9 Sites Like Meetup — Looking for Alternatives to Meetup? With pricing
Are you looking for similar sites like meetup?
If yes, then you are at the right place. In this article I am going to list top 9 sites like meetup you can use in order to start, grow and manage your groups online.
If you do not wish to read through this article, you can always watch a video reading this article for you below:
Any who if you decide to read further then…
I have done a thorough research before putting this list together.
Below is the criteria I have evaluated all sites listed in this post.
- Pricing — General affordability
- Ease of using the app — User Interface
- Focussed features
1. Bylde.com (£12 per year) — known as the top competitor to meetup currently
One of the most important reason a lot of group admins and hosts leaving meetup is its horrible pricing.
After meetup was acquired and sold back to other investors it has been really difficult for them to maintain the platform with affordable pricing.
That said, if you run a group on meetup in 2022 then you might end off spending more than $300 per year.
And that makes it one of the most expensive subscription on iTunes.
That's where Bylde comes to rescue.
Bylde has almost all features which meetup provides you, but for a very low and affordable price.
You just pay £12 per year, i.e., £1 for a whole month.
That is less than a cup of coffee ☕. An ugly one.
2. Bumble ($275.88 per year)
Bumble was started as dating app primarily.
But later they introduced features like Bumble Bizz and bumble BFF.
And I must say, all segments works really well for their respective audience.
Bumble Date
Here you can literally sign up and upload some of your pictures and start swapping left or right.
The only good thing about this app is. Being a male you don’t get a chance to message the lady.
Although if you are a female then you will get to decided even after right swapping if you want to start the conversation.
That's extra power for ladies. Kudos to that.
Bumble Bizz
In this section, you will be able to connect with people who would like to network with business minded people around you.
I personally got connected with many individuals on this segment and let me tell you. Not all of them are genuine. Some of them just try to sell you an MLM deal, or some will just get connected to promote their business.
But this could happen anywhere. So you just have to be careful before sharing your information.
Here is a detailed spreadsheet showing all pricing tiers on bumble.
Bumble BFF
Inside this section, you will be able to make friends with anyone who shares your age group or interest.
I have never personally used it. But I have been informed that this is really useful when you are moving into a new city.
3. Nextdoor (free)
Nextdoor is totally different. One of the free alternative to meetup and stands as 3rd in my list of sites like meetup here.
It’s an app for your neighbourhood.
Basically, to get to know your neighbour and surrounding area better. You must download this app.
I mean it has been launched in UK itself in 2016 and till date more than 250k people are using it.
That said, starting from:
- Missing Cat
- Need a reliable Plumber
- Looking for a buddy to walk
- Who is this man who steals my Amazon
Everything is included in this small app.
Obviously, you can create a group on it and then host events.
But remember, group management and event hosting is not the key feature of this app.
This is just an add-on feature. Hence, you won’t get that good experience.
But, I would still recommend it. After all you are not loosing anything as it's free to use, and you get to know your neighbours which is always a good idea.
They call themselves a neighbourhood network. They claim 1 in 5 British people is using their app.
Which is fascinating for me because this is more than how many people use meetup app.
4. Peanut (free)
Peanut is a good alternative to meetup.
But if you are a single mother. Yeah! I said it.
Although they claim to be supporting all women who joined into the community. But what I have noticed is; mostly single mothers are active on this platform.
So if you are looking to get connected with women around you than this is the best platform.
Again, it is free to use. They do have some in-app purchase features. Like they have a shop where you could get some:
- hoodies
- caps
- keychain
- bags
- eye mask and much more
The point is, they are making money by selling stuff.
Hence, they are not charging anything to the users.
Again managing groups and hosting events is not the primary feature of this app.
You could find the lot of people in subgroups like
- Trying to conceive
- Snack for labour
- Gender Disappointment etc.
Because their motto is:
If you are facing challanges with fertility, pregnancy, motherhood or menopause, peanut provide access to a community who are there to listen, share information and offer valuable advice for every individual.
5. Citysocializer (£227.88 per year)
One of the most sought after sites like meetup is citysocializer. Why?
Well, it replicates almost all features on meetup app.
It’s based in UK, and it cost approximately exactly same as meetup too.
Sorry, just being sarcastic here.
Before covid, they used to call themselves as real world event management app. But after COVID, they now prefer to be called as virtual event platform.
Which kind of make sense. As COVID impacted quite a lot of hospitality businesses.
And when it comes to real world events, we all know how severely it got impacted.
You have to be registered and logged in before even doing a simple search with citysocializer.
Remember, once you are in, a simple search will show you multiple events happening around your area.
6. LinkedIn (free)
Needless to say that creating and managing your small community on LinkedIn is free. Although, it was not build to focus on small clans.
It’s basically a social network for working professionals.
So if your small group is focused towards the working professionals, then it's a good choice.
But let me tell you.
If you want to notify all your group member via email. There is no option available.
You can definitely post something on your group's wall. But you will have no idea how many people will see your message or even respond to it.
7. Eventbrite (£1120 per year)
As Eventbrite does not charge to create a community. Because again, not a feature on this platform.
We need to figure out the pricing with some assumption.
Let’s say you have a small community of 500 people. Now you do 1 event every month.
So how much money will you be spending if your tickets are £10 each, and you sell at least 100 of them
Well, quite easy because they have a calculator for it on Eventbrite website.
So basically you end up paying £110 per event. Which in this case every month.
So assuming this is the case, we can easily say that you will end up paying £1120 per year.
But remember even after paying this much you will end up managing your events on this platform.
There is no way you will be able to manage your community actively. Because Eventbrite does not support that.
8. Facebook (free)
Facebook, a name I am sure you might have hears millions of times.
This app is well known as the world's biggest social media platform with billions of dollars valuation.
But does that solve your problem.
Let's have a look together.
It does have a special feature where you can create a small group and start connecting with your friends who are already on Facebook.
That is awesome, because a lot of your friends are already on Facebook. But do they all are interested in your small community.
Your mom and your bast mate might be interested, but what about the colleague you had in your previous workplace?
He is not, so there is no need to send him the invite.
But what about some people who are not on the Facebook? How do you get them into your community group.
Well, you have to ask them to join the platform first and then only they can join your community.
So that makes it not free because now Facebook has details of them, and they are selling it to advertisers.
On top of that, it does not provide you any features like:
- Selling tickets for your event.
- Hosting Virtual Events.
- Managing your small community.
- Add more host and moderators.
- Send email notifications to all members.
So, free not necessarily means free in some scenarios.
9. Hopin ($1188 per year)
Now, as we all aware of how crazy this world went during the pandemic time.
We all were very concern about how our new world will look like after this pandemic passed away.
And that's where we learn a few new ways of communicating, learning, working and event falling in Love.
This pandemic has done a lot of wrong to our society, but I think it has done just one thing good.
It made all of us think together.
And by doing it together we came up with some new rules of new world.
Like now, I don't have to fly to the USA to meet one of my project stakeholder.
She is perfectly fine to meet on a Zoom call and do the business.
I can enjoy a nice meal at my home with my family by just ordering food online.
But what this tells us?
Well, it tells us we could actually host events online too. We could manage our community on virtual platforms too.
And that's where the Hopin app comes to rescue.
It has many tools at your service to start, manage and grow your community online.
Obviously, it comes with a cost.
Conclusion:
Above I have listed all 9 sites like meetup. I have personally used them and tried to express what I have experienced.
So which one are you going to use? Let me know in your comments below.
