Planning a reunion is a unique experience. You're coordinating and reconnecting people who may not have been in contact for decades, finding a fun location, managing RSVPs across age groups (that aren't always tech-savvy), and weaving in a healthy dose of nostalgia. It takes a special platform to handle all of these needs.
In this guide we evaluate the top platforms for reunion and event planning, grouped by what each one is best designed to do. This makes it easier to understand where each tool fits and where it falls short – and which tool is purpose-built for this exact type of planning.
Quick Navigation
- Reunacy: Best Purpose-Built Reunion Platform
- Best for Social Media Based Planning
- Best for General Event Ticketing
- Best for Invitations and RSVP Management
- Best for Group Payment Collection
- DIY with Spreadsheets and Manual Tools
- Frequently Asked Questions
What to Look for in a Reunion Planning Tool
Before comparing specific platforms, it helps to know what the full reunion planning workflow actually requires. A complete solution should cover most or all of the following:
- Rich profiles for each person
- Easy way to navigate and view details of everyone attending
- RSVP collection and attendee tracking
- Event landing page with key details
- Digital invites
- Communication tools for updates and reminders
- Message board to share info with the group
- Memory and photo sharing before and after the event
- Accessibility for attendees of all ages and tech comfort levels
- Options for payment collection
Most tools on this list cover a few of these well. Only one covers all of them.
1. Reunacy: Best Purpose-Built Reunion Platform
Website: reunacy.com
Reunacy is the only platform on this list that was designed from the ground up not just for reunion planning but to help people reconnect. Most other tools in this space started as a general event, payments, or social platform and adapted to different use cases over time. Reunacy was founded by someone who plans reunions regularly to fit the way these events actually work. It covers the full planning journey from initial outreach through post-reunion memory sharing.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
Reunacy understands that a reunion is not a one-off ticket sale. It’s a multi-month process involving coordination, attendee tracking across a dispersed group, sharing of stories, and reconnecting people of all ages and tech comfort levels. The platform was designed with all of this in mind.
Key features include a dedicated event microsite where guests can find all the information they need, send RSVPs that account for family groups and individual preferences, share digital group message invitations, collect payments with the processor of your choice (e.g. PayPal) for tickets, share memories and photos both before the event to build excitement – and after the event to preserve it.
Reunacy is also a private, ad-free space. This isn’t a social network designed to target you with ads and endless feeds of noise. It’s a space reserved only for the people in your group.
Reunacy is also built to work for attendees who are not ultra tech-savvy. The guest-facing experience is designed to be simple and accessible regardless of age, which is a big deal when your attendee list spans multiple generations.
Who this is for
Reunacy is the right choice for anyone that wants a friendly, attendee-centered, ad-free way to manage all your needs in one platform. It works for family reunions of any size, high school and college class reunions, and any milestone or event for a defined community. If you want to give your attendees a smooth, modern experience without the ads and noise of social media, and without juggling endless spreadsheets, Reunacy is the way to go.
2. Best for Social Media Based Planning: Facebook Groups
For reunion planners that want to reach people on social media, Facebook Groups are the dominant tool in this category. They give organizers a community space to post updates, share photos, and list a basic event. For some planners, a Facebook Group is the first place they go to find people and gauge interest in upcoming dates and venues.
The limitations are also real. There is no structured RSVP system, no payment collection, no attendee management dashboard, and no easy way to view and explore all the attendees. The algorithmic feed means your announcements may not reach every group member and will definitely receive a fair amount of noise and ads. And a growing number of younger (and older) adults have stopped using Facebook entirely.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
Social platforms work best as a supplementary outreach and communication channel rather than a primary planning platform. Most successful reunion planners use Facebook alongside another dedicated tool to manage the full event.
Who this is for
Facebook Groups are good for those that want a free option with basic features and don’t mind the tradeoffs around social media feeds and targeted ads.
3-5. Best for General Event Ticketing: Eventbrite, Eventcreate, MyEvent
General event ticketing platforms were built for one-time events with a defined ticket sale. They handle the registration and payment layer well but were not designed for the longer, more complex arc of reunion planning. This category includes some of the best-known names in event technology: Eventbrite, Eventcreate, and MyEvent.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
Eventbrite is the largest and most established of the group. It supports free and paid events, custom registration forms, QR code check-in, and promotional tools. For the ticketing layer it is solid, and its name recognition means many attendees are already familiar with it.
Eventcreate and MyEvent occupy a similar space but skew toward smaller events and place more emphasis on the event website and invitation experience. Eventcreate in particular produces attractive, mobile-friendly event pages quickly and is easy for non-technical organizers to set up. MyEvent has historically positioned itself as useful for reunions and includes basic invitation and RSVP features alongside the event page.
Who this is for
General event ticketing tools are a reasonable choice for reunion organizers who primarily need a registration page and some basic ticketing functionality and are comfortable handling everything else through separate tools. They work best when the reunion planning team is small, the event is relatively straightforward, and the organizer is already familiar with the platform.
6-9. Best for Invitations and RSVP Management: RSVPify, Partiful, Evite, Paperless Post
Another group of tools focuses specifically on the invitation and RSVP experience. These platforms invest heavily in invitation design and guest list management and often offer a more polished attendee-facing experience than general ticketing tools. The tradeoff is that they typically stop at the invitation and RSVP layer and do not allow for sharing of attendee details or other planning needs.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
RSVPify is the most powerful option in this group for complex events. It supports multi-part RSVP forms, plus-one management, and meal selection. It’s best used as a dedicated RSVP layer alongside a separate payment and communication tool.
Partiful takes the opposite approach: it is fast, free, and simple, designed for casual social gatherings sent via text link. It works well for small, informal get-togethers among a younger, smartphone-native crowd but hits its limits quickly for anything larger or more logistically complex.
Evite is one of the oldest digital invitation platforms and remains a recognizable name for casual gatherings. It supports RSVP and some social features but is ad-supported on its free tier, which creates a less professional guest experience. Paperless Post offers some nicely designed digital and physical invitations available and is a strong choice when presentation and first impressions matter most.
Who this is for
Invitation and RSVP tools are worth considering when the initial invitation experience is a primary concern and you have a separate system handling the logistics behind it. For most reunion planners though, the more practical approach is to use a platform that handles both invitations and the rest of the planning workflow in one place.
10. Best for Group Payment Collection: CheddarUp
This platform specializes in collecting money from groups rather than fully managing events. CheddarUp is designed for groups, clubs, teams, schools, and organizations that need to collect dues or fees from a defined group of people. It supports payment collection forms, optional RSVP alongside payment, and clear tracking of who has paid and who has not. It charges a small percentage of funds collected on paid plans and offers a free tier with limited features.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
For reunions, CheddarUp solves a specific and genuinely painful problem: getting a large, dispersed group of people to pay their dues before a deposit deadline. Its forms are simple enough that less tech-savvy attendees can complete them, and the payment tracking dashboard makes it easy for a treasurer to see exactly where things stand at any point.
The limitation is that CheddarUp is only a payment tool. There’s no event website, no collaboration, and no communication system.
Who this is for
CheddarUp could work for reunion treasurers who have a separate system for the rest of their planning and simply need a clean, trustworthy way to collect and track payments.
11. Best for Pure DIY Planners: Excel / Google Sheets and Manual Tools
Many reunion planners still manage their events entirely through a combination of Google Sheets or Excel for tracking, Google Forms for RSVPs, Venmo or PayPal for payments, and group texts or email chains for communication. There’s no direct cost for the tools themselves, but between the human time and coordination and total lack of connection for attendees it leaves a lot to be desired.
How it aligns with reunion and event planning
Spreadsheets are infinitely flexible. You can build any tracking structure you want. But that flexibility also means everything is on you. Managing RSVPs in a shared spreadsheet while tracking payments in Venmo, sending updates through email, and sharing photos through Google Drive creates a totally fragmented experience for both organizers and attendees. Data falls out of sync. People forget to update the sheet. Admins work off different versions. And none of it provides a professional, cohesive experience for the guests who receive it.
Who this is for
DIY tools are viable for very small, informal gatherings where one person is handling everything and attendees are comfortable navigating multiple disconnected tools. For any reunion of meaningful size or complexity, the time and frustration cost of managing everything manually far exceeds the cost of a dedicated platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best app for planning a family reunion?
Reunacy is the best dedicated app for family reunions. It was specifically designed to handle the unique challenges of reconnecting people through reunions: sharing profiles, tracking RSVPs across large groups, sending updates to attendees of all ages, and preserving memories before and after the event. General event tools like Eventbrite or Partiful can handle basic registration but lack the family-specific structure and ongoing engagement features that reunions require.
What is the difference between reunion planning software and regular event planning tools?
Most event tools are built for one-time ticketed events with a known audience. Reunions are more complex. You need to invite people you may have lost touch with, organize family or class groups, share memories and photos, and manage a planning process that often spans months or even a full year. Dedicated reunion tools like Reunacy handle all of this. General event tools handle only a slice of it.
Can I use Facebook Groups to plan a reunion?
Facebook Groups are useful for finding people and facilitating casual communication but fall short as a complete planning tool. As a social network, Facebook’s focus is on content feeds and targeted ads. It also lacks the contained privacy of a dedicated platform for your group. Some reunion committees use Facebook for outreach and then move to a dedicated tool for actual planning.
What is the best free reunion planning tool?
Reunacy, MyEvent, and Eventcreate all offer free tiers with limited features. For smaller groups, Reunacy's free plan covers the core reunion workflow needs and offers a paid tier for larger groups. Facebook Groups and Google Sheets are truly free but require significant manual work and social media also includes a steady stream of targeted ads.
What is the best tool for a high school class reunion?
Reunacy is the strongest choice for class reunions because it supports sharing up to date personal profiles, building a class directory, and sharing memories – and the ability to link out to the payment platform of your choice. Eventbrite is a reasonable fallback if you only need ticketing. Another workflow is to use Classmates.com or Facebook for initial outreach and then migrate to Reunacy for actual planning and attendee management.
Is there an app for sharing reunion memories and photos?
Reunacy includes a dedicated message board for sharing memories and photo sharing feature both before the event to build excitement and after to consolidate photos. Google Photos and shared albums are a free fallback but are disconnected from your RSVP and planning workflow.
Final Thoughts: Which Tool Should You Use?
If you are planning a reunion or event of any meaningful size, especially for a family or school class, Reunacy is a great option. It is the only platform that was built specifically for this purpose, covering the full journey from gathering attendees and building excitement, to collecting RSVPs, to sharing memories after the event.
The other tools each have genuine strengths in their lane: CheddarUp for payments, RSVPify for complex RSVP forms, Partiful for casual small events, Facebook Groups for outreach. In many cases, combining one of these with Reunacy could create an even stronger workflow.
No matter what tool you choose, the most important thing is to start early, communicate often, and make it easy for your attendees to participate. The best reunion planning platform is the one you’ll actually use – and that your attendees can easily navigate and enjoy throughout the entire process.
Ready to get started? Create your free Reunacy group today.