The best AI party and event planner apps compared, and a planner that readies the whole occasion

The short answer

Choose by how much of the party you want help with. If you only need people to know when and where, and to tell you they’re coming, a free invitation app does that well. If you’re also the one feeding everyone, working round an allergy, finding something to wear, buying the gift and fitting it all into a busy week, the invitation is only the start. We’re building Retenna’s planner to do the invitation and everything after it, working with every other expert in one app.

Why most party planner apps only plan the invitation

Search for a party planner app and you mostly find invitation apps. They’re good at what they do: a nice design, a link that works without an app, and a list of who’s coming.

But an occasion is a dozen jobs, and the invitation is one of them. The menu has to work for the friend with a nut allergy and the three who don’t eat meat. The cake needs a week’s notice. Your brows shouldn’t be done on the morning of the party if redness lingers for you. The table for a family birthday has to be booked the day bookings open. And all of it has to fit round a week that’s already full.

Those jobs land on you, usually the night before. A good AI party planner takes them on.

What a good AI party planner knows, and does

A good party planner knows:

• Who’s coming, and what they need. Allergies, foods they avoid, and who’s helping you host.
• What the occasion needs, and how far ahead. Tables that fill up weeks before, engraving that takes 10 days, a cake that needs a week’s notice.
• You. What you feel best in, how your skin reacts, how much notice you like, and how you like to host.
• The people you love. Their tastes, sizes and wishlists, for the gift, and the little things, like Mum loving a real card.
• The rest of your week. Work, training and sleep, so the party doesn’t cost you the days around it.

Then it should:

• Ready the occasion with everything it needs, from the guests to the timings, rather than remind you the day before.
• Plan the food around everyone at the table. No app can promise food is safe, so it should say what it planned around, and you should always check labels.
• Get you ready too: the outfit, the look and an early night before a late one.
• Replan when something changes, moving only what the change affects.
• Ask before anything reaches another person, from the invitations to a thank-you message.

The top party and event planner apps at a glance

We looked at six apps people use to plan parties: four invitation apps with big audiences, a design app and a general AI assistant. They’re a selection by reach and relevance, not a ranking, and they do different jobs.

App by app

Partiful

Cost

Free; in-app extras from $1.99

Where

iPhone, Android, web

App Store

5.0 from 276K ratings

Partiful has the highest App Store rating of the apps here, and an Editors’ Choice badge. You make an invite from a template and send a link, and guests reply without an app. You can ask guests questions, “dietary restrictions, song requests, social handles, and more”, poll them to find a date, send one text blast to everyone, have guests chip in through Venmo or Cash App, sell tickets, and collect everyone’s photos in a shared album. Co-hosts, up to 20 an event, can change the settings and send text blasts.

Worth knowingIt collects your guests’ food needs, but planning the menu around them, your outfit or a gift isn’t mentioned, and nor is AI. Its privacy policy says it doesn’t sell your data as a source of revenue but does work with advertising partners, with an opt-out, and that answers to an event’s questions go to the hosts.

Evite

Cost

Free with ads; Premium priced by guest list; Pro $249.99 a year

Where

iPhone, iPad, Android, web

App Store

4.8 from 517K ratings

Evite has the most App Store ratings of the invitation apps here. Choose a free or Premium design, or upload your own, including through its Canva app, then track RSVPs in real time and see who has opened the invite. It sends reminders, lets you message guests by their RSVP, and has free SignUp Sheets for who brings what, polls, cost sharing, registry and wishlist links, and a shared photo album. In the app, Premium options are listed from $12.99, for up to 15 guests.

Worth knowingFree invitations carry adverts; its privacy policy says advertising keeps the core service free, and that some sharing may count as a “sale” or sharing for targeted ads under some laws, with an opt-out. Guest questions, co-hosts and AI aren’t mentioned on its homepage.

Paperless Post

Cost

Some designs free; Cards from $0.50 a guest; Pro $250 a year

Where

iPhone, iPad, Android, web

App Store

4.8 from 127K ratings

Paperless Post offers two kinds of invitation: classic, stationery-inspired Cards, and Flyer event pages you can text. It tracks RSVPs, sends guests the reminders they opt into, and lets you message guests one at a time or together. Its guest questions can be open-ended, multiple-choice or checkboxes, for things like dietary restrictions, and a co-host can help manage RSVPs, send updates, message guests and check people in.

Worth knowingCards are paid per guest in its own Coins, from $0.50 a guest for Basic to $1.44 for All Access, or with a Paperless Pro subscription at $250 a year for 250 guests. Planning the food, your outfit or a gift isn’t mentioned, and nor is AI.

Apple Invites

Cost

Free to reply; hosting needs iCloud+, from $0.99 a month

Where

iPhone, and icloud.com/invites

App Store

4.7 from 22K ratings

Apple Invites launched in February 2025. You make an invitation from your own photos or with Image Playground, Apple’s image generator, and Writing Tools can help with the wording. Maps and Weather give guests directions and the forecast, everyone can add photos and videos to a shared album, and Apple Music subscribers can build a playlist together. Anyone can reply, with or without an Apple Account or an Apple device.

Worth knowingTo create invitations you need an iCloud+ subscription, and Apple says Invites needs compatible hardware and the latest software. Asking guests about food, co-hosts and planning the rest of the occasion aren’t mentioned. Guests control how their details show up to others, and can leave or report an event at any time.

Canva

Cost

Free; Pro listed from $14.99 a month or $119.99 a year

Where

Web, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android

App Store

4.9 from 3.6M ratings

Canva is a design app you can use for the invitation itself, with thousands of templates. Its AI tools include generating videos with sound from a text prompt and creating many versions of a design at once, and you can share a design and work on it together. It’s also on Google Play.

Worth knowingIt designs the invitation; sending it, tracking replies and planning the party aren’t mentioned in its App Store listing. If you want both, Evite lets you upload a Canva design as your invitation.

ChatGPT

Cost

Free; paid plans listed from $8 (Go) and $19.99 (Plus)

Where

iPhone, iPad, Android, web

App Store

4.8 from 12M ratings

ChatGPT is a general assistant, so you can ask it to help with a party: a theme, a menu for twelve, a timetable for the day, the words for an invitation or a toast. It can also generate images, and talk it through with you by voice. With memory turned on, it can keep details you’ve told it and refer to past chats.

Worth knowingIt’s a general assistant rather than a party app: it works from what you ask and tell it, and its App Store listing doesn’t mention invitations, guest lists or replies, so those happen in another app. Our Retenna vs ChatGPT and ChatGPT alternatives guides go further.

Where Retenna goes further for occasions

Retenna isn’t only an invitation app. It’s every lifestyle expert in one mind that knows you, and its planner readies your days, occasions and trips: every event with everything it needs, the invitation included. For a party you’re hosting, it designs the invitation and sends it to your guests by email, and they can answer without an account, for example to tell you which foods they avoid. It tracks RSVPs and sends reminders, and any message to your guests waits for your yes. Your co-hosts plan with you, can edit the event and see the answers too.

Then the other experts join in. Your nutritionist plans the food around those answers, your stylist and beauty and grooming expert get you ready, your personal shopper finds the gift and the shop inside your budget, and your wellbeing coach keeps the days around it calm. Here’s how the five party apps compare with what Retenna is built to do. ChatGPT isn’t in the table, because what a general assistant does depends on what you ask it.

Yes

The maker documents it.

Partly

A narrower version: guests’ food answers collected for you, with the menu left to you (Partiful, Paperless Post), or registry and wishlist links rather than finding the gift (Evite, Paperless Post).

–Dash

Not mentioned in the maker’s own materials. That doesn’t prove it can’t.

The top rows are where the invitation apps shine, and Retenna is built to match them: a designed invitation, RSVPs, reminders and co-hosts. Partiful also documents selling tickets, and Partiful, Evite and Apple Invites a shared photo album for everyone’s pictures. The rows below are the difference. Partiful and Paperless Post already ask guests about food, but none of the five says it plans the menu around the answers, gets you ready, finds the gift or fits the occasion round the rest of your life. That’s the work that usually lands on the host.

A party, planned by every expert

It’s three weeks until your birthday, and you want 14 friends round on Saturday at 19:30. Alex is co-hosting, so the two of you plan it together: Alex can edit the event and sees the same answers and the same plan. You haven’t thought about food, and the week of the party is a busy one at work.

What it joined upYour calendar, and the busy week. The guests’ answers: Sam is allergic to nuts, and three guests don’t eat meat. Your kitchen and your usual supermarket. The bakery you used last year, which needs a week’s notice for a celebration cake. Your brows, booked for Saturday morning. And what it has learned about you: redness after your brows lasts into the evening, you rate new clothes lower on big days, and you like the house ready an hour before people arrive.

What it ruled outThe satay you love, because of Sam’s allergy. Brows on Saturday morning, because the redness would still show. The new top, because you rate new clothes lower on big days. A big shop on Saturday morning, because you’d lose the day to it.

Then two more friends say yesOn the Tuesday before, the guest list goes from 14 to 16. The menu is scaled up, two portions are added to Friday’s shop, and nothing else moves: the cake, your brows, your outfit and your early night stay exactly as they were.

Ten things readied across seven parts of your life, and only five of them needed you: the invitation, the reminder, the cake, the shop and the thank-you. So on Saturday, you’re just there with your friends.

When you’re the guest: the gift, the look and the night

Not every occasion is yours to host. When you’re invited, the work is different, and it still lands in the same busy week.

For a friend’s wedding, it’s the same idea, over a whole week: the weekend planned, your outfit, the gift (after asking you first), your skin, your meals, your training and your rest. One wedding, 24 things handled, one question asked, and nothing you had to request.

Big occasions, readied weeks ahead

The bigger the occasion, the earlier the work starts. Your planner looks weeks and months ahead, and does each job at the moment it needs doing.

Telling the family that lunch has moved to Sunday waits for your yes too, because it reaches other people. For more on birthdays, gifts and the people in your life, see our guide to birthday and gift reminder apps, and for everyday planning, our AI planner guide.

The occasion jobs it takes off your hands

Add it up, and this is the party planning that stops living in your head.

Why it’s better with your other experts

An occasion touches every part of your life, so every expert plans it together. They share one living model of you and one picture of your week, and a change in one part reshapes the rest:

• Your nutritionist. Plans the menu around your guests’ allergies and the foods they avoid, and the shop around what’s already in your kitchen.
• Your stylist. Every occasion comes with its outfit, from what you own and feel best in.
• Your beauty and grooming expert. Brows moved so any redness settles first, and nothing new on your skin before the party.
• Your personal shopper. Finds a gift they’ll love inside your budget, never takes commission, and doesn’t buy what you already own.
• Your wellbeing coach. An early night before a late one, and a quiet day after.
• Your personal trainer. Keeps your training on track in a party week, without a hard session the morning after.
• The people you love. Remembers their tastes, sizes and wishlists, and their birthdays from your contacts, and asks you before anything reaches them.

Planning a trip around an occasion, like a wedding abroad? Our AI trip planner guide covers that side, and our all-in-one lifestyle app guide shows how every expert fits together.

How it learns how you celebrate

Everything your planner knows sits in one living model of you, shared by every expert. It learns from what you do, what you choose and what you tell it, and every fact says where it came from:

• You like the house ready an hour before people arrive. From the last two times you hosted, so prep is planned back from the doorbell.
• Redness after your brows lasts into the evening. After your last three appointments, so brows are never on the day.
• Shimmer shows up as shine in flash photos. From your last party photos, so your party look skips it.
• You took wine to Priya’s last time. So this time it’s something for her ceramics.
• Mum loves a real card. From you, so it’s posted in time to arrive before her birthday, not texted on the day.

Your guests’ answers are different: they’re used only with each guest’s consent and only for that event.

The more it learns, the less it needs to ask:

1. Day one It asks. Who’s coming, who’s co-hosting, the kind of party, your budget, and what you’d like to do yourself. You choose, and it remembers.
2. Within weeks It suggests. “Invite the 14, with a question about food, and move your brows to Wednesday?” One tap, and the party is planned.
3. In time It decides the way you would, further ahead. Mum’s table is booked six weeks out and Dad’s the morning tables open, each with its reasons, and anything that reaches another person still waits for your yes.

And it keeps learning. Every plan you keep, change or undo tells it a little more about how you like to celebrate.

How you shape it, and stay in charge

Your rules, in your own wordsYou choose what it simply does and tells you about after, and what waits for your yes. To start with, your own plans and places you’ve used before are done for you, and anywhere new and new spending ask first. Anything that involves another person, such as invitations, messages or telling the family about a change, always asks first. Here’s one party week under those rules:

A reason and an Undo, every timeEvery plan says why, and every plan can be undone. Undo the lemon tart and choose a chocolate one, and it learns from that too.

It notices what you undoKeep undoing the same kind of plan, such as a workout it moves to the morning after a late night, and it says so and suggests a rule, like asking you first next time.

See, change or forget what it knowsYour living model is yours to read: “You like the house ready an hour before people arrive”, from the last two times you hosted. Change it or forget it, and it stops planning around it. You can also export or delete everything Retenna holds about you.

How to choose

If you only need the invitation, one of these will do it well, several for free. If you want the whole occasion readied, from the invitation and the guests to the food, your outfit, the gift and your week, that’s Retenna.

For the invitation, the design or the ideas

• PartifulFree, casual invites by link, with guest questions, text blasts and co-hostsAnd ticketing, if you’re selling tickets.
• EviteClassic invitations with reminders, and sign-up sheets for who brings whatFree invitations carry adverts; Premium is priced by guest list.
• Paperless PostStationery-style Cards or textable Flyers, with guest questions and a co-host
• Apple InvitesAn iPhone invitation with a shared album and playlist, if you have iCloud+
• CanvaDesigning your own invitation from thousands of templates
• ChatGPTBrainstorming a theme, a menu or the words for a toast

For the whole occasion, readied for you

What to check before you trust one with your guests

• Your guests’ answers. Partiful’s privacy policy says answers to an event’s questions go to the hosts, who may use them for their own purposes within its terms. In Retenna, only the organiser and the co-hosts you agree see a guest’s answers, used only with the guest’s consent and only for that event, and guests confirm they’re 18 or over before sharing food needs such as allergies.
• Adverts and data sharing. Evite’s free invitations carry adverts, and its privacy policy describes sharing for targeted advertising, with an opt-out. Partiful says it doesn’t sell your data as a source of revenue but works with advertising partners, also with an opt-out.
• Your contacts. Partiful says it stores only the contacts you invite, not your whole address book, if you let it sync. Check what any app asks for.
• Allergies. No app, ours included, can check that food is safe for an allergy or intolerance. Always check labels and ingredients yourself; it isn’t medical advice, so don’t rely on an app alone for a serious allergy.
• The real cost. Paperless Post charges per guest for Cards, Evite prices Premium by the size of your guest list, and Apple Invites needs iCloud+ to host. Check before you invite 80 people.

How Retenna plans your occasions

Questions

Sources

Checked 25 October 2026. Ratings and prices are from Apple’s US App Store; everything else is from each maker’s own pages.

• Partiful: website, App Store, Google Play, co-hosts, how many co-hosts, privacy policy
• Evite: website, App Store, Google Play, privacy policy
• Paperless Post: website, App Store, Google Play, pricing
• Apple Invites: Apple Newsroom, App Store, iCloud+
• Canva: App Store, Google Play
• ChatGPT: App Store, memory

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