Partiful or Party Foul?
Graphic by Jojo Wertheimer
When SU senior Michael Bryan sent me an invite to his birthday party, I was shocked. And no, it’s not because Michael and I are frenemies, or even cheeky academic rivals. Actually, we’re neighbors and friends. I was shocked because the invite came to me the old-fashioned way: as a text with a flyer—no Partiful link to be found.
Partiful, an event planning and invitation platform, has taken the SU party scene by storm. The app allows you to curate an invitation for your event, track RSVPs, and interact with guests via “text blasts,” playlists, a shared photo album, questionnaires, and even an option to ask guests to “chip in.” Since coming back to campus in the fall, nearly every house party I’ve been invited to has been sent to me via Partiful, from a housewarming to a golden birthday. Even some pregames have a Partiful invitation now (“It’s like, we don’t need a Partiful for your Banana Bar Crawl pregame, Erin. Just text you’re having a pregame,” my roommate recently said to me). At this point, I’m weary of any house party without a Partiful link, complete with a full guest list, description, and creative design.
Beyond Syracuse, Partiful has had a fruitful life since its founding in 2020 by two Princeton grads. While the app’s team has never released an exact number of monthly users, it’s been increasing in popularity: in 2024, user activity increased by 600%; in the first quarter of 2025, over 2 million new users joined; and in June, the app was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential companies this year.
Surprised? Honestly, I am. I’ve had positive experiences on Partiful, but I can’t help wondering how an invitation app, arguably a glown-up Evite (which most of us left in the 2010s), is one of the most influential businesses of the past year. As a free app, how are they paying their employees? What is their business plan? And most importantly, why is Bryan not using it?
While most users are 20 and 30-somethings in big cities, the platform has found a treasure trove of users, supporters, and skeptics at SU. Bryan, a rare Partiful skeptic on campus, doesn’t RSVP when he gets a Partiful invitation, even if he plans to go.
“Whenever I get a Partiful invite, it’s never something where I’m like, ‘oh my God, it’s my friend’s party. It’s like, ‘look at this corporate fucking thing,’” Bryan said.
And a “corporate fucking thing” it is. There’s something sinister about the app, lurking under the surface for those who wish to dig it up. Because the app is free, it doesn’t generate revenue. While currently funded by venture capitalists, Partiful needs to find its own revenue source to be sustainable. The platform’s privacy policy says it will not sell user information, but this incredibly awkward, confrontational interview with Co-Founder Shreya Murthy is not making me feel better. In fact, it makes me feel worse: in their data policy, Partiful reserves the right to give out user information “in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business.” In essence, they have the right to give your data to another company, regardless of whether a business transaction actually occurs. When asked about this by a reporter from The Cut, Murthy so eloquently responded, “That’s not realistically something we’re planning on doing.” Not to mention, Partiful’s founders used to work at Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm with business in internet surveillance, the Trump administration, optimising AI for war, and tech infrastructure for ICE and the IDF.
There is also something odd about the way it gamifies and social media-izes social events, like Strava does to running, LinkedIn to networking, and Letterboxd to watching movies. The platform offers suggested “mutuals” (or, in their words, “everyone you've ever partied with”) to add to your invitation or message through the app. After creating a Partiful account, you can look back at all the parties you’ve attended via the app, which keeps a public, running tally of the number of Partiful parties the user has attended.
For SU senior Jaden Vann, this feature isn’t all bad. It helps him look back and reminisce on the parties he’s hosted and attended since joining the app in 2024, from a poetry night to a Halloween party.
“You could look at which parties you hosted, and it's like, ‘Oh, my God, remember that party when I didn't know anyone at my own party?’ No, I'm kidding. But it's fun, it's part of the nostalgic feeling,” he said. “Then again, it's not as tangible as me bringing a digital camera and having all these pictures from the party. It's not the same, but it's something, I guess.”
In a generation caught between pre-technology nostalgia and growing up with an iPhone, Partiful is a double-edged sword. Gen-Z is so fatigued from technology, many are turning to “analog” media like vinyl and the oh-so-vintage wired headphones, yet apps like Partiful are still gaining traction by the day. For Bryan, the ease and benefit of the app just aren’t worth it.
“Invite your friends. Just tell them,” Bryan said. “Why does there need to be an app to invite somebody somewhere? There doesn’t need to be an app for everything.”
Unfortunately, Partiful truly is awesome for hosting (and, arguably, for guests). With the RSVP function, hosts can get an idea of how many people, and who, will be showing up. Through the app’s settings, hosts can also attempt to control things like guest approval, maximum capacity, and plus ones (up to a plus nine).
“People want their party to be secure, and Partiful helps with that,” Bryan said. “Although, to be honest, you throw a party, people sign up on Partiful—there’s gonna be randoms that show up anyway. Maybe that’s why I think it’s [pointless]. If weirdos show up, then weirdos show up. That’s the worry with every party, right? That somebody shows up and breaks your shit.”
For anxious party-goers like myself, this feature can be life-saving. Concerned that an old situationship may show up to the function? Check the Partiful. Worried that not enough people will show up to celebrate finishing your capstone? You know where to look. Need to move the party from 9 to 9:30 because the keg is leaking uncontrollably? Tell everyone at once with a text blast.
On Halloween, Vann hosted a party via Partiful with over 131 confirmed RSVPs. I attended, and shortly after, received a text blast from one of the hosts requesting that whoever stole “the Gibby flag that hung high in the living room” give it back. Clearly, Partiful can’t guarantee no one will break—or steal—your shit. But Vann, who has hosted three parties using the app, agrees it’s helpful for hosting, like when a girl left her purse in the sink, and they sent a picture to the guest list so she could claim it. He also likes the playlist feature, in which the party’s host can send out a shared playlist so guests can contribute.
“The pro is that it's kind of fun, it's kind of quirky, it's kind of modern, and I like that. The downside is that you kind of want this feeling that you don't really know who's going to show up,” Vann said. “I think back to maybe when we were freshmen and sophomores, and we’d go to these parties and have no idea who would be there… [Partiful] takes some of the magic away, I'd say, of what a party is meant to do.”