Is Luma Plus worth it for paid events?

Luma's free plan has unlimited events and guests, and charges a 5% platform fee on paid tickets, added on top of Stripe's card fee. Luma Plus removes that platform fee (0%) for a subscription:

• 59 USD a month, billed annually (708 USD a year), shown on luma.com/pricing as "Save 14%";
• 69 USD a month with monthly billing (the monthly option on the same page).

Stripe processing does not go away on either plan. Luma Plus prices are in US dollars.

Two rules from Luma's help centre matter for the math:

• Plus is applied per calendar, not per account, and cannot be moved to another calendar.
• Plus affects only sales after activation; platform fees on earlier transactions are not refunded or credited.

All Luma facts checked on luma.com and help.luma.com on 15 October 2026. Disclosure: this page is published by the AnyEventTool team; AET is included with its limitations.

Because Stripe's fee is the same on both Luma plans, only the platform fee and the subscription differ. Plus is cheaper when:

5% × your monthly paid-ticket sales > the subscription

If your sales are seasonal, the annual plan only pays off if the whole year passes 14,160 USD. A few busy months can be covered by switching to monthly Plus for those months, remembering it is not retroactive: activate it before the sales start.

One calendar, sales in one month, platform fees only (Stripe processing is the same on every option and left out):

For scale, Stripe US processing (2.9% + 0.30 USD, stripe.com/pricing, checked 2026-10-15) adds about 88 USD on 100 tickets at 20 USD, on Luma and on AET alike.

AET's 0 USD holds on the free plan for up to 3 new events a month; a fourth event in the same month needs Pro at 29 USD a month (290 USD a year).

Fees are not the only reason to upgrade. According to luma.com/pricing and Luma's help centre, Plus adds:

• full API and Zapier access;
• a check-in manager role for staff who should only scan tickets;
• 5 calendar admins instead of 3 (extra seats 12 USD a month, or 9 USD billed annually);
• 5,000 invites and newsletters a week instead of 500 (larger send add-ons from 50 USD a month);
• automatic sales tax collection on tickets;
• custom event URLs, separate first and last name fields and priority support.

If you depend on an integration or on check-in-only staff, Plus can be worth it even below the fee break-even. If you only want to stop paying 5%, the table above is the whole decision.

Luma's free plan is hard to beat for free events. It has unlimited events and guests and sends reminders by email, SMS, push and WhatsApp (luma.com/pricing), and people browse Luma to discover events. For a community that runs many free meetups, there is often nothing to pay.

For paid events below the break-even, the alternative to paying 5% or a subscription is a tool without a platform fee. AnyEventTool (AET) charges 0% on tickets on every plan: guests pay into your own Stripe (or plata by mono in Ukraine) and you are the merchant. It also has seat maps and a live quiz, which Luma does not. Its limits, honestly: email reminders only, no discovery audience, no native apps, no REST API or Zapier yet, 3 new events a month on Free, and a young product with a small team.

Full side-by-side: AET vs Luma. Other options: Luma alternatives.

1. Free events only: stay on Luma's free plan; Plus saves you nothing on fees.
2. Paid tickets under about 1,180 USD a month: the free plan's 5% is cheaper than Plus; compare with a 0% tool if the 5% still hurts.
3. Over 1,380 USD a month, steadily: Plus pays for itself; annual billing saves a further 120 USD a year.
4. Several calendars: each needs its own Plus subscription, so check break-even per calendar.
5. Recompute with your prices in the ticket fee calculator or the formulas in ticket fees compared.