Choosing between Luma, Eventbrite, Meetup and Zoom? That's covered in our platform guide. This page assumes you've picked Luma and asks what, if anything, to add to it.
What Luma does
- Events and tickets. Luma's free plan has unlimited events and guests, with a 5% platform fee on paid tickets plus card processing. Luma Plus is $59 a month, billed annually, with no platform fee.
- Guest messages. Email, SMS, push and WhatsApp blasts and reminders, on both plans. Blasts to an event's guests are unlimited; invites and newsletters are capped at 500 a week on the free plan and 5,000 on Plus.
- Tracking links. Add a utm_source to your event link and Luma's insights count page views and registrations from it. Luma also keeps the other UTM tags on each registration. Luma says registration insights are in its iOS and Android apps, not on the web yet.
- Guest referrals. Each guest gets a link to share, and Luma counts who invited whom on public events. On private and members-only events, referrals aren't tracked.
- Check-in and Zoom. Check-in on both plans, and a Zoom integration with attendance tracking.
That's a lot for free, and for many events it's all you need.
What Talk adds
- Ways in, each with its own code. A page link, QR codes with print files (SVG, PNG, PDF and EPS), an email address people register by writing to, share cards, personal invitations, and a kit for each speaker and partner with their own link and QR code. Every registration records the one it came through, plus any UTM tags.
- Who brought whom. Every registrant gets their own share link, and the leaderboard counts registrations per kit and per person.
- A page for each registrant, with their calendar file, their join link, questions for you and their own share link. Reminders arrive in their own email thread, so replying "cancel" works.
- Your CRM, on your own account. Registrants, their way in and whether they came go to HubSpot, Salesforce or Marketo, or to your own systems by signed webhook and CSV.
- The lens. Up to three questions about each registrant's company, researched through programmable.info on your own key, each answer with its source.
- No tracking pixels. Talk counts visits, QR scans and registrations per way in. It doesn't put pixels in emails or follow people around the web.
Where these matter is print and people. A QR code on a slide, a poster or a sponsor's booth, or a speaker sharing their own kit, is hard to tell apart with one link and a utm_source. Each of those gets its own code in Talk.
What syncs between Luma and Talk
- Talk to Luma. With your Luma API key connected, every registration from any way in is added to your Luma event as a guest, with retries if Luma is busy. A place cancelled in Talk is declined on Luma.
- Luma to Talk. While the event is upcoming, the guest list is read every 30 minutes. People who registered on Luma itself join your list, and cancellations there cancel here. After it ends, Luma's check-ins mark who came, read until six hours after the end.
- Made in Talk first? Publish it to your Luma calendar in one step, and publish again to send changes to the title, description, time or capacity. Talk can also make a Luma coupon for each way in.
- Luma's emails keep working. Luma sends its own guest emails as usual. You can turn Talk's reminders off for an event if Luma's are enough.
The sync uses Luma's API, which needs Luma Plus on the calendar. Without it, Talk still works: people register in Talk and are sent to your Luma page to finish.
When you need neither
Not every event needs a registration tool. A team call, a dinner for six or a standing weekly session with the same people works fine with a calendar invite and a video link. Luma earns its place when you want a public page, tickets or check-in. Talk earns its place on top when people come in through several channels, other people help you promote, or registrants need to reach your CRM.
Feature by feature
| Feature | Luma | Programmable Talk | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event page and registration | Yes | Yes | Luma, Pricing |
| Sell paid ticketsTalk takes no payments; a paid event links out to Luma | Yes | No | Luma, Pricing |
| Registrations counted per tracking linkLuma: in its mobile apps for now | Yes | Yes | Luma Help, Event Insights |
| Guest referrals countedLuma: public events only | Partly | Yes | Luma Help, Event Referrals |
| Reminders | Yes | Yes | Luma, Pricing |
| Check-in | Yes | Yes | Luma, Pricing |
| Attendance from Zoom | With Zoom | With Zoom | Luma, Pricing |
| API access | With Luma Plus | Yes | Luma Help, Luma API |
| Send guests to other tools automaticallyTalk: HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, webhooks | With Zapier, on Luma Plus | Yes | Luma, Pricing |
Pricing
| Luma | Programmable Talk | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free plan: unlimited events and guests | 14-day trial with every feature, no card |
| Paid plan | Luma Plus: $59 a month, billed annually | Starter $19 a month, Pro $39 a month; a year costs 10 months' price |
| On paid tickets | 5% platform fee on the free plan, 0% on Plus, plus card processing | No fee: tickets sell on Luma, not in Talk |
Using both: Talk's sync with Luma needs Luma's API, which needs Luma Plus. So a host using both pays for Luma Plus and a Talk plan.
Who should choose which
Luma on its own is enough when
- You share one or two links, and Luma's utm_source counts answer your questions.
- Your events are public, and guest referrals are the sharing you need.
- You want one tool for the page, tickets, guest emails and check-in.
Add Programmable Talk when
- Speakers, partners or sponsors help promote, and you want to see who brought whom.
- People find you on slides, posters and stands, where a QR code or an email address works better than a link.
- Registrants, and whether they came, need to reach HubSpot, Salesforce or Marketo.
You may need neither when
- The people are the ones you already know, and a calendar invite with a video link will do.