Punchbowl used to be the free alternative to Evite. Not anymore. Punchbowl switched to a subscription model, and here’s the part that surprises people: some of the paid tiers still show ads to your guests.
That changes this whole Mixily vs Punchbowl comparison. One platform charges $3.99 to $15.99 a month. The other has a free plan with zero ads, forever.
Full disclosure: Nick Gray, the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, bought Mixily in January 2026. So yes, we’re biased. But we’re going to give you the honest version, including the places where Punchbowl genuinely beats us. There’s one where it’s not even close.
Key Takeaways
- Punchbowl is no longer free. After a 7-day trial (credit card required), plans run $3.99 to $15.99 per month, and only the top tiers remove ads.
- Mixily’s free plan is free forever: no ads, no trial clock, no credit card, up to 50 invites per event.
- Punchbowl’s killer feature is 650+ licensed characters (Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon) for kids’ party invitations.
- For everything that isn’t a character-themed kids’ party, Mixily is the cheaper, cleaner pick.
Quick verdict: Mixily is the free, ad-free pick. Punchbowl now requires a subscription ($3.99 to $15.99 per month) and still shows ads on its cheaper paid tiers. Unless you need official Disney or Marvel artwork for a kids’ party, there’s no reason to pay. Start free on Mixily →
Mixily vs Punchbowl: Quick Comparison
| Feature | Punchbowl | Mixily |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Subscription: $3.99-$15.99/mo (after 7-day trial) | Free plan forever; paid plans from $19/mo |
| Free tier | No (7-day trial, credit card required) | Yes, no credit card |
| Ads | Yes on Plus and Premium tiers; ad-free only at Platinum ($15.99/mo regular) | Never, on any plan |
| Design quality | Polished, paper-like, envelope animations | Clean, modern, your own photos or Unsplash |
| Licensed characters | 650+ (Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon, more) | No |
| RSVP tracking | Yes/No/Maybe with headcount | Yes/No/Maybe plus custom RSVP questions |
| Guest capacity | 50 to 5,000 (depends on plan) | 50 invites free; up to 1,500 on Plus |
| Account required to RSVP | No | No |
| Automated reminders | Limited | Yes, on the free plan |
| Date polling | No (general guest polls only) | Yes |
| Potluck organizer | Yes | No |
| Platform | iOS and Android apps | Web-based, works on any device |
Is Punchbowl Still Free? No. Here’s What It Costs
Punchbowl launched in 2006 and spent years as a genuinely free invitation site. That era is over. Today you get a 7-day free trial, and you have to enter a credit card before you can send anything.
After the trial, you pick a paid plan:
- Plus (up to 50 guests): $3.99/mo promo, $7.99/mo regular
- Premium (up to 100 guests): $5.99/mo promo, $11.99/mo regular
- Platinum (up to 500 guests): $7.99/mo promo, $15.99/mo regular
- Business (up to 5,000 guests): $39.99/mo promo, $79.99/mo regular
Those numbers come straight from Punchbowl’s published plan pages as of July 2026. The promo rate is what they advertise up front; the regular rate is what renewals cost.
Here’s the detail that bothers us most. Only Platinum and Business remove ads. If you’re on Plus or Premium, you’re paying a monthly fee and your guests still see ads next to your party details.
Billing is the other sore spot. Complaints on BBB and other consumer-review sites describe surprise charges when the trial ended, annual billing when people expected monthly, and trouble canceling. We covered this in more depth in our Evite vs Punchbowl comparison.
Set a phone reminder for day 6 if you start a Punchbowl trial. The trial requires a credit card, and it converts to a paid subscription automatically.
Assume “free invitations” marketing means free. Punchbowl’s own site still uses that language, but there is no free plan after the 7-day trial ends.
How Much Does Mixily Cost?
Mixily’s free plan is $0 forever. Not a trial. No credit card. Here’s what it includes:
- 2 active events at a time
- Up to 50 invites and 40 RSVPs per event
- 200 emails per week for invitations and reminders
- Custom RSVP questions, date polling, co-hosting, and password protection
- Zero ads, ever
Sit with that for a second. Punchbowl’s cheapest plan is $7.99 a month (regular price) for 50 guests, with ads. Mixily gives you 50 invites for free, without ads.
If you outgrow the free plan, Mixily’s paid plans are Lite at $19/month (100 invites per event), Pro at $29/month (250 invites), and Plus at $79/month (1,500 invites, unlimited events). Those are built for people who host a lot: monthly meetups, community groups, conference series.
Take Sarah in Austin, one of the hosts we profiled on our plans page. She runs a weekly coffee meetup with 400 members. She invites about 60 people each week and needs automatic reminders before every event. The $19 Lite plan covers her completely. A hobby host sending one birthday invitation needs none of that. The free plan is plenty.
Where Punchbowl Wins
We promised honesty. Here it is.
Licensed characters, and it’s a landslide
Punchbowl has 650+ licensed characters from Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, Sanrio, and more. If your 6-year-old wants an official Elsa invitation for a Frozen birthday party, Punchbowl is the only invitation platform with the real artwork. Mixily has nothing like this. Neither does anyone else.
For character-themed kids’ parties, Punchbowl is worth the subscription. Full stop.
Polished, card-like designs
Punchbowl invitations mimic physical cards: envelope liners, stamps, opening animations. It’s a nice touch, and their design catalog looks current. Mixily’s event pages are clean and modern, and you can upload your own photos or pull from Unsplash, but we don’t do the digital-envelope theater.
Extra party tools
Punchbowl includes a potluck organizer where guests sign up for dishes, guest polling, attachable digital gift cards from 20+ brands, and video messages inside greeting cards. Mixily doesn’t have a built-in potluck signup. If those extras matter to you, that’s a real difference.
Where Mixily Wins
Actually free, actually ad-free
This is the whole ballgame for most hosts. Your guests see your event page and nothing else. No banner ads, no trial countdown, no credit card form. Punchbowl can’t say any of that, even on some paid plans.
Guests RSVP in seconds, no account needed
Your guests click the link, type their name, done. No app download, no account creation. That friction matters more than people think: every extra step costs you responses. If chasing replies is your usual pain, our favorite RSVP collection tactics pair nicely with a one-click RSVP page.
Automated reminders on the free plan
Mixily sends scheduled invitations and automatic reminders to people who haven’t responded, free. Punchbowl’s reminder tools are lighter, and you’re paying for them. Well-timed reminder messages are the single easiest way to cut no-shows, so we refuse to paywall them.
Your guest list carries over
Mixily’s contact dashboard tracks who came to what across all your events. Host a second party and your guest list is already there. Punchbowl keeps contacts too, but the cheap tiers cap you at 50 guests, so growing your list literally costs money.
The Real Cost After One Year
Let’s run the numbers for one year of hosting:
- Punchbowl Plus: $47.88 to $95.88, and your guests still see ads
- Punchbowl Platinum (the cheapest ad-free tier): $95.88 to $191.88
- Mixily Free: $0, no ads
Stretch that to two years and the gap gets silly: $191 to $383 for ad-free Punchbowl, still $0 on Mixily.
For context, the rest of the market isn’t any kinder. Evite Premium runs $17.99 to $99.99 per event to remove ads, per Evite’s published pricing as of July 2026. Paperless Post charges per send with its Coin system. Every major platform finds a way to charge you for the privilege of inviting your own friends. Mixily’s free plan is the outlier, and that’s deliberate: Nick’s whole thing is getting more people to host more gatherings, and a paywall on invitations works against that.
And if you have one big event that needs more than 50 invites? Upgrade to Mixily Lite for $19, send everything, then cancel. You keep access through the end of the billing month. There’s no trial trap because there’s no trial.
Mixily vs Punchbowl: Which Should You Pick?
Choose Punchbowl if:
- Your kid wants a specific character theme (Disney, Marvel, Paw Patrol, Bluey) and only official artwork will do
- You want a built-in potluck organizer or digital gift cards
- You don’t mind a monthly subscription and ads on the cheaper tiers
Choose Mixily if:
- You want free with no ads and no credit card
- You host adult events: dinner parties, happy hours, meetups, showers, reunions
- You want automated reminders and RSVP tracking without paying for them
- You host regularly and want your guest list to carry over between events
Count how many events you’ll actually host this year before subscribing to anything. Twice-a-year hosts should never be on a monthly plan.
Pay $95+ a year for invitation software out of habit. Try the free option first and upgrade only when you hit a real limit.
Switching From Punchbowl to Mixily
Already paying for Punchbowl and want out? The move takes about ten minutes.
Step 1: Export or copy your guest list. Open your most recent Punchbowl event and copy your guests’ email addresses. Even if you only grab the regulars, that’s most of the work done.
Step 2: Cancel your Punchbowl subscription. Do this from your account settings, and do it before your next billing date. Based on the billing complaints we’ve read, don’t wait until the last day. Then confirm the cancellation email arrived.
Step 3: Create your first Mixily event. Paste in your guest list, add a photo, and send. Your guests won’t need to make an account, and nobody sees an ad.
Do the quick math before you go. Paying Punchbowl $11.99 a month while hosting four parties a year works out to about $36 per party. Before decorations. Before food. Just to send the invitation.
How These Two Compare to Other Platforms
Punchbowl isn’t the only platform people cross-shop. A quick map of the rest of the field:
Evite is the biggest name and still has a free tier, but it’s ad-heavy and the templates feel dated. We broke it down in our Mixily vs Evite comparison.
Partiful is free and popular with younger crowds, strong on flashy invites, lighter on host tools. See our Mixily vs Partiful comparison.
Paperless Post is the premium pick for formal events, with pay-per-send Coins instead of a subscription. Our Evite vs Paperless Post comparison covers how that pricing really adds up.
Notice the pattern? Every big platform charges you money, shows your guests ads, or both. That’s the gap Mixily fills.
The Bottom Line
In the Mixily vs Punchbowl matchup, Punchbowl is a good product with a pricing problem. The designs are polished and the licensed characters are unbeatable for kids’ parties. But it isn’t free anymore, the trial requires a credit card, and paying $3.99 to $11.99 a month while your guests still see ads is hard to defend.
Mixily is free forever for most hosts, with no ads on any plan, and the paid tiers only make sense when you’re hosting at real volume.
If you’re throwing a Frozen birthday party, go pay Punchbowl for the official Elsa. For everything else? Start free on Mixily → It takes about two minutes, and there’s no trial to forget about.
Related reading: Evite vs Punchbowl | Mixily vs Evite | Mixily vs Partiful | Evite vs Paperless Post
