What's a normal response rate by the RSVP deadline?

60-70% is typical. Wedding RSVPs trend higher (close family and friends, social pressure) — expect 75-85% by deadline. Corporate events and milestone birthdays trend lower. Plan to actively chase the final 25-30% in the week after deadline by phone or text. Don't rely on email reminders alone — they get ignored.

How should I count 'maybe' responses in my final estimate?

Default 50% conversion rate is a reasonable starting point. For close-friend events (small wedding, milestone birthday), use 60-70%. For office parties or distant-relation weddings, drop to 30-40%. The maybes that say yes within 7 days of the event almost always show up; maybes that go silent past the deadline almost always don't. After the deadline, treat unresponded 'maybes' as no's for the caterer headcount.

What's the typical no-show rate after a confirmed yes?

5-10% for most events. Higher (10-15%) for free events, work events, weeknight events, and bad-weather events. Lower (2-5%) for paid events, weddings, and events where the host knows everyone personally. Plan a 5-10% headcount buffer with the caterer if their contract allows last-minute reductions; otherwise build it into the food order.

How do I handle plus-ones?

Decide before sending invitations. Either (1) inviting 'Jane Doe and guest' explicitly, (2) inviting only named individuals, or (3) only allowing plus-ones for spouses/long-term partners. Communicate the policy on the invitation. List plus-ones as separate guest entries in the tracker so the headcount matches what the caterer needs. Weddings: typical etiquette is plus-ones for engaged/married/long-term-partnered, no plus-ones for casual dating.

When should I send the RSVP-deadline reminder?

10-14 days before deadline (one nudge by email or text), then 3-5 days before deadline (a more direct ask, ideally by phone or personal text). Final-week followups should be personalized — 'Hey, just confirming you're coming Saturday?' beats a mass-email reminder. After the deadline passes, give 24-48 hours grace, then move unresponded guests to no.

What should I tell the caterer at deadline if some guests are still pending?

Give the caterer your confirmed headcount with a small buffer (3-5%) for stragglers. Most caterers allow ±5-10% adjustment up to 72 hours before the event without penalty; check your contract. Don't over-order: leftover catering is wasted money, and most caterers don't refund for under-attended events. If you're consistently seeing 'maybe' guests confirm late, set your internal deadline 2-3 days before the caterer's deadline so you have a buffer.

Home & Life · Free tool

RSVP Tracker

Track accept, decline, and pending counts, response rates, and meal tallies from a text guest list. Get instant results online, no sign-up required.

Updated June 2026

Guest list (one per line — “Name – yes/no/maybe/pending – meal”)

Total invited

Typical RSVP yes-rate: 75–85% of invites.

Accepted

Declined

Maybe

Pending

Response rate

80%

Projected final

Industry band: 113–128

Meal choice tallies

chicken4

fish2

vegetarian2

3 follow-ups needed

Ben Tanaka, Nina Shah, Owen Reed

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What it does

Paste your guest list with status tags (Yes / No / Maybe / Pending) and meal selections, and get a live dashboard: total invited, total responded, response rate %, projected final attendance (using a configurable maybe-conversion rate), meal tallies for the caterer, and a pending-followup list with everyone who hasn’t responded yet. Runs entirely in your browser, no signup, replaces the spreadsheet you keep accidentally over-writing.

Why a tracker instead of a spreadsheet: weddings, milestone parties, and corporate events almost always need three numbers at once — a total response count for sanity, a projected final attendance for the caterer headcount deadline, and a meal-tally breakdown for the kitchen. Spreadsheets give you the data but require manual COUNTIF formulas and pivot tables to surface those numbers; this tool just shows them. The other thing it does that matters: maintains a rolling pending-followup list so you can copy-paste names into a follow-up email or text instead of digging through the “status = blank” rows manually.

Standard RSVP timeline conventions: send invitations 6-8 weeks before the event for weddings, 4-6 weeks for milestone parties, 3-4 weeks for corporate events. Set your RSVP deadline 2-3 weeks before the event to give the caterer at least 7-10 days notice. Expect 60-70% response rate by deadline — chase the rest by phone or text in the final week (email-only follow-ups rarely work). Final attendance typically lands at 90-95% of confirmed yeses (no-shows happen). Build a 5-10% buffer into the food order: caterers usually charge for the headcount you confirm, not the headcount that shows up.

Embed this tool on your siteShow snippet

Paste this snippet into any page. Loads on-demand (lazy), no tracking scripts, and sized to most dashboards. Replace the height to fit your layout.

<iframe src="https://freetoolarena.com/embed/rsvp-tracker" width="100%" height="720" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" title="RSVP Tracker" style="border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:12px;max-width:720px;"></iframe>

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How to use it

Paste your guest list. One name per line (or one household per line). Add status after a separator: 'Jane Doe | Yes | Beef'. Statuses: Yes, No, Maybe, Pending.
Pick a maybe-conversion rate (default 50%) — what fraction of 'maybe' guests historically actually show up. Use 30% for casual events, 70% for close-friend events.
Read the dashboard: invited, responded, response rate, projected attendance, meal tallies (Beef / Chicken / Vegetarian / Vegan / Kids).
Copy the pending-followup list — names of everyone still showing 'Pending' or blank — and paste into your followup email or text.
Update statuses as new RSVPs come in. Re-paste the updated list to refresh stats. The tool is stateless; bookmark the page or save your list locally.
Export the meal tally to send to the caterer at the deadline — 'For 95 confirmed: 42 beef, 35 chicken, 12 vegetarian, 6 kids meals'. Include a 5-10% buffer if the caterer allows last-minute changes.

When to use this tool

Wedding planning — the caterer needs final headcount and meal selections 7-14 days before the event; missing that deadline costs $500-2000 in last-minute fees.
Milestone birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties — same deadline pressure, just smaller numbers.
Corporate events with food — the office party where 'we expected 50 and 80 showed up' is almost always an RSVP-tracking failure.
When 'I think we have around 80 yes' isn't precise enough and you need a defensible number to give the caterer.

When not to use it

Events with online registration (Eventbrite, Partiful, etc.) — those platforms have their own dashboards and don't need a copy-paste tool.
Truly small events (under 15 guests) — a spreadsheet or even a notebook is fine; the dashboard adds no value at that size.
Walk-up events with no RSVP — concerts, restaurant openings, retail launches don't need a tracker.
When the venue or caterer requires their own RSVP system (some country clubs, hotels with all-inclusive packages) — use theirs and skip the duplicate.

Common use cases

Verifying a number or output before passing it on
Quick use during a typical workday
Pre-decision sanity-check on inputs and outputs
Educational use — demonstrating the underlying concept

Frequently asked questions

What's a normal response rate by the RSVP deadline?: 60-70% is typical. Wedding RSVPs trend higher (close family and friends, social pressure) — expect 75-85% by deadline. Corporate events and milestone birthdays trend lower. Plan to actively chase the final 25-30% in the week after deadline by phone or text. Don't rely on email reminders alone — they get ignored.
How should I count 'maybe' responses in my final estimate?: Default 50% conversion rate is a reasonable starting point. For close-friend events (small wedding, milestone birthday), use 60-70%. For office parties or distant-relation weddings, drop to 30-40%. The maybes that say yes within 7 days of the event almost always show up; maybes that go silent past the deadline almost always don't. After the deadline, treat unresponded 'maybes' as no's for the caterer headcount.
What's the typical no-show rate after a confirmed yes?: 5-10% for most events. Higher (10-15%) for free events, work events, weeknight events, and bad-weather events. Lower (2-5%) for paid events, weddings, and events where the host knows everyone personally. Plan a 5-10% headcount buffer with the caterer if their contract allows last-minute reductions; otherwise build it into the food order.
How do I handle plus-ones?: Decide before sending invitations. Either (1) inviting 'Jane Doe and guest' explicitly, (2) inviting only named individuals, or (3) only allowing plus-ones for spouses/long-term partners. Communicate the policy on the invitation. List plus-ones as separate guest entries in the tracker so the headcount matches what the caterer needs. Weddings: typical etiquette is plus-ones for engaged/married/long-term-partnered, no plus-ones for casual dating.
When should I send the RSVP-deadline reminder?: 10-14 days before deadline (one nudge by email or text), then 3-5 days before deadline (a more direct ask, ideally by phone or personal text). Final-week followups should be personalized — 'Hey, just confirming you're coming Saturday?' beats a mass-email reminder. After the deadline passes, give 24-48 hours grace, then move unresponded guests to no.
What should I tell the caterer at deadline if some guests are still pending?: Give the caterer your confirmed headcount with a small buffer (3-5%) for stragglers. Most caterers allow ±5-10% adjustment up to 72 hours before the event without penalty; check your contract. Don't over-order: leftover catering is wasted money, and most caterers don't refund for under-attended events. If you're consistently seeing 'maybe' guests confirm late, set your internal deadline 2-3 days before the caterer's deadline so you have a buffer.

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