Events · ranked shortlist
Best Events software for Startups in 2026
20 approved events listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
- Tools ranked
- 20
- Entry price range
- $0.50-$2,500
- Publish a $0 plan
- 4 of 20
How this ranking is derived
The sort key
Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.
Where the ratings come from
No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.
What the pool is
Approved events listings, capped at 20 per page; 20 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the events category page.
The ranking
Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.
- #1
ACTIVE Network
Highest rated hereRegistration and payment software for parks departments, races and camps, owned by Global Payments
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- Recreation, registration, events, payments
- #2A
AllSeated
Event planning and collaboration platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $99 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $299.
- Billing
- freemium
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- floor-plans, seating, weddings, collaboration
- #3
Brella
AI-powered networking for events
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $2,500 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $10,000.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- networking, ai-matching, conferences, b2b
- #4
Brown Paper Tickets
The fair-trade ticketing company
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Billing
- transaction
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- ticketing, fair-trade, arts, affordable
- #5
CampSite
Camp management and parent portal for day and residential camps, reported from around 249 USD a month
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Camp Management, registration, Parent Portal, scheduling
- #6
CIRCUITREE
Camp and conference centre management for large multi-programme Christian camps
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Camp Management, registration, Housing, Point Of Sale
- #7
CVent Events
Enterprise event management by Cvent
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $1,500 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $8,000.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- Enterprise, registration, analytics, corporate
- #8
EventPro
Complete event management solution
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $200 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $700.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- event-management, catering, venues, scheduling
- #9
Grip
AI-powered event networking
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- ai-networking, matchmaking, trade-shows, b2b
- #10
Humanitix
Ticketing that funds charity
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $0.50 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $0.99 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- transaction
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- ticketing, charity, social-good, nonprofit
- #11
Luma
Delightful events for communities
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $59 a month.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- community, social-events, beautiful, modern
- #12
Meetup
Find your people
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $55 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- social, events, community, in-person
- #13
Partiful
The party planning app
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- parties, social, invitations, rsvp
- #14
Planning Pod
Event planning software that works
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $59 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $199.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- event-planning, budgeting, floor-plans, all-in-one
- #15
Priava
Venue and event management software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $250 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $750.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- venue-management, booking, facilities, crm
- #16
Regpack
Conditional online registration and payment plans for camps, courses and programmes
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- registration, payments, Camps, Payment Plans
- #17
Remo
Virtual event platform built around seated tables on a floor plan rather than a webinar stage
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $299 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $699 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- Per month by attendee capacity
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- virtual-events, networking, Career Fairs, hybrid-events
- #18
RSVPify
RSVP and event management made easy
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $29 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- rsvp, weddings, corporate, registration
- #19
Social Tables
Event diagramming and planning software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $199 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $799.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- diagramming, floor-plans, seating, venues
- #20
Splash That
Enterprise event marketing platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- event-marketing, Enterprise, branding, analytics
What events software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 20 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $0.50Humanitix
- Median entry price
- $149across 12 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $2,500Brella
- Publish a $0 plan
- 4of 20
Paid events plans in this set start anywhere from $0.50 a month for Humanitix to $2,500 for Brella. The median entry price across the 12 tools that publish one is $149, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Brella's at $10,000 a month, 4× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
4 of 20 publish a $0 plan, and 1 of those charge nothing at all. 9 tools have no free tier of any kind.
6 of 20 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 20 events listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- subscription
- 6
- quote
- 4
- transaction
- 2
- freemium
- 1
- Per month by attendee capacity
- 1
Separately, 6 of 20 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for
Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 13 events tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.
Named by most of the category
- API access , 7 of 13
Named by fewer
- Custom development , 3 of 13
- Floor plans , 3 of 13
- Analytics , 2 of 13
- Basic reporting , 2 of 13
- CRM , 2 of 13
- Dedicated support , 2 of 13
- Multi-venue , 2 of 13
- Resource management , 2 of 13
- Team features , 2 of 13
Named by exactly one vendor: ACTIVE.com listing included, Basic planning tools, Email marketing, From 200 attendees per event, Largest configuration tier, Scales with event size. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.
What “Events” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 20 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- registration6
- floor-plans3
- analytics2
- b2b2
- Camp Management2
- community2
- conferences2
- corporate2
- Enterprise2
- events2
- networking2
- payments2
Carried by a single tool: affordable, beautiful, Camps, Conditional Forms, event-planning, in-person, Parent Portal, Recreation. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
4 of 20 events tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with api access, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.
Read the spread before you read the features
$0.50 to $2,500 is a $2,499.50 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $2,500 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
11 of 20 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, api access, custom development, floor plans, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 5 billing models: subscription on 6 listings, quote on 4, and 3 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare events tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- ACTIVE Network vs AllSeated
- AllSeated vs Brella
- Brella vs Brown Paper Tickets
- Brown Paper Tickets vs CampSite
- CampSite vs CIRCUITREE
- CIRCUITREE vs CVent Events
- CVent Events vs EventPro
- EventPro vs Grip
Go straight to the numbers
- ACTIVE Networkpricingalternatives
- AllSeatedpricingalternatives
- Brellapricingalternatives
- Brown Paper Ticketspricingalternatives
- CampSitepricingalternatives
- CIRCUITREEpricingalternatives
Questions people ask about events software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How is this events ranking decided?
- Mechanically. The 20 approved events listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
- Is this list re-ordered for startups?
- No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
- How much does events software cost?
- Across the 20 events tools listed here, paid plans start between $0.50 and $2,500 a month, with a median entry price of $149. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $10,000 a month (Brella). 4 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest events software?
- 1 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Humanitix has the lowest published entry price at $0.50 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free events software?
- Yes, 4 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- What features should events software have?
- Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are api access (7 of 13 tools that publish plan detail), custom development (3) and floor plans (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as active.com listing included or basic planning tools, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
- How is events software usually billed?
- subscription (6), quote (4), transaction (2), freemium (1), plus 1 less common arrangements, counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 6 of 20 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does events software actually cover?
- The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are registration (6), floor-plans (3), analytics (2), b2b (2), camp management (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under events may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do events tools offer?
- 15 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 11 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many events tools are listed on Softwr?
- 20 approved events listings appear on this page, including ACTIVE Network, AllSeated, Brella, Brown Paper Tickets. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/events, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep reading
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.