8 Luma Alternatives for Paid and Community Events (2026)

The best Luma alternatives for paid events in 2026 are Eventist for Canadian organizers who want a flat per-ticket fee in CAD and real event tooling, Humanitix for the lowest mainstream percentage fee, and Ticket Tailor for a plain checkout that gets cheap on prepaid credits. Registered nonprofits should look at Zeffy, which charges nothing. If your events are free and community-driven, Luma is still hard to beat, and Partiful is its closest free rival for social gatherings. Here is what Luma does well, who should stay, and eight platforms to consider once paid tickets, fees or Canadian invoicing start to matter.

Key takeaways

• Luma's free plan is genuinely free for free events, and its community calendar is the reason to stay if you never charge.
• The 5% platform fee on paid tickets on the free plan is the number that sends most organizers looking for Luma alternatives once volume grows.
• Partiful is the closest free rival for social events, but its paid ticketing is open to US hosts only.
• Canadian organizers who want CAD invoicing have two homegrown options here: Eventist in Ontario and Showpass in Alberta.

Top picks at a glance

• Best overall for paid events: Eventist, a flat $0.85 CAD per general-admission ticket with tiers, coupons, seat maps, a door point of sale and a named support person.
• Best for the lowest percentage fee: Humanitix, 2.1% + $0.99 CAD per paid ticket with profits donated to charity.
• Simplest bare checkout: Ticket Tailor, C$1.00 per ticket pay-as-you-go or $0.82 down to $0.40 on prepaid credits, with no marketplace and no frills.
• Best free option for nonprofits: Zeffy, free for registered charities and nonprofits in Canada and the US.

What Luma does well, and who should stay

Luma earned its following by making event pages beautiful and fast to publish. A host creates a page in minutes, guests register with one tap, and the calendar turns a series of meetups into a subscribable community feed. The free plan includes unlimited events and guests, guest check-in, Zoom integration with attendance tracking, cohosts and CSV export, with a cap of 500 invite sends per week. Luma Plus lifts the cap to 5,000 sends, adds API access and priority support, and costs $59 USD per month billed annually.

If you run free meetups, launches, founder dinners or a recurring community series and rarely charge, stay on Luma. The pages are excellent, the calendar is the best community feature in this category, and you will pay nothing.

The reasons people search for alternatives to Luma are specific. Paid tickets on the free plan carry a 5% platform fee on top of Stripe processing, $3 on a $60 workshop, and the subscription that removes it is priced in USD. There are no reserved seats, promoter links, door point of sale or multi-session scheduling, and data lives with a US company, which some Canadian organizations weigh under PIPEDA. None of that matters for a free meetup; all of it matters the first time you sell 500 tickets.

How we compared

We judged each platform against the moments where Luma's free plan starts to pinch:

• Fee on a paid ticket: the fee model, whether free events stay free, and whether the fee can be passed to the buyer.
• Ticketing depth: tiers, early-bird pricing, coupons, promoter links, reserved seating and payment plans.
• Community features: hosted pages, recurring series and invite tools, where Luma sets the bar for community event platforms.
• Canadian fit: CAD pricing, Canadian support and clear answers on data residency.
• Day-of tools: check-in from a phone, door sales and live dashboards.

Where a vendor does not publish fees, we describe the model in words.

The 8 best Luma alternatives compared

1. Eventist: flat CAD fee with the event tooling Luma lacks

Who it is for: Canadian organizers running paid events from about 200 to 20,000 attendees who have outgrown a page-and-RSVP tool.

What it does well: Eventist is a Canadian company in Ontario that charges a flat fee per ticket, never a percentage, with no monthly subscription and no setup fee. Every event gets a free hosted page and an embeddable checkout for your own website, and the ticketing covers what Luma leaves out: GA, VIP and reserved seats from a seat builder, tiers, early-bird and coupon discounts, promoter links, deposit and instalment payment plans, transfers, waivers and registration fields. Abandoned-cart emails, email and SMS to attendees, QR check-in from any phone camera, a door point of sale and live dashboards handle the day itself. Organizers own and can export their attendee data, payouts through Stripe or Square land daily, weekly or monthly, and support is a named Canadian person. The events case study shows a community organizer running ticketed events this way.

What to watch: There is no consumer discovery marketplace on Eventbrite's scale and no native attendee app; the attendee side is a web portal. It lacks Luma's subscribable community calendar, and it is a newer, smaller company built for small to mid-size events rather than stadium shows.

Pricing: $0.85 CAD per ticket for simple general-admission events; $4.99 CAD per ticket for the Festivals and Conferences package with multi-track scheduling, maps and staff portals, bulk pricing from $2.99; $9.99 CAD per ticket for competitions. Free events are free, fees can be absorbed or passed to the buyer, and card processing is at the processor's own rate, 2.9% + 30 cents CAD on Stripe.

2. Humanitix: lowest percentage fee, profits to charity

Who it is for: Organizers who want a mainstream ticketing platform with a low percentage fee and a charitable story to tell attendees.

What it does well: Humanitix is a nonprofit ticketing platform that donates its profits to charity, publishes Canadian pricing in CAD, and offers tiers, discount codes, custom questions, a check-in app and reporting.

What to watch: It is ticketing only, with no scheduling or point of sale, and support is a shared help desk. The fee is a percentage, so it grows with your ticket price.

Pricing: 2.1% + $0.99 CAD per paid ticket, or 1% + $0.99 for registered charities and schools, plus Stripe processing. Free events are free.

3. Ticket Tailor: $1.00 pay-as-you-go for a plain checkout

Who it is for: Organizers who want a low per-ticket cost on prepaid credits and do not need a marketplace, seat maps or door hardware.

What it does well: Ticket Tailor charges a flat fee per ticket on prepaid credits, connects to your own Stripe account so payouts are yours from the start, and embeds its checkout on your website. Free events are free within fair-use limits.

What to watch: There is no discovery marketplace or community calendar, and pricing is shown in GBP with CAD as an option. It is a checkout, not an event platform.

Pricing: C$1.00 per ticket pay-as-you-go, or $0.82 down to $0.40 per ticket on prepaid credits (100 to 20,000 credits), with processing extra; above Eventist's $0.85 unless you prepay.

4. Eventbrite: the marketplace, at marketplace fees

Who it is for: Organizers who need discovery more than low fees, especially for public events in big cities.

What it does well: Eventbrite's audience is the largest of any platform here, and its pages, email tools and check-in app are mature.

What to watch: Fees are the highest on this list, charged per order as well as per ticket, and self-serve support is slow. Our Eventbrite alternatives for Canada post covers the options.

Pricing: 3.5% + $1.29 CAD per paid ticket plus 2.9% payment processing per order. Free events are free.

5. Zeffy: free for registered nonprofits

Who it is for: Registered charities and nonprofits in Canada and the US running ticketed fundraisers, galas and raffles.

What it does well: Zeffy is based in Montreal and is completely free for nonprofits, including card processing, which it covers through an optional tip buyers see at checkout. Event ticketing, numbered raffle tickets, donation forms and a donor database are included.

What to watch: You must be a registered nonprofit, buyers see the tip prompt, and reserved seating and multi-session scheduling are not its focus. The nonprofit event ticketing comparison weighs it against the alternatives for charities.

Pricing: Free, with no platform or processing fees, funded by optional buyer tips.

6. Showpass: Canadian ticketing with hardware and a marketplace

Who it is for: Canadian venues and promoters who want CAD pricing, a marketplace and box-office hardware.

What it does well: Showpass is based in Alberta, prices in CAD, integrates with Square for door sales, supports handheld scanners and runs a marketplace with a Canadian audience, with the tiers and promo codes Luma lacks.

What to watch: Fees are a percentage plus a fixed amount per ticket, and payouts are processed after the event concludes, which affects cash flow for a big show. Community pages and calendars are not the emphasis.

Pricing: Essential tier 1% + $0.59 per ticket, Professional tier 2.5% + $1.69, plus card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 CAD per paid item. No monthly fee, and free events are free.

7. Universe: a simple branded checkout at a low percentage

Who it is for: Organizers who want a branded ticket page with a low published percentage and no monthly plan.

What it does well: Universe sets up a clean self-serve ticket page with tiers, discount codes and a scanning app at the low end of the percentage-based fees.

What to watch: There is no Canadian-dollar commitment on the pricing page, nothing above the ticket such as scheduling or community features, and the top plan is by quote.

Pricing: 2% + $0.59 per ticket on the self-serve plans, processing extra; free events are free.

8. Partiful: the free RSVP rival, with paid tickets for US hosts only

Who it is for: Hosts of parties, dinners and casual socials who want a playful invite page, RSVPs and text blasts, and rarely charge admission.

What it does well: Partiful is free with no paywalls, its pages are built to be shared by text, and hosts can blast updates to every guest at once. It has added ticket tiers, QR check-in and sales tracking; free tickets carry no fees, and hosts can absorb or pass on the fee on paid ones.

What to watch: As of September 2026 selling tickets on Partiful is available to US hosts only, with an interest form for everyone else, so a Canadian organizer gets the RSVP side and not the paid side. Paid-ticket fees are not published and depend on event size and ticket price.

Pricing: Free for hosts and guests; paid tickets carry a service fee that varies by event and is shown during setup.

Comparison table

How to choose a Luma alternative

You never charge admission. Stay on Luma, or try Partiful if your events are social rather than professional. Neither costs anything, and the community event platforms here will not improve on Luma's calendar.

You charge occasionally and tickets are cheap. A percentage fee on a $15 ticket is small in dollars. Humanitix or Universe keeps the page-first feel at a lower percentage, and Luma Plus only makes sense when $59 USD a month is less than 5% of your paid volume.

You sell hundreds of tickets at $40 or more. Flat fees win here. On a $60 ticket, Luma's 5% is $3, Eventbrite's is around $3.40, and Eventist's general-admission fee is $0.85 CAD regardless of price. The event ticketing fees by platform post runs the arithmetic across price points.

You run multi-session programs, conferences or festivals. Luma has no schedule builder. Eventist's Festivals and Conferences package adds multi-track agendas, maps and staff portals.

You want the checkout on your own website. Eventist, Ticket Tailor and Humanitix all embed; the guide to selling tickets on your own website explains what changes when your site is the front door.

You are Canadian and care about invoicing and data. Eventist and Showpass invoice in CAD and answer PIPEDA questions directly, and Zeffy is Montreal-based; the rest price in USD or GBP.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Luma free for paid events?

Luma's free plan lets you sell tickets but charges a 5% platform fee on each paid ticket on top of Stripe's processing fee. Luma Plus removes it for $59 USD per month billed annually, which pays off only above roughly $1,180 USD of paid tickets a month.

What is the best Luma alternative for Canadian organizers?

For paid events, Eventist is the strongest fit because it is Canadian, invoices in CAD, charges a flat fee per ticket and includes a named support person. Showpass is the other Canadian option if you want a marketplace and box-office hardware, and Zeffy is free for registered nonprofits.

Can I move my Luma guest list to another platform?

Yes. Luma exports guests to CSV on the free plan, and every platform here accepts a CSV import or lets you email your list the new registration link. Keep the Luma calendar live for a cycle with a notice pointing to the new page.

Does Partiful work for paid events in Canada?

Not yet. Partiful's ticket sales are open to US hosts only, with an interest form for hosts elsewhere, so Canadian organizers can use it for free RSVPs but not for paid admission. Eventist, Humanitix or Showpass are the practical paid alternatives to Luma in Canada.

Which alternative keeps a community calendar like Luma's?

None of the paid-ticket platforms here match Luma's subscribable calendar exactly. Eventist gives you a free hosted event page and a company page listing your upcoming events, which covers the recurring-series case.

Where to go from here

Luma is the right tool for free community events and the wrong one once paid tickets are a real revenue line, which is why the search for Luma alternatives usually starts with a fee statement. For flat CAD pricing with tiers, seat maps, a door point of sale and a person to call, see event ticketing on Eventist, and for a head-to-head, read Eventist vs Luma.