Meetup Alternative USA

Are you looking for a meetup alternative in USA. I am sure you must be very frustrated about how much meetup is charging you every month just to look after your community.

And their Customer support is terrible. I mean its quite obvious:

So in this situation do you still want to keep your community on meetup? I mean you have worked tirelessly for years to build your community. But ultimately you want that freedom to connect with your community members isn’t it?

Your community is your baby. And no one wants their baby to suffer.

Are there any alternatives to Meetup?

I have curated some meetup alternatives. With much better value for money.

But before doing that. I just want to mention that alternatives I have listed below could not just help you manage your community but also your events.

That said you do not need to use multiple platforms to look after your community and events.

Let’s have a look together.

1# Arouund ($29 per year)

(Go to Arouund)

Arouund App streamlines community management and event management with world-class support, making it easier for you to monetize your events with direct payouts, and they’re doing it at a fraction of the cost of their competitors.

The best part of using arouund as a meetup alternative is you can use it for free.

Yes here are the plans they offer:

1. $0 — if you just want to use it for hosting free events
2. $29 — current deal normally ($49) per year for managing one group and paid events.
3. $99 — current deal for lifetime access to use the platform for managing your community and events
4. $299 — Not yet launched but this one is for managing multiple communities. And charge your community members.

Here is a funny video pitch created by Arouund

2# Sam (commission based revenue model)

(Go to Sam)

Sam is an app focussing on making your event fun. Basically they focus on the wedding industry. Although there are multiple other instances you could use SAM for.

One of the use case is when you are hosting a stag due. You can invite all your attendees into your circle and then they create various ice breaking games and fun themes to connect your members.

This way they all get to know other people in the circle as well as it serves a nice introduction when they meet in person for first time.

Pricing for SAM is totally different than Arouund. They charge for each feature separately.

For example if you want to comment on a funny picture then you have to pay for it.

If you want to upload video to share then you have to pay for it.

3#heylo (commission based revenue model)

(Go to Heylo)

Heylo is another alternative for you. The app is fairly basic but it focus on the events more than community management.

You can also create subscriptions for your members because this way you will never run out of budget to make your events fun.

Can you use Meetup for free?

You cannot use meetup for free. Because if you are a community manager or a group admin, ultimately to use meetup you need to get a subscription plan.

And that will cost you around $240 every year.

So in order to start a group for free I would suggest either you could use a platform like facebook or vk.

Or you can follow the steps here in this article: How to start a meetup group for free? Really!

But if you are looking for an affordable meetup alternative. Then go ahead and checkout the options I have mentioned above.

How do I find local meetups?

It’s very easy to find meetups in your city or county.

Just go to google and search for this term:

meetup in [your city name] site:arouund.com

meetup in [your city name] site:arouund.com

This way you will be able to see all meet ups in your local area.

How do I find social groups in my area?

Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash

The best way to find social groups in your city is to go on arouund and search for a meetup group in your city.

For example if I am looking for a kayaking group in NYC.

I would go to Arouund and search for kayak in the search section.

This way I will be able to see available groups related to kayaking at my location.

Kayaking for everyone New York USA

Let me know in comments which alternatives you have used to move away from metup.

I found this funny and interesting article Why I quite meetup after organising £1m Event Successfully.

If you like my content I will really appreciate a clap :)