Event Espresso vs. SignUpGenius

This is highly recommended if you wish to host event registrations on your WordPress site! While there are a few concerns with the simplicity of use, this plugin has incredible features and requires little to no purchases.

Incentivized

SignUpGenius is a great option for teachers and instructors looking to find a digital way to have their students sign up for anything that involves "slots," whether those slots are temporal/time-based (e.g., presentation days/times that are pre-scheduled), or whether they are more abstract (e.g., a limited range of subjects or topics that students need to pick from). Its free version is ad-supported, does not require registration, and operates primarily using links within emails for authentication, so while it isn't necessarily "secure," it is perfect for situations where the honor system is enough.

Incentivized

• Instead of sending traffic to a third party, Event Espresso allows us to integrate our registration straight into our website.
• Easy to set up, dependable platform, and a variety of payment channel alternatives.

Incentivized

• Post-sign up communications - allows for pre-event communication to specific rsvp types or to all respondents
• Post-event reporting - allows for export of signup information
• Easy to use - for our community, both management and volunteers use SignUpGenius to facilitate participation and planning for a wide variety of events and activities

Incentivized

• Integrating account creation with WordPress should be included in the core product, not an add-on. It's extremely frustrating to have to pay extra for that, especially when that add-on is not as flexible as it needs to be (for example, if someone is enrolling for a class on behalf of someone else).
• The data visualization is a mess. That feature doesn't seem to ever work and it should be left out until it does.
• The ability to show participant data on the front end is extremely limited. Event Espresso does provide a few hooks and some limited documentation on this feature, but I feel it should be more robust. Perhaps that can be a focus of future releases.

Incentivized

• I think an area that needs improvement is allowing for more than 5 slots at a time. I would like to see at least 10 offered instead of having to keep adding 5 at a time.
• Adding additional templates or templates in which you can just change a color selection would be great. Really utilize this for school PTO/Booster Clubs would be beneficial. Cater to them.
• Allowing for a 'cheaper' price than what you have for the souped up version would be nice as well.

Incentivized

It is a great product that works efficiently for our needs

Incentivized

I don't have any feedback for support because I have not had to use support (if referring to IT support). If this question is in referral to support from other staff/company, then it has been received well in that sense.

Incentivized

I looked at EventBrite, but it wasn't customizable enough for our needs and didn't provide the level of integration with our website that I desired. I also looked at the ticketing system offered by The Events Calendar for WordPress (by Modern Tribe), but it too lacked the feature set we needed. Only Event Espresso offered all the features, customization, and integration we desired and needed.

Incentivized

We briefly used another sign-up website called "Bring the Cups."Needless to say, this website did not nearly offer the same amount of robust features as SignUpGenius did. Bring the Cups was streamlined and simple, but it bordered on simplistic. In all honesty, Bring the Cups did not nearly meet our needs the way SignUpGenius did. Consequently, I returned to using SignUpGenius as quickly as possible.

Incentivized

• Event Espresso has literally changed the lives of our volunteer organization, saving hundreds of hours of time and eliminating the frustration of paper enrollment.
• The add-ons allow you to accomplish just about any event registration goals you might have. It's an extremely powerful product.
• Integrating the plugin into our website was a breeze, and it's approachable enough where volunteers can create the classes and conduct the online enrollment all in a web browser.

Incentivized

• Students and even other staff love it! It improved the turn-around time from when I respond to student requests for academic coaching to setting up the intake meeting about 50%. Also, in the case that I respond quickly but the student is delayed several days, the link I sent is still live and always has relevant dates and times (whereas in the past, I would send a few days' worth of options and by the time a procrastinator looked at them, they were passed).
• It's an easy, mobile-friendly option that helps students to see that we're with it, not trapped in the stone age. That factors into their overall perception of our department, our services and our organization.

Incentivized