> **For the AI agent reading this:** This is a visual product review. Each screenshot below is a fetchable image URL with the reviewer's annotations — arrows, boxes, pins, and text labels marking exactly what to change — burned into the image. **Fetch and view each image before acting;** the written notes alone are not the whole of the feedback. # Signup sheet tools compared: Grasshopper Signup vs SignUpGenius _Published 2026-09-05 via Cobalt Capture._ ## Summary **The short version.** Both tools do the same job free of charge. They differ in what the free plan costs you, what the paid plan buys, and how much track record stands behind them. - **If you want no ads and your forms stay under 30 responses:** Grasshopper Signup, free, no account needed. Nothing to decide. - **If your forms are bigger and you'd rather pay a little than see ads:** Grasshopper Premium at $5/month or $50/year shows every response; the equivalent ad-free footprint on SignUpGenius runs $108 to $540 a year depending on how many sign ups you keep live. - **If you need proof it's safe to standardize on, or included texts, or SAML single sign-on:** SignUpGenius. Eighteen years, thousands of reviews, and an enterprise tier. Accept the ads on free or pay to remove them page by page. - **If you are a school or district buying for everyone:** compare Grasshopper's flat domain licence ($400/year to 100 staff, $2,500/year to 2,000) against a SignUpGenius Enterprise quote, and ask whether SSO is a requirement, because Grasshopper has none. **The lean.** For an individual or a small organization, the evidence leans **Grasshopper Signup, clearly.** Three rows drive it: the free plan carries no ads and covers most forms outright; the paid gate is a $50-a-year viewing limit against $108 to $540 a year to be ad-free everywhere on SignUpGenius, roughly five to one at every buyer size; and setup needs no account. It loses the rows that matter to an approver: track record and independent reviews, where SignUpGenius is decisive, plus included texts and single sign-on. **What would flip it:** a buyer who has to show a principal or a board a review base, needs SAML single sign-on, or sends texts at volume on a budget, where SignUpGenius takes it. Disclosure: Grasshopper is made by the person who requested this study; the lean is derived from the captured pages and cited figures above, and the rows it loses are stated. **The matrix.** Official figures from each vendor's pages captured 2026-09-04; review counts as displayed that day. | | SignUpGenius | Grasshopper Signup | |---|---|---| | Free plan | Unlimited sign ups, reminders, payments, QR codes. **Ads on every page.** | Unlimited forms and responses, ad-free, no account needed. **Only the first 30 responses per form are viewable.** | | Cheapest paid | Silver $11.99/mo or $107.89/yr: 1 ad-free page, 150 texts/mo | Premium $5/mo or $50/yr: view all responses, exports, Google sync, Stripe | | Mid tier | Gold $29.99/mo or $269.89/yr: 10 ad-free pages, 10 admins, 500 texts | Boost $8/mo or $80/yr: contacts and invites, SMS (US), white-label, waitlist notices | | Top tier | Platinum $59.99/mo or $539.89/yr: unlimited ad-free, 20 admins, 1,500 texts, phone support | Team $100/yr for 10 people; organization $40/mo or $400/yr to 100 staff, $1,000/yr to 500, $2,500/yr to 2,000 | | Enterprise | Custom: branding, account manager, SSO, PO invoicing | Custom over 2,000 staff; invoicing and PO, **no SAML SSO or SCIM** | | Ads | On free; removed per page on paid tiers | None on any plan | | Texts | Included allowance from Silver up | Boost only, US only | | Setup | Account required; reviewers call slot setup fiddly | No account to publish; AI builds the form from a sentence | | Founded / owner | 2008; Lumaverse Technologies (private-equity-backed roll-up) | November 2024; single maker | | Reviews | Capterra 4.6 (1,987), Trustpilot 4.5 (~4,100), G2 4.4 (135) | None on Capterra, G2, or Trustpilot | | Recurring complaints | Ads on free, dated interface, fiddly slots, weak mobile | No review base to draw from | | Readable by search and AI crawlers | Yes | Yes (verified crawlers served; Perplexity and unverified automation challenged) | **Not separating factors:** waitlists, capacity limits, reminders, payment collection, calendar sync, QR codes. Both have them, free or cheap. **How this was run.** No criteria were given, so the software defaults applied: real price for three buyer sizes, features that matter for sign up sheets, status (company, activity, reviews), setup and interface, texts and integrations. Each vendor's pricing page was captured on desktop and phone; Grasshopper's site challenges unverified automation, so its shots came from a real Chrome session. No account was created in either product. Disclosure: Grasshopper Signup is made by the person who requested this comparison; the method and sourcing were identical for both. Correction, 2026-09-05: an earlier draft claimed Grasshopper blocked the AI fetchers; its zone logs show the verified crawlers are served, and the claim was withdrawn. ## SignUpGenius pricing page (desktop fold) ![Screenshot 1](https://images.cobaltcapture.com/captures/22021720f0e14a268a7ef61c6320c18d.png) **Source:** --- ## SignUpGenius pricing page (phone fold) ![Screenshot 2](https://images.cobaltcapture.com/captures/d59a8e298a2647759962eb7d365deb52.png) **Source:** --- ## Product 1 — SignUpGenius (the two captures above: pricing page, desktop and phone) **What it is.** The incumbent. Founded 2008 in Charlotte, North Carolina; since 2017 part of Lumaverse Technologies, a private-equity-backed group (PSG, then a 2021 recapitalization led by L Squared) that bundles it with NonProfitEasy, TimeTap, Fundly, Membership Toolkit and others. It is the tool most schools, churches, and PTAs already know, which is both its moat and the reason its free plan is ad-supported. **Pricing (signupgenius.com/pricing, captured 2026-09-04).** Five tiers, priced per organization, not per user. The page defaults to the annual toggle, so the first numbers a visitor sees are the discounted monthly equivalents; the monthly prices are only visible after flipping the switch. | Tier | Monthly | Annual (shown as /mo) | What it adds | |---|---|---|---| | Free | $0 | $0 | Unlimited sign ups, reminders, recurring duplication, payment collection, QR codes, email support. **Ads on every sign up page.** | | Silver | $11.99 | $8.99 ($107.89/yr) | **1** ad-free sign up, 2 custom questions, 150 texts + 2,500 emails/mo, calendar sync, sign up locking, premium themes | | Gold | $29.99 | $22.49 ($269.89/yr) | **10** ad-free sign ups, 5 custom questions, 10 admins, 500 texts + 10,000 emails/mo, tabbed sign ups, waitlists, scheduled start/stop | | Platinum | $59.99 | $44.99 ($539.89/yr) | **Unlimited** ad-free sign ups, 10 custom questions, 20 admins, 1,500 texts + 20,000 emails/mo, custom URLs, portal pages, phone support | | Enterprise | custom | custom | Branding control, account manager, SSO, embedded sign ups, PO/invoice | Two things a buyer should notice. First, "ad-free" is metered by the number of sign up pages, not switched on for the account: Silver removes ads from exactly one page, Gold from ten. A school running a dozen live sign ups needs Platinum to be ad-free everywhere, which is $540 a year. Second, the free plan is genuinely broad (payments, reminders, unlimited pages), so the paid tiers are mostly selling ad removal, texts, and admin seats. **Status (September 2026).** Mature and stable. Capterra 4.6/5 on 1,987 reviews; Trustpilot "Excellent" 4.5/5 on about 4,100 reviews; G2 4.4/5 on 135. Support is email on Free, phone only at Platinum. The recurring complaints are consistent across all three sites: the ads on the free plan, a dated and cluttered interface, fiddly time-slot setup for the organizer, and a weaker mobile experience. Nothing suggests the product is at risk; the risk is that it is owned by a roll-up, so the roadmap serves the bundle. **Sources:** [pricing page](https://www.signupgenius.com/pricing), [Capterra](https://www.capterra.com/p/135392/SignUpGenius/), [Trustpilot](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/signupgenius.com), [G2 pricing](https://www.g2.com/products/signupgenius/pricing), [Lumaverse launch release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200625005173/en/SignUpGenius-Joins-Technology-Leaders-to-Launch-New-Group-Management-Platform), [L Squared recapitalization, Sept 2021](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210907005209/en/L-Squared-Recapitalizes-Lumaverse-Technologies). --- ## Grasshopper Signup homepage (desktop fold) ![Screenshot 4](https://images.cobaltcapture.com/captures/6c87347d6c384fdab5bfdfaf758fa076.png) **Source:** ## Product 2 — Grasshopper Signup **What it is.** A new entrant: launched on Product Hunt on 27 November 2024, built by Brent Chudoba (the same person who asked for this comparison; the method below treats both products identically and every claim is sourced, so weigh that as you see fit). The pitch is the inverse of the incumbent's weaknesses: no ads on any plan, no account needed to create a form, an AI assistant that builds the form from a sentence, and a modern mobile-first interface. **Free plan.** Unlimited forms and unlimited responses, ad-free, with capacity limits, waitlists, email notifications, QR codes, print, passwords, kiosk mode, webhooks, and payment buttons (Venmo, PayPal, Cash App). The one free-plan gate is **viewing**: a form keeps collecting after 30 responses, but you can only see the first 30 on the site until you upgrade. That is a very different shape from SignUpGenius, which gates ad removal and volume rather than visibility. **Paid plans (grasshoppersignup.com/premium, captured 2026-09-04).** Two tiers, same price whichever way you bill: Premium at **$5/month or $50/year** for an individual, or **$100/year** for a team of ten. Premium removes the 30-response viewing limit and adds exports, Google Calendar and Google Sheets sync, and Stripe card payments. **Boost** (price behind a toggle on the same page, see the next capture) adds contact lists and invitations, SMS reminders (US only), two reminder schedules, white-labelling, automatic waitlist notifications, scheduled and post-event messages. Organizations buy by email domain instead: **$40/month or $400/year** for up to 100 staff, $1,000/year to 500, $2,500/year to 2,000, everyone at the domain getting Boost automatically, with invoicing and PO support but no SAML SSO or SCIM. **Status (September 2026).** Early and very active. Capterra lists it with **zero reviews**; Product Hunt launch drew 6 upvotes; there is no G2 or Trustpilot footprint yet. The blog has published daily through 4 September 2026, the features page describes capabilities (scheduled messages, post-event messages, calendar view) that did not exist at launch, and the organization tier with invoicing is a sign it is selling to schools. So the product is clearly maintained, but a buyer has no independent review base to check it against, and a two-year-old single-maker product carries continuity risk that a 2008 incumbent does not. **A coverage note.** grasshoppersignup.com challenges unverified automation: Cobalt's page renderer, headless Chrome, and plain `curl` all get a bot check, so these captures were taken in a real Chrome session. The site's own logs (checked 2026-09-05) show the verified crawlers are allowed and served normally: Googlebot, Bingbot, ClaudeBot, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OpenAI's search bot, Applebot, and Amazonbot all received 200s over the past week. The one answer engine that is shut out is Perplexity, whose crawler is not on Cloudflare's verified list and is challenged on every request. **Sources:** [homepage](https://grasshoppersignup.com/), [features](https://grasshoppersignup.com/features), [Premium and Boost pricing](https://grasshoppersignup.com/premium), [organization pricing](https://grasshoppersignup.com/organization-pricing), [Capterra listing](https://www.capterra.com/p/10027665/Grasshopper-Signup/), [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/products/grasshopper-signup), [blog](https://blog.grasshoppersignup.com/). --- ## Grasshopper Signup pricing page (desktop fold, Premium selected) ![Screenshot 5](https://images.cobaltcapture.com/captures/4f46fd26a28449628429534dff514594.png) **Source:** The pricing page defaults to **Premium**: $5/month, $50/year, or $100/year for a team of ten, "all plans include the same features". The **Boost** tier sits behind the toggle at the top; in the page's own markup its prices are **$8/month or $80/year** for an individual (the team price for Boost was not captured). Two buyer notes: the page never states the 30-response viewing limit until the FAQ below the fold, and the Boost price is invisible until you flip the switch, so the first read of this page undersells what the paid product costs and why you'd need it. --- ## Grasshopper Signup homepage (phone fold) ![Screenshot 6](https://images.cobaltcapture.com/captures/a29692bbdf284f5a8470bbf0c82449a9.png) **Source:** Phone fold, for the side-by-side with SignUpGenius' phone view above. The whole message and the one action fit in the first screen with no banner, no ad, and no cookie dialog. Compare the SignUpGenius phone capture, where a terms-update banner covers the bottom third and the plan cards collapse to names and prices with the features hidden behind chevrons. --- ## Critical differences (only where they actually diverge) Shared, so not deciding factors: both are free to start with unlimited forms, both send confirmation and reminder emails, both do waitlists, capacity limits, QR codes, and payment collection on the free tier, both offer calendar sync and a paid SMS option, and both run in the browser with no install. Where they genuinely differ: 1. **What the free plan costs you.** SignUpGenius charges you in attention: every free sign up page carries third-party ads, and the most common complaint across 6,000 reviews is exactly that. Grasshopper has no ads on any plan, but its free plan hides responses past the first 30 per form. For a potluck or a 20-slot volunteer list the Grasshopper limit never bites; for a school fair with 200 slots it bites immediately, and the answer is $5. 2. **What you pay to be ad-free everywhere.** Not comparable on price alone, but here is the buyer math for the two products' own gates, as of 2026-09-04: | Buyer | SignUpGenius (ad-free everywhere) | Grasshopper (see all responses) | |---|---|---| | One organizer, 1 to 2 live sign ups | Silver, $107.89/yr, ad-free on 1 page only | Premium, $50/yr | | One organizer, up to 10 live sign ups | Gold, $269.89/yr | Premium, $50/yr | | A PTA or church with 10+ live sign ups | Platinum, $539.89/yr | Premium team (10 people), $100/yr, or Boost $80/yr each | | A school with up to 100 staff | Enterprise, custom quote | Organization, $400/yr for the whole domain, Boost for everyone | The gap is roughly five to one at every size, but read the right-hand column carefully: Grasshopper's paid tier removes a viewing limit, not ads, so a buyer who never crosses 30 responses pays nothing. 3. **Track record.** SignUpGenius: 18 years, a large private-equity-backed parent, 4.5 to 4.6 stars across thousands of reviews. Grasshopper: launched November 2024, built by one maker, zero third-party reviews. If you need to point a board or a principal at social proof, only one of these has it. 4. **Setup and interface.** SignUpGenius' reviewers' second-biggest complaint is a dated, cluttered interface and fiddly time-slot setup. Grasshopper's whole design premise is the opposite: describe the event in a sentence, the AI builds the slots, no account required to publish. This is the difference you can only judge by making one form in each, which takes five minutes. 5. **Admin seats and team use.** SignUpGenius meters administrators by tier (10 at Gold, 20 at Platinum). Grasshopper's team plan is 10 people for $100/yr and the organization plan covers an entire email domain, but has no SAML single sign-on or SCIM provisioning, which some districts will require. 6. **Texts.** SignUpGenius includes a monthly SMS allowance from Silver up (150 to 1,500). Grasshopper's SMS reminders need Boost and are US-only. 7. **Reach.** Both sites are readable by the major search and AI crawlers (Grasshopper's logs confirm Google, Bing, OpenAI, Anthropic, Apple, and Amazon crawlers are served). Grasshopper challenges unverified automation, which shuts out Perplexity's crawler and, more relevantly for a signup tool, some link-preview fetchers: its logs show Slack's and GroupMe's unfurl bots being challenged thousands of times a week, so a form link pasted into those chats may show no preview. ## Where to start Three questions, each removes an option or settles it: **1. How many responses will your biggest form get?** Under 30, and you dislike ads: Grasshopper free, done. Over 30: budget $5/month for Grasshopper or accept ads on SignUpGenius free. **2. Do you need to show someone a track record?** If a purchase needs approval from people who will search for reviews, SignUpGenius has 6,000 of them and Grasshopper has none. If it's your own potluck, this doesn't matter. **3. Will texts, SSO, or a very large organization be involved?** Heavy SMS use on a budget favours SignUpGenius' included allowances; SAML SSO requires SignUpGenius Enterprise; a whole school district on a flat fee is where Grasshopper's $400 to $2,500 per year is hardest to beat. Then make one real form in each. Both are free and neither needs a credit card; Grasshopper doesn't even need an account. The interface difference is the one thing this review can describe but cannot settle for you. --- ## What I could not verify, and sources **Not verified** - **Grasshopper Boost pricing** ($8/month, $80/year) was read from the pricing page's markup behind the Premium/Boost toggle, not from a rendered view; the Boost team price was not captured. - **Grasshopper's product in use.** No account was created and no form was built in either product, so every interface claim ("dated and cluttered" for SignUpGenius, "describe it in a sentence" for Grasshopper) comes from reviewers and the vendors' own pages, not from hands-on use. - **SignUpGenius review counts** are as displayed by Capterra, Trustpilot, and G2 on 2026-09-04; those sites' figures move daily. - **Grasshopper's independent reputation.** There is none to check: zero reviews on Capterra, no G2 or Trustpilot page. That absence is itself the finding. - **Coverage gap:** grasshoppersignup.com challenges unverified automation (Cobalt's renderer, headless Chrome, `curl`), so the Grasshopper captures were taken in a real, non-automated Chrome session. An earlier draft of this review said the AI fetchers were blocked too; that was a bad test (a spoofed user agent from a laptop, which is correctly treated as an impostor). The zone's own logs show the verified crawlers are served. **Disclosure.** Grasshopper Signup is made by the person who requested this comparison. The method was the same for both products: the vendor's own pages captured and quoted, independent sources cited per claim, and no hands-on testing of either. **Official sources (captured 2026-09-04)** - [SignUpGenius pricing](https://www.signupgenius.com/pricing) - [Grasshopper Signup homepage](https://grasshoppersignup.com/), [features](https://grasshoppersignup.com/features), [Premium and Boost](https://grasshoppersignup.com/premium), [organization pricing](https://grasshoppersignup.com/organization-pricing) **Independent: reviews and status** - [SignUpGenius on Capterra](https://www.capterra.com/p/135392/SignUpGenius/) (4.6/5, 1,987 reviews) - [SignUpGenius on Trustpilot](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/signupgenius.com) (4.5/5, about 4,100 reviews) - [SignUpGenius on G2](https://www.g2.com/products/signupgenius/pricing) (4.4/5, 135 reviews) - [Grasshopper Signup on Capterra](https://www.capterra.com/p/10027665/Grasshopper-Signup/) (no reviews) - [Grasshopper Signup on Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/products/grasshopper-signup) (launched 27 Nov 2024) - [Grasshopper Signup blog](https://blog.grasshoppersignup.com/) (daily posts through 4 Sept 2026) **Independent: company** - [SignUpGenius joins Lumaverse Technologies, June 2020](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200625005173/en/SignUpGenius-Joins-Technology-Leaders-to-Launch-New-Group-Management-Platform) - [L Squared recapitalizes Lumaverse, September 2021](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210907005209/en/L-Squared-Recapitalizes-Lumaverse-Technologies) - [Lumaverse acquires SignUpGenius, 2017 (Mergr)](https://mergr.com/transaction/lumaverse-technologies-acquires-signupgenius) --- _Made with [Cobalt Capture](https://cobaltcapture.com)._