros

• $595 in fees in our example, the lowest of the full ticketing platforms

• Self-hosting removes the platform fee entirely

• Offline payments and invoices for corporate buyers

Cons

• Stripe is the only online payment gateway out of the box

• We found no approval step in its documentation

• Self-hosting means someone on your team maintains a server

4. Google Forms

Best for: free RSVPs for internal or small events where a list is all you need.

Google Forms is free with a personal Google account, supports branching logic and many question types, and sends responses straight into Google Sheets. Since January 2026 a form can stop accepting responses on a date or after a set number of responses, which gives you a basic capacity cap.

What the product page doesn't list is everything after the form: payments, tickets, QR codes, check-in, waitlists or approval. Each of those becomes a manual job in the spreadsheet.

Pros

• Free, familiar and fast to set up

• A built-in response cap since 2026

• Answers arrive in a sheet you can share

Cons

• No payments, tickets or check-in

• Approvals, confirmations and reminders are done by hand

• No record of who actually attended

5. Jotform

Best for: custom registration forms with approval routing and your own payment gateway.

Jotform's free Starter plan allows 5 active forms, 100 submissions a month and 10 payment submissions a month, with Jotform branding on the form. Paid plans run from Bronze ($39 a month: 1,000 submissions, 100 payments) through Silver ($49: 2,500 and 250) to Gold ($129: 10,000 and 1,000), with lower prices billed yearly.

Its strength is the form itself and what happens to a submission. Payments run through more than 30 gateways, including PayPal, Square and Stripe, with no extra transaction fee from Jotform. Approval workflows can route each registration to a reviewer, and there is an event registration approval template. QR codes and check-in are assembled from a QR code widget and a check-in app template rather than built-in ticketing.

Pros

• No Jotform transaction fee: $399 in our example, including a month of Silver

• Approval workflows for vetted registrations

• The most flexible form builder in this list

Cons

• Tickets, QR codes and check-in are built from widgets and templates

• Payment caps per plan: Bronze's 100 a month wouldn't cover a 200-guest paid event

• Ticket tiers and waitlists aren't listed as features

6. RSVPify

Best for: invite-list events such as galas, corporate dinners and nonprofit events.

RSVPify's free plan allows 1 event at a time, 100 registrations a month, 100 invited guests per event and 100 email credits, with RSVPify branding and third-party ads on confirmation screens. Custom questions, capacity limits, multiple tiers and check-in are not on the free plan.

Paid RSVP plans are Starter ($39 a month, or $24 billed yearly), Plus ($125, or $89 yearly) which adds check-in and capacity limits, and Professional ($409, or $299 yearly) which adds multiple tiers and an embeddable form. Enterprise adds a self check-in kiosk and printable QR codes for each guest.

Ticketed events work differently: there is no subscription, a fee of 1.95% + $0.90 per ticket plus Stripe's card fee, the option to pass fees to guests, and Professional features included. A paid plan is still required if 20% or more of registrants pay offline or get complimentary tickets.

Pros

• $725 in our example, with no subscription for ticketed events

• Exclusive invite lists on every plan

• Seating charts on the higher tiers

Cons

• The free RSVP plan is tight: no custom questions or check-in

• No approval step found; the closest is an exclusive invite list

• Pricing cards and the comparison table mix monthly and yearly prices

7. Eventleaf

Best for: corporate, training and continuing-education events that need badges and session check-in, priced per attendee.

Eventleaf's free Starter plan covers up to 100 attendees a year across unlimited events and users, with an event website, registration, fee collection, a waiting list, badge printing and surveys. Events with fewer than 20 registrations can try every Ultimate feature.

Paid plans are priced per attendee per year: Basic at $1 an attendee ($500 for 500), and Professional at $2 ($2,000 for 1,000), which adds the check-in app with QR scanning, offline mode and session check-in, plus an attendee app. Payment fees are 1% if you connect your own PayPal or Stripe account, or 4% on Eventleaf's own processor (USD only), and are non-refundable.

Pros

• Predictable per-attendee annual pricing

• Badge printing even on the free plan

• Only 1% on top of your own payment processor

Cons

• 100 attendees a year on the free plan is one small event

• The check-in app starts at Professional

• $900 in our example on Basic with Eventleaf's processor

8. Zoho Backstage

Best for: organisations already on Zoho that run multi-session conferences.

Zoho Backstage's free plan includes unlimited events, 100 attendees per event, 300 RSVP invites per event, 3 sessions, RSVP management, and check-in and badging. Paid ticketing with 0% commission starts on the Essentials plan (200 attendees per event), with Premium at 1,000 and Ultimate at 5,000. Each plan can be paid monthly, yearly or per event. Shown in Malaysia on 23 September 2026, Essentials was RM396 a month billed yearly, or RM1,196 for a single event.

Pros

• 0% commission on paid tickets

• A pay-per-event option for one-off conferences

• Check-in and badging on the free plan

Cons

• No paid ticketing on the free plan

• Waitlists and customisable forms start at Premium

• We couldn't confirm an approval step

9. Whova

Best for: conferences and associations that want registration bundled with an event app.

Whova supports free tickets with no ticket fees and no limit on how many, but the software itself is quoted by attendee count, event length and events per year. Paid tickets cost 3.0% + $0.99 per ticket, according to Whova's own blog (updated December 2025), with the option to pass fees to registrants. Registration includes custom fields, group and invite-only tickets, Stripe payments, QR badges, and check-in including self check-in and session check-in.

Pros

• Registration, attendee app and check-in in one product

• Session check-in for multi-track programmes

• Group and invite-only tickets

Cons

• No free software plan, only free tickets

• Quote-based pricing

• The ticket fee is published on a blog post, not the pricing page

10. Cvent

Best for: large enterprise event programmes.

Cvent is quote-only, with a Professional tier (15 user logins) and an Enterprise tier. Registration, the Attendee Hub, OnArrival (check-in, badging, kiosks and session capacity) and Essentials are licensed separately. There is no free plan.

Pros

• Enterprise depth across registration, onsite and reporting

• Session capacity and kiosk check-in through OnArrival

Cons

• Quote only, with separate licences per module

• Heavy for a single event or a small team

11. SOURems

Best for: corporate events, gala dinners, conferences and exhibitions in Southeast Asia where guests need approving, seating or WhatsApp confirmations.

SOURems registration forms are built in a drag-and-drop form builder with 17 field types, including file upload, and each form runs in one of three modes: admit everyone with an instant ticket, hold every submission for approval, or take payment inside the flow. In approval mode, reviewers see the full answers, any uploaded documents and the guests each applicant declared, then approve or reject one by one or in bulk. Duplicate applications are flagged rather than silently rejected, and the ticket only exists once someone approves.

Ticket types carry their own price, capacity and session access. During checkout the ticket is held against capacity and released if payment never completes, so the last seat can't be sold twice. Group bookings keep every guest a named attendee who checks in as themselves. Paid registration runs through Fiuu's hosted payment page, with FPX, cards and e-wallets in ringgit.

Two things happen after registration that most platforms leave to a second tool. The seat assigned on the floor plan prints on the ticket, appears in the confirmation email and shows on the guest's phone. And tickets, reminders and RSVP invitations go out by email and WhatsApp, with delivered and read status recorded for every guest. The same record then drives QR check-in at the door and the live attendance view. See attendee management software for the full picture.

Pros

• Approval before ticket, with documents and duplicate flagging

• Seat assignment flows from the floor plan onto the ticket

• WhatsApp confirmations with read receipts

• FPX and e-wallet payments in ringgit

Cons

• No promo or discount codes yet

• Licence pricing isn't published; every event is quoted

• Built around a Southeast Asian payment gateway, so not the obvious choice for US-dollar public ticketing

Pricing: SOURems is licensed per event scope and allocated capacity. For free event planning and RSVP collection, SOURapp is available on the App Store and Google Play.

What event registration really costs: a 200-guest example

Fee formulas are hard to compare in the abstract, so here is one event priced on every platform that publishes its fees: 200 guests, a $50 ticket, $10,000 in sales. The organiser absorbs every fee, each order is one ticket, and card processing is Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 wherever the platform uses Stripe.

What the numbers say:

• The spread is over $600 on the same event. Eventbrite costs 2.5 times what Jotform does, and $423 more than Hi.Events.

• A free plan is not a cheap plan for paid events. Luma's free plan costs $850 here, more than RSVPify or Hi.Events, because its 5% platform fee sits on top of card processing.

• The cheapest option issues no tickets. Jotform's $399 buys payments and a form; QR tickets and check-in are extra assembly.

• Passing fees to guests changes who pays, not how much. On Eventbrite, a $50 ticket becomes about $55 at checkout.

• Outside the US, check the gateway first. Fee formulas change by country, and a platform that only pays out through Stripe in US dollars may not suit an event priced in ringgit, rupiah or baht.

Google Forms vs event registration software

Google Forms is the most common starting point, and for a free, internal event of under a hundred people it is often enough. It stops being enough at the first step that happens after the form.

A useful test: if you would need a second tool for payments, a third for tickets, and a printed list for the door, the form was never the hard part.

Features that matter more than the form

Approval before the ticket

Invitation-only dinners, government programmes, association events and hosted-buyer schemes all need to vet people before confirming them. On a platform without an approval step, every registrant gets a ticket instantly and you have to cancel the ones you didn't want.

Of the platforms here, Luma (free plan), Jotform (approval workflows), Microsoft Teams events and SOURems publish an approval step. We found none on Eventbrite, Hi.Events or RSVPify. For paid events, check when the card is charged: the charge should wait for approval too.

Capacity and ticket types that can't oversell

Ticket tiers with their own price and capacity let an early-bird rate, a standard rate and a VIP table sell from one form. What matters is what happens at the last ticket: the platform should hold a ticket during checkout and release it if payment fails, or two people can pay for the same seat.

Payments your guests can actually use

Many of these platforms process cards through Stripe, and Hi.Events and Whova list Stripe as their only online gateway. Jotform supports more than 30 gateways. In Malaysia, many guests expect to pay by FPX online banking or an e-wallet, so check that the platform supports local methods and pays out in your currency before you build the form. Our Malaysia event management guide covers the local requirements.

Confirmations that get read

Almost every platform here confirms by email. For audiences that live in WhatsApp, and that is most of Southeast Asia, a ticket in a chat is read in minutes, while an email can sit unopened in a promotions tab. If your RSVP rate matters, look for WhatsApp delivery with read status, not just "sent".

Seating decided at registration

For dinners and award nights, the seating plan is part of registration. If the table is assigned in a separate spreadsheet, it has to be copied onto place cards, into emails and onto the door list by hand. RSVPify offers seating charts on its higher tiers, and SOURems prints the assigned table on the ticket itself.

Check-in that uses the registration data

Registration and check-in should be one list, so a walk-up, a late approval or a seat change reaches the door without anyone reprinting it. Our comparison of the best event check-in apps covers the door in detail, and our guide to how many check-in stations your event needs works out the staffing.

How to choose event registration software

Answer four questions in order. The first one you answer yes to names the kind of tool you need.

1. Is every ticket free, with no approval step? Use free ticketing or a form: Eventbrite or Hi.Events for public events, Google Forms if a list is all you need.

2. Free, but you approve who attends? Use a free tool with approval: Luma, or Teams events inside a Microsoft 365 organisation.

3. Paid, with sessions, sponsors or more than 500 guests? Use a conference platform: Whova, Cvent, Zoho Backstage or SOURems.

4. Paid, and you need seating, badges or WhatsApp confirmations? Use a full event platform: SOURems, RSVPify for seating, or Eventleaf for badges.

If you answered no to all four, you have a simple paid event, and low-fee ticketing such as Hi.Events or RSVPify will do the job.

FAQ

What is event registration software?

Event registration software collects sign-ups for an event and turns them into a guest list you can manage: registration forms, ticket types and capacity, payments, confirmation emails or messages, and usually QR tickets and check-in. It replaces the combination of an online form, a spreadsheet and manual follow-up.

How much does event registration software cost?

Free events cost nothing on Eventbrite, Luma or Hi.Events. For paid tickets, per-ticket fees range from 1.25% + $0.60 (Hi.Events) to 3.7% + $1.79 plus 2.9% processing (Eventbrite). Subscription tools range from Jotform at $39 to $129 a month and RSVPify's RSVP plans at $24 to $409 a month, while Eventleaf charges $1 to $2 per attendee a year. Whova, Cvent and SOURems quote per event or programme. On a 200-guest event at $50 a ticket, fees ranged from $399 to $1,018 in our comparison.

Is Eventbrite registration free?

Yes, for free events. Eventbrite charges no ticket fees on free tickets and lets you publish unlimited free events. Paid tickets in the US carry a 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per ticket plus 2.9% payment processing, paid by buyers unless you choose to absorb it.

Can you use Google Forms for event registration?

Yes, for free events where you only need a list. Google Forms collects answers into a spreadsheet and, since January 2026, can close itself after a set number of responses. It has no payments, tickets, QR codes or check-in, so confirmations, approvals and the door list are all manual.

How do I create a free registration link for an event?

Create a free event on Eventbrite, Luma or Hi.Events and share the event page link; each issues tickets to registrants at no cost. If you only need names, a Google Form link works too. Luma is the free option if you need to approve each registration before confirming it.

Does Microsoft have an event registration tool?

Yes, inside Microsoft 365. Teams webinars and the Teams Events app offer a registration form with custom questions, event capacity, manual approval of registrations and a waitlist. Since 1 April 2026 advanced registration no longer requires Teams Premium up to an attendee cap, though Microsoft's own help pages give that cap as both 1,000 and 3,000. Microsoft Forms caps personal accounts at 200 responses, and Microsoft Bookings is for appointments, not events.

What is the cheapest ticketing platform?

Among hosted platforms that publish fees, Hi.Events is the cheapest at 1.25% + $0.60 per ticket plus card processing. Self-hosting Hi.Events removes the platform fee entirely. Jotform costs less on our example event, but it issues no built-in tickets.

Final thoughts

For a free public event, Eventbrite or Hi.Events costs nothing, and Luma adds approval for free. For paid events, compare fees on your own numbers: on the same 200-guest event, the platforms here charged anywhere from $399 to $1,018. And for conferences, Whova, Cvent and Zoho Backstage bring session and app features that simple ticketing doesn't.

SOURems fits when registration is only the start: guests to approve, tables to assign, confirmations to send by WhatsApp, and a door that already knows who is coming. See how it works on the attendee management software page, or start free with SOURapp.