Short answer: make the invitation, copy its public link, and paste it into the group chat. Anyone who opens it can RSVP. You do not need email addresses, phone numbers or a guest list, and the people who open it do not need an account, an app or a verification code. On RSVora that link is free and there is no cap on how many people use it.
Why the group chat is where invitations live now
Most invitations are not sent to a list any more. They are dropped into a thread that already exists: the school WhatsApp, the family iMessage, the team Slack channel, the group of six who always come.
Every product that requires you to enter each guest's email address before you can send anything is solving a problem you no longer have. You already have a way to reach these people. What you do not have is a headcount.
What actually goes wrong when you ask in the chat
Asking "who's in for Saturday?" in a thread fails in four predictable ways:
- Replies get buried. Three people answer, then somebody posts a photo, and by the evening the yeses are forty messages up.
- Nobody says how many. "We're in!" is one person or four, and you will not know until they arrive.
- The quiet ones stay quiet. Answering in front of twelve people is a social act. Answering a link is not.
- You become the spreadsheet. You are scrolling back through a chat at 11pm counting thumbs-up reactions.
A link fixes all four, because the reply goes to a form instead of an audience.
How to do it
- Create the event. Title, date with the day of the week, time, address, RSVP-by date. About a minute.
- Pick a design — free catalogue, or upload your own image. Nothing is watermarked.
- Skip the guest list. You do not need it for this. Go straight to the share step.
- Copy the public link and paste it into the chat.
- Watch the dashboard. Yes / no counts, adults and children separately, and a note field if anyone wants to tell you they are bringing a dessert.
The link unfurls in the chat as a proper preview card with the event name, not a bare URL, so it looks like an invitation rather than a stray address.
Say one line with it
The link does the work, but a sentence above it doubles the reply rate, because it tells people what is being asked:
Saturday the 12th, 4pm at ours — burgers and a bouncy castle. Tap the link and tell me how many of you are coming so I know how much to buy. Need numbers by Thursday.
Event, date, what it is, the ask, the deadline, and the reason for the deadline. The reason matters: "so I know how much to buy" turns a deadline from pressure into logistics.
When to use per-guest links instead
The public link is the right default. Switch to named guests with private links when:
- You need to know exactly who has not replied, so you can chase specific people.
- You want an opened-versus-replied signal — who has seen it and is deciding, versus who has not seen it at all.
- The guest list is sensitive — a surprise party, a wedding, anything where the wrong forward is a problem.
You can do both on one event: public link in the chat, named guests for the people you want to track. Both land in the same dashboard.
The things you are not asking of people
Worth stating, because several popular products do ask:
- No account.
- No app to install.
- No phone number.
- No verification code texted to them.
- No Facebook.
They tap the link, the envelope opens, they answer. The page renders in their own device language automatically, which matters more than you would think in a school or family group.
There is a breakdown of exactly what each invitation product asks a guest for in which invitation apps don't make your guests sign up.
Make one now — the link is ready before you have finished picking a design.