Luma: Events & Invites

Luma Review: Free Event Pages, a 5% Ticket Fee and Guest Data Hosts See

The free plan: 5% of each paid ticket and 15 to 500 invites a week

The free tier puts no limit on events, guests per event or cohosts, and reminder blasts go out by email, SMS, push and WhatsApp. Paid tickets cost the host a 5% platform fee plus Stripe processing, typically 2.9% + 30¢, and there is no setting that adds the fee at checkout: guests pay the listed price, so the help center suggests pricing a ticket at about $52.50 to keep $50. Refunds cost the host too: card and platform fees are not returned. Invites and calendar newsletters are metered: a new calendar can send 15 a week, verification lifts that to 500, and the count resets every Monday. Messages to people already registered stay unlimited.

Check-in with Express Mode, wallet passes and a staff role behind Plus

Every registration produces one QR code, which guests can show from the confirmation email, the event page, the app, or an Apple Wallet or Google Wallet pass; the wallet version opens without the app or a connection. Hosts scan from Manage, then Check In, in the iOS or Android app, since a phone's camera app will not register the code. Standard Mode shows each guest before you confirm; Express Mode admits people on scan and flashes a red Not Valid on bad tickets. The check-in-only staff role for door volunteers requires Plus, so on the free tier anyone scanning must be a cohost who can also manage the event.

What guests hand over: contact details every host and door volunteer sees

The privacy policy says registering for an event shares your personal data with its host, and that the company has no control over how such third parties use it. Check-in staff see each guest's name, email, phone number, amount paid and answers to registration questions, and the help center says none of these fields can be hidden. Luma Labs states it does not sell host or guest data, keeps an annual SOC 2 Type II audit by Sensiba LLP, and leaves card details to Stripe. Five of the 150 latest App Store reviews we read complain of invite spam. Every host email has an Unsubscribe link, replying X to a host's text stops both channels, and a host cannot re-add you afterwards.

Luma vs Eventbrite and Partiful on a $20 ticket

At published US rates, which can change, a free-plan host gives up $1.88 of a $20 ticket and a Plus host $0.88, both taken out of the listed price. Eventbrite's US pricing page lists a 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per ticket plus 2.9% processing per order, which buyers pay by default; that is $2.53 per $20 ticket before processing. Partiful publishes no fixed rate: the fee depends on event size and ticket price, its own example has a $112 ticket paying the host $100, and service fees are not refundable. Payouts follow Stripe's rolling schedule, typically two days in the US, but Stripe accounts based in India cannot connect, and PayPal is not offered.