Free event registration software is free because the vendor earns somewhere else. Eventbrite, Humanitix and Ticket Tailor charge nothing to register free attendees and take a cut once you sell tickets. Luma limits invites and quietly adds a platform fee. Whova publishes no prices at all. eventcloud lets you build free with no time limit, then needs a subscription to go live.
What does "free" mean in event registration software?
It almost always means free to register people who pay nothing, not free to run a business. The meter starts when money, volume or messaging enters the picture. Three meters recur: a fee on every paid ticket, a cap on how many free tickets you can issue in a year, and a limit on how many invitation emails the platform will send.
A fourth is quieter. Some tools put the features a conference needs (approvals, exports, check-in managers, custom domains) in a higher tier, so the free plan works for a meetup and stalls at a summit. Read the tier boundary before you build your registration form inside it.
What do the free plans actually limit?
The table is drawn from each vendor's own pricing page, read on 16 October 2026. Where a page contradicts itself or says nothing, the cell says so rather than guessing.
| Platform | Free registrations | What is capped or gated | When money is involved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eventbrite | Free events carry no platform fee, with no stated cap on how many you publish | Tier boundaries for features are not listed on the pricing page; Pro starts at USD 15 a month with a 10,000 emails a day allowance | 3.7% + USD 1.79 per paid ticket plus 2.9% payment processing (US page) |
| Ticket Tailor | No fee on up to 5,000 free tickets a year, per the pricing page | Beyond that, a per-ticket fee quoted by support; a help FAQ cites a lower threshold, so confirm before relying on it | GBP 0.60 per paid ticket pay as you go, from GBP 0.22 on prepaid credits, plus processing |
| Humanitix | No fee on free events | No caps stated; the page says every plan includes every feature | 2.1% + USD 0.99 per paid ticket (US standard), plus 2.9% + USD 0.30 processing |
| Luma | Unlimited events and guests on the free plan | 500 invites or newsletters a week; larger sending limits and a check-in manager role sit on Plus | 5% platform fee on paid events on the free plan, 0% on Plus at USD 59 a month billed annually, plus Stripe processing |
| Whova | Free tickets carry no ticket fees | No public price list; a trial is offered through a booked demo | Quote based on event format, size and events per year |
| eventcloud | Unlimited free registrations; building is free with no time limit | A subscription is needed to go live; Charities and Schools plan is free for up to 3 users, by application | USD 125 per user per month or USD 1,250 per user per year, no per-ticket fees, plus Stripe processing |
Sources: Eventbrite, Ticket Tailor, Humanitix, Luma, Whova pricing and registration page, and eventcloud.
What happens to the bill when the event turns paid?
The free tier stops being the story the moment a ticket has a price. Here is the arithmetic from the published rates for a USD 50 ticket at 500, 5,000 and 50,000 paid registrations, with the organiser absorbing platform fees and card processing left out because every platform passes it through.
Eventbrite: USD 3.64 a ticket, so about USD 1,820, USD 18,200 and USD 182,000.
Humanitix standard: USD 2.04 a ticket, so about USD 1,020, USD 10,200 and USD 102,000.
Luma free plan: 5%, so USD 1,250, USD 12,500 and USD 125,000. Luma Plus removes the platform fee for USD 708 a year, within its invite limits.
eventcloud: USD 1,250 a year for one user at all three volumes.
Ticket Tailor prices in pounds and Whova does not publish a rate, so neither appears in the sums. The point is the shape of the line. A per-ticket meter rises with every registration. A flat seat is the same number whether you register 500 people or 50,000, which is a different model rather than a discount, and it is the reason eventcloud treats unlimited registrations as the product and not a promotion.
What Would Zero Booking Fees Save You?
eventcloud charges a flat subscription, not a cut of every ticket. Compare it with what your current platform takes.
Does a free plan limit the registration form itself?
Sometimes, and it is the limit people discover last. A free plan can give you one generic form while the feature that lets different attendee types answer different questions waits in a paid tier. Ask whether free visitors, paid exhibitors and invited speakers can each have their own form before you commit.
On eventcloud, ticket groups can mix free and paid attendees in one event, and every group carries its own form. Field types include text, dropdown, multi-select, radio, date, time and country, each required or optional, validated as people type. Free visitors can register alongside paid exhibitor packages without a separate event. Named passes allow one registration per email, and capacity can be set per ticket group or per session.
How does eventcloud's free option work?
You can build an event on the Team plan with no time limit and no card, then subscribe when you are ready to publish and sell. Once live, free and paid events cost the same, and the pricing page lists no fees for free tickets, no-shows or overage. Revenue from paid tickets goes straight into your own Stripe account, and Stripe's card processing is the only charge outside the subscription.
Registered charities, state schools and religious non-profits can apply for the free Charities and Schools plan, which covers up to three users and is approved case by case by people. If that is you, start at the charities page.
Seats are the edge worth stating plainly. Pricing is per user, from one, so a team of five pays for five seats. Unlimited describes registrations, events and tickets, not people on your team. Data is kept for 14 days after a subscription ends and then deleted, so export attendee lists to Excel (.xlsx, which opens in Excel and Google Sheets) before you pause.
What should you ask before trusting a free tier?
Five questions settle most of it. Is there a cap on free tickets, and does the vendor's own help centre agree with its pricing page? What is the fee the day you add a price? Which features sit behind a paid tier? How many invitation or confirmation emails can you send? What do you keep, and in what format, if you leave?
Write the answers in a table for your own event size. A free plan that works at 300 attendees can be the most expensive option at 30,000, and the number that changes is rarely the one on the front of the page.
Who this is not for
eventcloud does not have a perpetual free plan for public, ticketed events. If you run a small, free community meetup and have no plans to sell anything, Eventbrite, Humanitix, Luma or Ticket Tailor will cost you nothing and are a better fit than a USD 125 monthly seat.
eventcloud has no conditional form logic. If your registration depends on branching questions, the workaround is a separate form per ticket group. A team that lives in a CRM will be working from Excel exports. It is also an in-person specialist, so a programme that happens mostly on a screen needs a different tool.
If you register conference delegates, exhibitors and invited guests in one event and want the price to stay put as the list grows, see how registration works on eventcloud, check the pricing page, or read the Eventbrite comparison for the per-ticket maths side by side.
