Apps & Consumer
Snapchat launches event-planning tool to rival Partiful
Snapchat introduced "Snapchat Plans," a suite of event-planning features that let users create invitations, track RSVPs, and manage real-world gatherings with friends.
Snapchat announced Thursday that it’s launching “Snapchat Plans,” a suite of features for creating, sharing, and managing real-world events with friends. The new tools let users send and receive invitations and track details like time, location, and attendees, all in one place.
The company says the feature can be used to organize everything from birthday celebrations and sporting events to study sessions and weekend hangouts.
With Snapchat Plans, the company is taking aim at Partiful, a popular event-planning and digital-invitation platform, as young users increasingly turn to dedicated apps to organize get-togethers rather than relying on group chats or social media. Snapchat isn’t alone in targeting Partiful and similar invitation apps: Apple launched an app called Invites last year that lets users create custom invitations for any occasion.
To create an event — called a “Snapchat Plan” — users add a title, choose a date and time, and can invite up to 200 friends. Invitations are delivered directly within a one-on-one chat with each invited friend, and guests can RSVP with “Going,” “Maybe,” or “Can’t Go.”
The app is also adding a “My Plans” section to users’ profiles, letting them browse current, upcoming, and past Snapchat Plans. Once a user clicks on a friend’s profile, they’ll see the events they share with that friend. Hosts can see who’s attending, invite more friends, and update event details as needed, while guests can view the full guest list, change their RSVP at any time, and get a reminder one hour before the event starts.
Although Snapchat has long been a major player in social media, the company is now expanding beyond how people communicate online to also help shape how they get together in the real world, part of a broader trend of Gen Z seeking more in-person connections. “No more missed get-togethers because of buried messages, lost details, or forgetting to create an invitation,” the company wrote in a blog post. Snapchat Plans are private and invite-only, the company said.
Why it matters
Snapchat joining Apple and specialists like Partiful in the invitation space signals that in-person event coordination has become a genuine product category in its own right, not just a feature bolted onto messaging.