Meetup's Hostile Pricing Changes

It’s been all over my Twitter feed today about Meetup announcing big changes to their pricing. The way they currently charge is the user group owner pays a monthly/yearly fee for using the Meetup service. For me, this was a reasonable way to do it, but today they announced some pretty big changes to this.

Your new subscription cost is only $2 per month, or $24 per year. That means you’ll be saving at least 80% annually on subscription fees. This will also distribute costs more evenly between organizers and members. Members will pay a $2 fee when they reserve a spot at your event.

Members having to pay just to reserve a spot for your event is the part that many people are having problems with, and for good reason. Oh, you can wave that fee, but then you are responsible for covering the $2 per reservation. Now I don’t know all the stats on user groups, but from all the people I’ve heard from that run them, it’s hard to get consistent members attending. Now, this adds another hurdle to getting them.

It’s about time for all the user groups to find another service and my friend, Dries Vints, just announced a new app he is launching called Eventy.

Some of the things that you’ll be able to do with Eventy: manage user group members, RSVP to events, prepare your conference talks, submit to CFPs. And much more.

I’m super excited to hear about this new app today and if you are running a user group, join the newsletter and find out when it officially launches. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of people wanting to move from Meetup to Eventy.