Great choice for small non-profit with few small conference events per year.

This solved our problem with our prior software being sunset and having the only other option be to used the more expensive flagship product. So I went shopping, compared about 10 options and settled on rsvpbook. Very happy with it. Cheaper products are much less robust. We register people for two conferences a year with breakout groups and hired speakers. One draws about 100 participants and the other 50.

Pros

The biggest benefit for us was the small percentage of registration fee because our conferences are over Memorial Day weekends and cost $500-$600. Calculate any other website's transaction fee for that large a price and the transaction fee will be substantially more. On top of that we use PayPal for settling credit cards and we benefit somewhat from their volume which affects the charges the credit card networks assess. I am thrilled with the technical support. Prompt, articulate communication. Although support is not promised on weekends, I have sometimes received responses. A big issue for us was being able to let people make multiple payments, not all at once. There are many more features of this software that I haven't used but people can register themselves, edit their own registrations. There's very flexible registrant types, breakout session setup and many options for tickets and payments. I want to explore the lodging options. I also like that you can have a testing window open and the "back end" at the same time and you can modify settings in the back end, and then refresh the testing window to see the effect. The only downside is that you sometimes need to re-enter the registrant information after refreshing.

Cons

As someone else mentioned, the email editor is initially confusing but I just noticed at the top there are instructions for importing a word document without problems. Yay! You can also edit the HTML to tweak things. You can add graphics and flow text around them. But I haven't figured out how to get a little margin between the graphic and the text. I noticed the banner manager, where you put your letterhead, seems to apply across the application so if you want to change the letterhead for just one temporary purpose, you need to put it back when you're done to avoid affecting everything else that uses letterhead. Like anything, there's a learning curve, but you can pick up how rsvpbook works quickly by trying things and testing to see the interplay.

Easily customizable, robust tool for event registrant assignments, reports, and communication

I'm in my fourth year of using rsvpBook to manage an average of 900 volunteers who register with us each year. Our event is a 2-day dental clinic that moves to a different city in Arkansas each year, and dental/medical professionals are needed as well as lay volunteers. About half of our volunteers return every year, and about half are new each time. Most of our volunteers have day jobs as well, and most are highly complimentary as to the ease of our event registration. We could not run our clinic each year without maintaining information on our registered volunteers and communicating with them in a timely manner, and rsvpBook enables us to manage all this. We customized our registration questions and answers to help us easily filter registrants according to their abilities/training (or lack thereof) and ensure they can easily assign themselves to appropriate volunteer positions. Each year the rsvpBook staff very willingly works with us to fine-tune our use of the software and help us with our many reports that are crucial for ensuring proper coverage for each clinic. The capability that rsvpBook gives us to copy our event setup from year to year has cut down substantially on the time I must invest to set up registration for upcoming clinics. We're to the point where we can focus on changing a few details and improving our volunteer and event management experience each year. Other states that run similar annual clinics have copied our rsvpBook event setup (with our permission), which has also enable them to get a jump start on managing their events. We've tried another registration software in the past, and it did not come close to meeting our needs the way that rsvpBook does. We plan to keep using this software indefinitely.

Pros

Ease of use; customizability; responsive, friendly, and knowledgeable staff; compatibility with Excel and email; repeatability.

Cons

Can't think of a thing.

Beginner User

I love this but I will continue to study this so that it will be alot easier for me to use.

Pros

I liked that you can create and use this to invite multiple people to an event from the comfort of your home with just one click.

Cons

That in the begginging it can be a bit confusing when you first start using the app in the beginning.

Three time user

Checked out rsvpBOOK 5 years ago to support registration for a 3 day high school reunion event. They were extremely accommodating about our non-profit status in pricing and their customer service was excellent. Used the product again for a complicated golf tournament registration a few years later and representatives were again wonderful about helping to set the program up to do what we wanted. So returned to rsvpBOOK again for a repeat reunion this year, and was thrilled to know that rep was still there to patiently answer the set-up questions that I could not figure out on my own. I am competent on general computer programs but no technical wiz, and I was able to get most of the set up on my own with the help of their handy PDF 'how-to' documents. We set up a Paypal link very easily to accept credit card payments. And their per registration fees are conveniently now handled through monthly credit card charges instead of having to pay by check. The set up of the registration program works best on Explorer or other mainstream browsers - not so well using Thunderbird.

Pros

Relatively easy to set up and the reporting tools are very useful. I am able to use their standard reports or set up custom ones that can be accessed by more than one person - which allows for delegation of event activities.

Cons

The limits on sizing of photo banners and placement of logos - at least in the version that I have been using.

RSVP Meeting Registration

Many family members were impressed with the registration system. It really was quick to get it up and running which was amazing with all the variations we wanted. The software has a lot of flexibility and can accommodate just any registration idea.

Pros

Ease of adding all the special features we needed like different categories of registration, merchandise selling, flexible donation, installment payments, etc. Sharing reports with other admin members was also a big help. Great support to help me get it going (website help instructions and called in). The reports and email features were amazing. The non-profit accommodation was a big plus.

Cons

I really don't think the password feature was helpful for us. No one really used it to go back to a registration, but many members found it confusing. Administrator had to make all the changes. It would be great if that can be turned off it you didn't want to use it.

We've Done More Than 170 Events Using RSVPbook.com

Green Technology delivers multiple conferences and seminars on California's green building code, Green Schools and Green Government to thousands of registrants each year. All the registration for each event occurs on the RSVPbook Platform.

Pros

As a disruptive technology, RSVPbook.com helped us change from spending tens of thousands of dollars per event for outside registration companies to bringing registration in-house cutting costs drastically. Very strong tech support and some minor custom coding enabled us to combine all our registration needs plus a lead retrieval system that generates income from our exhibitors.

Cons

Honestly, don't have any.

Fantastic database platform; used for past 4 years!!!

Can't thank Nelson and all of you at RSVP for development of this wonderful database info management resource!!! AND, on behalf of Mission of Mercy organizations all over the country, I am most grateful and appreciative of your support and donation to our efforts!! You may want to financially consider restructuring this support to bill us at market rates and then make a dollar donation to each MOM entity vs. a simple rate reduction. Not sure if the IRS would question, but your finance guru could advise!!

Pros

Functionality and usability for someone not tech oriented for database management!!

Cons

It doesn't anticipate what I need, want, dream of!!!LOL Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to think in the context of RSVP to get myself to a place where I want to accomplish a task. The more I use it the easier it is to achieve mobility; repetition is the key to knowledge!!! I know you guys work very hard to develop tools that would be intuitive to us non-tech folks, and that has to be very difficult place for your brains to go!!!!!

RSVP for Training Registration

We utilize RSVP to register all of our learners for training classes. Registration is quick, we can track all that attended and lastly, we use the custom reports (which is very easy to use) as our database of all trained users.

Pros

The ease of creating events as well as the ease of our learners self registering for the classes. We can easily check the registration and mark attendance from a smartphone or tablet.

Cons

Not much!

A dramatic change and improvement of our business operation

For over two decades, we operated, by having groups book their participation on a hand written form, with the time spent spell checking and trying to read the hand written forms, we had to have dedicated people just for that job. about 10 years agio, we discovered RSVP BOOK!! and our operation and business have changed! we love the relationship, we have been improving as we go along, the assistance is 100%, the performance is the best and we can't beleive we lived without RSVP BOOK as long as we did!! thank you!

Pros

the savings of man power and the efficiency!

Cons

nothing!!

Conference Registration Made Easy

We have used rsvpBOOK for several year to automate the registration and related functions for our conference, and it has been a real boon for us. We are all volunteers, many of whom have limited technical savvy, yet we have easily trained our members to successfully manage the event using the web site tools. the attendees comment about the ease of use and the functionality. From the administration side, the capacity to set up the registration process, manage the attendee information, develop the post-event critiques, communicate by email and all the other management features make this the obvious choice for our event! The support from the staff is absolutely amazing, giving us confidence that we can develop the process with the backing of rsvpBOOK whenever we need it. And the low cost for us as a non-profit organization is the "icing on the cake" in choosing our conference management tools.

Pros

Easy of use, technical support, low cost.

Cons

I look forward to the development of a smartphone app that will be available to attendees for them to easily manage their schedule for our conference.

Awesome support!

My review comes from a point of view of having used RSVPbook for many years... though there are some areas that become easier with experience, and every year there are improvements (as RSVPbook will take feedback and make the improvements... giving customers a voice), I can't say enough about how flexible and AWESOME their support team is to assist and help find solutions if the customer runs into any challenges or simply has a minor questions; the response time is almost immediate!

Pros

flexible and a wide variety of functionality... and of course the reports and tips!

Cons

sometimes a bit cumbersome.

RSVPbook.com User Review

RSVPbook.com has been very beneficial to meeting the needs of our company. It has enabled us to manage our 5000 plus employee populations' educational tracking and course scheduling requirements.

Pros

The highly responsive and accessible Tech support. The ease of use of the system.

Cons

Desire to manipulate the data into more useful reports without much effort. And it's compatibility with Microsoft Access program.

Great Support

I receive great support from the team at RSVP book. Responsiveness is key to our business and they excel and making sure they respond quickly.

Pros

The support team and the ease in navigating the site.

Cons

I don't have anything specific...I typically let them know if there is something I wish it could do. I like the app but some customer want more functionality an/or ability to download from the app store and not have to use wifi.

Jodi says...

I use RSVPBook.com to manage registration for training events. The program seems infinitely flexible. I can't imagine what you might want to do that you can't do. On the down side, that flexibility makes the set-up a bit confusing, but I have never encountered better customer service in my life! Nelson responds to online chat messages instantly and figures out the solution in less than five minutes, seriously. Also, I've never found the website to be down unexpectedly. Grab your readers before you start; the set-up text is small. The registration window looks great though, when you're done!

Pros

It allows me to manage registrations for our relatively small trainings in a cost-effective manner. The alternative would be for me to do it manually, which would eventually lead to an error. Absolutely amazing customer service!

Cons

The set-up text is really small. Perhaps this is just my computer, but I don't think so. The tickets page is confusing. What's the "group" thing? It seems like the part where you input the fee is critical and should jump right out at the user, not be buried under several layers. I know I've said this before in a customer survey, and I can't imagine I'm the only one who thinks this. I've messed it up and had to ask for help on more than one occasion as a result.