Meet Partiful, the Gen Z party-planning staple that’s taking on Apple

When Shreya Murthy and Pleasure Tao made up our minds to inauguration a party-planning startup in 2020, they settled on a trade purpose of “bringing people together in person.”

The Covid-19 pandemic demanded the complete opposite.

In spite of the problem of the pandemic, Partiful survived, and 5 years upcoming, the Unutilized York startup is now worn through hundreds of thousands of folk to plot occasions comparable to birthday events, housewarmings and weddings.

The app’s a favourite of the ones ages 20 to 30, and it’s added 2 million pristine customers since January, Partiful CEO Murthy advised GWN. The corporate hasn’t ever not hidden its actual bottom of per 30 days customers.

Partiful drew consideration on social media nearest Apple, recognized for replicating options from well-liked apps at the iPhone, introduced its personal event-planning carrier in February, and the startup posted a shaggy dog story about “copycats” on its X account.

In fact, Partiful isn’t the primary party-planning app. It competes in opposition to now not handiest Apple Invitations, but additionally Eventbrite, Evite, Punchbowl and others.

Every carrier differs quite in its goal markets and contours. Evite, as an example, makes use of a “freemium” fashion, the place positive invitation designs and alternative options are paywalled. Eventbrite is continuously worn to advertise and promote admission to immense family occasions.

What units Partiful except for its competition — and appeals to its Gen Z person bottom — is its continuously funny, fickle designs, a few of which might be created through Partiful’s in-house designers.

“Friend invited me to a gathering that doesn’t have a Partiful….feeling lost, confused, unprepared…much like when I (Gen Z) receive a phone call out of the blue,” X person Athena Kan posted in August.

For the primary quarter of 2025, Partiful averaged 500,000 per 30 days energetic customers, up 400% week over week, with 9 out of 10 customers at the app founded within the U.S., in line with estimates equipped to GWN through Sensor Tower, a marketplace analysis company. That compares with Eventbrite’s 4.4 million per 30 days energetic customers, which is up 2% week over week, and Punchbowl with roughly 85,000 per 30 days customers, which is ailing about 2% in comparison to a week in the past. A spokesperson for Evite advised GWN that the carrier noticed greater than 20 million per 30 days energetic customers for the primary quarter of 2025.

It’s non-transperant what number of folk nonetheless worth Fb’s once-popular event-planning component Fb Occasions. Fb’s mother or father corporate, Meta, close ailing the standalone app.

Murthy and Tao each was at Princeton College and labored at Palantir Applied sciences on the similar age, however they didn’t meet till they had been presented upcoming through a mutual good friend. Each had been taking a look to advance to the consumer-facing facet of tech. 

Tao, later a tool engineer at Meta, sought after to let fall the corporate to concentrate on merchandise that had been extra relatable to day-to-day occasion, and stated that the social media corporate’s purpose of preserving customers working on their apps once in a while can manufacture “perverse incentives.”

“For me, driving more people to spend more time staring at their phone, staring at this endless feed of content, wasn’t super motivating, wasn’t super meaningful to me personally,” stated Tao, Partiful’s tech prominent and a self-described “avid party planner.”

Meta declined to remark.

Tao and Murthy went thru a kind of “dating period” the place they requested every alternative what they concept chief a startup in combination may just appear to be. A number of the voids they known was once how intimate social occasions, comparable to birthday events the place a bunch could be more likely to see the attendees once more, had been nonetheless deliberate on textual content chains that made it tricky to trace, keep in touch or plan an excellent occasion age with visitors.

“If you’re not sure when people are free, that’s a really annoying problem,” Murthy stated.

She and Tao took the jump.

With few in-person occasions taking place right through the 2020 lockdowns, Partiful’s engineering group interested by development the platform’s textual content message-based infrastructure in order that the carrier might be worn through each iPhone and Android customers. 

Partiful’s group, which has now grown to twenty-five, operates out of downtown Brooklyn. The carrier is not restricted to textual content messages and its site. The corporate introduced apps for the iPhone and Android gadgets in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and Partiful now serves as a one-stop vacation spot for organizing the other stages of making plans and internet hosting a occasion. The corporate has reportedly raised $20 million in a investment spherical led through Andreessen Horowitz.

What makes Partiful amusing for customers is how customizable an invitation can also be.

Hosts can manufacture a independent birthday ask over with a lime-green parody safeguard of Charli XCX’s “brat” book, as an example, or plan a ladies’ evening out with a safeguard picture of Shrek in shades. They may be able to observe “yes,” “no” or “maybe” RSVPs below a portrait of Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, and invited visitors can worth a “boop” component to ship random emojis in lieu than a right away message to every alternative.

Birthday party planners too can ship out uniform textual content blasts to the crowd ahead of and nearest the development and govern an in-app picture book for importing reminiscences.

Partiful is to be had for any person to worth, however Murthy stated the corporate sees probably the most want for the carrier amongst younger customers within the “postgrad” length of occasion. That’s a degree the place folk could be shifting to pristine towns and clear of their established school good friend teams.

“You’re starting your adult life and have to not only figure out, ‘How do I rent an apartment? How do I work a new job? How do I exist in this new version of myself?'” Murthy stated. “On top of that, you’re also having to rebuild your entire social circle.”

For the hosts and partiers in its person bottom, Partiful has develop into a part of their social regimen, and it has persevered to achieve traction on-line. The corporate advised GWN that over 60% of its energetic app customers test Partiful each past.

As for Apple, Partiful isn’t sweating its pristine rival simply but.

Apple Invitations calls for that customers have an iCloud+ subscription to manufacture occasions, despite the fact that it’s independent to RSVP if a visitor doesn’t have an Apple account. That carrier begins at 99 cents a occasion in america. Apple didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Partiful is independent, no less than for now.

Like many alternative tech corporations that depend on distribution products and services comparable to Apple’s App Bundle, Partiful has a nuanced courting with its much-larger counterpart. Partiful may just lose some customers to Apple, however it will probably additionally have the benefit of promotion through the app distributor.

That’s what came about in 2024, when Partiful was once named a finalist for Apple’s App Bundle Awards for Cultural Affect, and received Google Play games’s “Best App of 2024.” The app remained an “editor’s choice” pick out at the App Bundle as of e-newsletter.

For now, Partiful rest assured.

“We haven’t really seen any users that have been leaving Partiful for Apple Invites,” Murthy stated.

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