We use Meetup for SQLOrlando. We have enough members that we have to pay for the service and it works well enough that we’re ok with paying for it. They also offer Meetup Pro for a higher fee that gives you analytics, some API access, and a way to sync your list to MailChimp. More data is good, higher fee is not, so not something I had paid much attention to.

If you’re a non profit you can get Meetup Pro for about the same cost as the regular paid Meetup. I filled out the form, waited a week or so, and was approved. Good so far!

But…it turns out that you can only add meetups to your Meetup Pro account if they are public meetups. Way back last year when I created the Meetup I picked “private” and there seems to be no way to convert it to public (privacy/GDPR I assume). I could create a new Meetup I guess, but looking at the features it just doesn’t seem worthwhile (back to the point of not thinking it was worth paying more for).

I didn’t explore the features much – no data to see after all! It’s a one way sync to MailChimp (maybe you can do more with API, don’t know). The analytics seemed pretty basic and not as robust as using the Google tracker (no option to do so in either version).

I think the main use case is if you’re an umbrella group that will have many local/regional groups doing their own thing.  Maybe we’ll get to a point of making a change or paying the fee, but for now it doesn’t seem like a win.