How to Collect RSVPs on Your Website

Marcus coordinates community workshops for a local nonprofit. After each event, he opens a spreadsheet and updates it manually — name, email, whether they showed, whether they got the reminder he sent the day before by going through the list one by one.

Before his last workshop, 22 people said they'd come. 14 showed up. He doesn't know which 8 cancelled. He doesn't know if they got a reminder. He doesn't know if someone wanted to come but couldn't get a spot.

He's been trying to answer one question for two years: how do you collect RSVPs on your website without building a whole system yourself?

The four ways people actually do this

There isn't one right answer. There are four real options, each with honest trade-offs. Here's what they are and where each one breaks down.

1. Email reply

You send an announcement — a newsletter, a post, a direct email — and ask people to reply if they're coming. You count the replies.

What works: Zero setup. Everyone knows how email works. For a very small, personal gathering, a direct reply is a nice signal — it confirms the person thought it was worth a response.

Where it breaks down: You're tracking replies manually, in your inbox. There's no confirmation sent to the person after they reply. There's no capacity limit — you can't stop accepting replies when you hit 20. If you're away from email, people are waiting with no acknowledgement. And when you're doing headcount the morning of the event, you're scrolling through your inbox looking for the thread.

Best for: One-off events with a small, personal list where the relationship is close enough that a direct reply makes sense — a founder's dinner, a private workshop for regulars who already know you.

2. Google Form

You build a form in Google Forms, link to it from your website or newsletter, and responses collect in a Google Sheet. Free. Mostly works.

What works: It's free. Everyone knows how to fill out a form. You get a running list of responses automatically, without having to track replies by hand.

Where it breaks down: The form opens in a new tab, away from your website. There's no automatic confirmation email — you have to set that up separately using a third-party add-on, and most people don't. Capacity enforcement requires a workaround: Google Forms can limit the number of responses, but when it hits the limit, the form closes with no message and no waitlist. You get a spreadsheet, not an attendee dashboard — no way to see headcount at a glance, no reminders going out, no CSV download with one click.

Marcus, in the situation above, had moved from email replies to Google Forms. He'd set a response limit of 30 for his last workshop. The form had quietly hit that limit weeks before the event. Forty-one people had tried to register. He found out on the morning of.

For more on the specific gaps in Google Forms for event management, see Google Forms vs. Dedicated Registration Tools.

Best for: One-time events with no capacity concerns, an audience that's already comfortable with Google's interface, and an organiser who doesn't mind checking the spreadsheet manually.

3. Eventbrite

You create your event on Eventbrite's platform, share the link, and people register there.

What works: Eventbrite is built for events. It handles capacity limits, waitlists, reminder emails, and attendee management. It has a discovery marketplace — people browse Eventbrite looking for things to do, which means some of your attendees may find you there without being invited. For ticketed events, payment processing is built in.

Where it breaks down: Everyone who clicks "Register" leaves your website and lands on Eventbrite's platform, inside Eventbrite's design, surrounded by other events. The confirmation email comes from Eventbrite, not from you. For free events, Eventbrite's fee structure has changed repeatedly — check current terms before assuming it's free. For paid events, Eventbrite charges 2-8% of ticket revenue.

There's also a discovery cost that runs the other way: Eventbrite's sidebar suggests other events to your registrants once they're on the platform. You send someone to register for your yoga workshop and they see ads for a competing studio's class.

Best for: Large events where discovery genuinely matters — you want people who don't already follow you to find the event. Ticketed events where Eventbrite's payment processing is useful. One-off events where the setup overhead is acceptable and the redirect doesn't bother you.

4. An embedded registration tool on your website

A registration calendar that lives on your website. Visitors see your event schedule, click an event, and fill in a form — without leaving your site or opening a new tab. You manage everything from a dashboard.

What works: Registration happens on your website, in your brand. Confirmation emails come from your domain. Capacity limits are enforced automatically — when an event is full, the calendar switches to waitlist mode on its own. Reminders go out the day before without you doing anything. You see your attendee list and headcount in a dashboard in real time.

Where it breaks down: There's a one-time setup step: you paste a code snippet onto your website. If your site doesn't let you add custom code (some basic website builder plans don't), you'd need to upgrade your plan. These tools have a monthly cost — if you run events twice a year, a subscription isn't worth it.

Best for: Small businesses running recurring events — weekly classes, monthly workshops, regular community gatherings — who want the headcount, the confirmations, and the reminders to happen automatically.

Which one is right for your situation

Here's the short version:

Running events more than once a month and have a website: embedded registration tool
One-off event, no budget, no capacity concerns: Google Form (accept the manual overhead)
Large ticketed event, hoping to attract new attendees: Eventbrite
Very small, personal gathering: email reply

The deciding factor for most small businesses is frequency. If you run one event a year, a monthly subscription isn't economical. If you run events every month — or every week — the time cost of the manual options accumulates fast. Marcus spends about 45 minutes per event updating his spreadsheet and sending reminders individually. That's nine hours a year for one workshop per month, before accounting for the events where the headcount surprises him.

What collecting RSVPs on your website actually looks like

Here's the experience using Turnout as an example.

You create an event in the dashboard: name, date, time, location, capacity (optional). If you need custom registration fields — dietary requirements, which session someone's signing up for, how they heard about you — you add those. It takes about two minutes.

You copy the embed snippet from the dashboard and paste it once onto your website's Events page. That's the setup. You don't come back to the website to add or change events — you do that in the dashboard, and the calendar updates automatically.

A visitor lands on your events page. They see your upcoming schedule. They click a date. A registration form opens on the same page — no redirect, no new tab. They enter their name and email and submit. A confirmation email lands in their inbox within seconds.

The day before the event, a reminder goes out to everyone on the list. You didn't do anything to send it.

In your dashboard, you can see how many people are registered, who they are, and any custom field responses. When your event hits capacity, the calendar switches to waitlist mode automatically. You can export the attendee list as a CSV anytime.

Marcus's 45-minute post-event admin becomes zero. The spreadsheet updating and the individual reminder emails stop. He looks at the dashboard the morning of to see how many people are coming.

For more on how the embedding process works, see Embedding an Events Calendar on Your Website: The Complete Guide.

For the specific setup on nonprofits and community organisations, see the event registration software for nonprofits page.

How to get set up

Sign up for a Turnout account at getturnout.app
Create a calendar and add your first event
Copy the embed snippet from the dashboard
Paste the snippet on your website's Events page
Test it by registering yourself

No developer needed. The embed works with Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Webflow, and any site that lets you add HTML.

14-day free trial at getturnout.app.