Partiful, the invitation app that became a default planning tool for many college students and young city dwellers, has started selling tickets through its platform. The move gives the 2019 startup its first substantial revenue feature and puts a price tag on a service that built its appeal by being free, useful and aggressively unserious.
The app’s basic pitch is plain: hosts create an event page, invite guests and let Partiful send reminders by text. Guests can see who else is attending, post photos, leave comments and use the event page as a shared social object. Shreya Murthy, Partiful’s cofounder and CEO, told The Verge that the company sees the event page as a social experience rather than a checkout flow.
That has been enough to turn Partiful into Gen Z’s closest replacement for Facebook events. Google named it app of the year in 2024. Business Insider reported that the company raised more than $20 million in 2022. Murthy told The Verge that monthly active users are in the millions, while Appfigures estimated that Partiful was downloaded 4.3 million times in the past year, mostly in the US.
Partiful did not arrive there by waiting for parties to plan themselves. The company has hired campus ambassadors to push the app at colleges. Ayla D’Silva, a former ambassador, told The Verge she received a $100 monthly stipend to host events on Partiful and could earn $50 bonuses for bringing local organizations onto the platform. Anita Osuala, Partiful’s marketing lead, said the company also funds some user events, including birthday and Pride-themed gatherings, and may feature public events on its discovery page.
Ticketing is Partiful’s attempt to serve events that cost money to run, including run clubs, craft nights and community gatherings. The company says its fee depends on ticket price and event size, but it has not published a clear fee table. The Verge reported that, in its tests, a host had to charge $57 to net $50 and $13 to net $10.
Murthy told The Verge that investors did not pressure the company into monetizing and said the core product “will always remain free.” She also said Partiful could adopt a freemium model for some features.
The harder problem is trust. Murthy and cofounder Joy Tao both worked at Palantir from 2014 to 2018. Palantir’s government work, including contracts tied to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli government, has made that history a recurring issue for Partiful users and critics.
Murthy told The Verge that Partiful has no funding from Palantir, no business relationship with it and does not share data with it. She said neither she nor Tao worked on Palantir’s government business, and that both sold their Palantir stock after the company went public. Asked whether she supported Palantir technology being used by ICE or the Israeli government, Murthy said, “Absolutely not.”
Criticism has not been limited to old résumés. Jessica Hallock, who runs NYC Noise, maintains a page explaining why the music and culture site does not use Partiful, citing former Palantir ties, data concerns and the corporate packaging of in-person culture. TechCrunch reported in 2025 that Partiful had not been stripping GPS metadata from uploaded photos, which could expose where an image was taken.
Partiful is now trying to become both the casual invite layer for friend groups and a paid event platform for public gatherings. That is a bigger ask than sending texts about house parties. It requires users to trust who holds the guest list, the photos and now the money.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
