Every guide to RSVPs, including ours, tells hosts what response rate to expect. Almost none of them measure it. This report does: it is built on 70,624 real events hosted on Greenvelope over twelve months, covering 5,543,430 invitations and 4,276,873 responses, classified into 23 event types and analyzed by guest count and season. No survey, no estimates, no borrowed statistics. These are the response rates events actually get.
Two notes before the numbers. First, this is first-party data from a single platform: Greenvelope is a digital invitation platform with built-in RSVP tracking, individually addressed invitations, and targeted reminders, and hosts who choose it are hosts who care about responses, so these benchmarks likely sit above what generic mass emails achieve. We state that plainly rather than let the numbers imply otherwise. Second, the full methodology, including what was excluded and why, is published at the end, and every figure in this report can be traced to it.
At a Glance
- The median event gets an 85.3% response rate; 78.9% of all responses are yes
- Bar and bat mitzvahs are the best-responding events measured, at 94.6%; grand openings and open houses are the lowest, at 42.9%
- Weddings run 88.9% at the median, and 80.9% of wedding responses are yes
- Response rates rise with guest count up to about 250 guests, peaking at 92.5%
- Seasonality is nearly a myth: monthly medians span just 83.3% to 86.8% across the year
Key Findings
1. The median event hears back from 85.3% of its guest list. Half of all events measured got a response, yes or no, from more than 85% of invited guests. Personal events run higher than business events: the median personal event reached 86.4%, while the median business event reached 74.6%.
2. Guests who respond usually say yes. Across all 4.3 million responses, 78.9% were yes. For hosts staring at a quiet guest list, the base rate is reassuring: the average reply is an acceptance, not a decline.
3. Response rates track commitment. The 23 event types form a clean gradient. Family milestone events command the top of the table: bar and bat mitzvahs at 94.6%, engagement parties at 92.3%, bridal showers at 90.0%, weddings and rehearsal dinners at 88.9%. Casual social events hold the high 70s to low 80s. Business events descend as attendance becomes optional: conferences at 66.7%, corporate socials at 60.1%, galas at 55.0%, and grand openings, where the invitation asks only that you stop by, at the floor: 42.9%. The pattern reads as one sentence: guests respond in proportion to how much the event asks of them.
4. Mid-size events out-respond small ones. Intuition says a dinner party of twelve should out-respond a gala of two hundred, and intuition is wrong. Median response rates climb steadily with guest count, from 78.6% at 10 to 25 guests to a peak of 92.5% at 101 to 250 guests, easing to 86.9% for events up to a thousand. Larger events are more often formal, dated, and consequential, which is exactly the kind of invitation guests answer.
5. The busy-season excuse barely exists. Monthly medians range from 83.3% in December to 86.8% in September, a spread of 3.5 points. December is indeed the softest month, but by two points against the annual median, not the collapse hosts fear. Guests respond in the holidays; they respond in the summer; they respond in tax season.
The Benchmark Table: 23 Event Types
Median RSVP response rate and yes-share of responses for 23 event types
| Event type |
Median response rate |
Yes-share of responses |
| Bar/bat mitzvah | 94.6% | 73.1% |
|---|
| Engagement party | 92.3% | 79.8% |
|---|
| Bridal shower | 90.0% | 75.3% |
|---|
| Rehearsal dinner | 88.9% | 80.7% |
|---|
| Wedding | 88.9% | 80.9% |
|---|
| Baby shower | 86.3% | 76.8% |
|---|
| Sweet 16 and quinceañera | 85.7% | 88.0% |
|---|
| Baptism and communion | 82.6% | 80.6% |
|---|
| Bachelor and bachelorette | 82.6% | 78.3% |
|---|
| Birthday | 82.4% | 81.6% |
|---|
| Holiday party | 82.2% | 79.6% |
|---|
| Retirement | 80.0% | 81.6% |
|---|
| Dinner and entertaining | 79.4% | 76.8% |
|---|
| Housewarming | 79.3% | 76.8% |
|---|
| Celebration of life | 78.3% | 81.1% |
|---|
| Anniversary | 76.0% | 76.0% |
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| Thanksgiving | 72.9% | 77.8% |
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| Graduation | 72.2% | 83.3% |
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| Conference and meeting | 66.7% | 75.5% |
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| Golf outing | 64.5% | 67.3% |
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| Corporate social | 60.1% | 74.9% |
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| Gala and fundraiser | 55.0% | 81.3% |
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| Grand opening and open house | 42.9% | 76.0% |
|---|
Median response rate is (yes + no) ÷ invited, per event. Yes-share pools all responses within the category. Categories with the smallest samples, such as Sweet 16 and housewarming, carry wider uncertainty. Data window and definitions in the methodology below.
Reading the Table
The top of the table belongs to events with dates that cannot move and families that will travel for them. A bar or bat mitzvah sits atop the entire dataset at 94.6%, which surprised us until it didn’t: it is a formal, once-in-a-lifetime family milestone with a strong RSVP culture around it, and the data says almost nobody ignores one. Weddings deserve their own sentence: the median couple heard back from 88.9% of their list, and 80.9% of the answers were yes.
The bottom of the table is not failure; it is physics. A grand opening’s 42.9% reflects an invitation that asks for nothing firm, and a gala’s 55.0% reflects lists built for reach. The useful reading for a corporate host is comparative: if your client dinner clears the 74.6% business median, you are outperforming the field, and the gap between your number and the personal-event benchmarks is structural, not a verdict on your event. Two quieter findings reward a close look. Graduation parties get the second-lowest personal response rate at 72.2% but one of the highest yes-shares at 83.3%: guests treat them as drop-in occasions, respond less, and come anyway. And golf outings post the lowest yes-share measured, 67.3%, which any golf chair who has chased a foursome could have told you.
What Hosts Can Do With These Numbers
Benchmarks are only useful before the fact, so use them that way. Planning a wedding for 150 guests? Expect roughly 9 in 10 replies and, among them, roughly 4 in 5 acceptances, and give your caterer estimates accordingly. Running a corporate gala? Build your list knowing the median gala hears from about half, and read our corporate guides with that base rate in mind. And if your event is tracking below its row’s median with the deadline approaching, the gap is usually recoverable: the tactics in our guide to getting more guests to RSVP on time and the copy-ready wording in our RSVP reminder texts exist precisely for the distance between your number and the benchmark.
Methodology
Source and window. This report analyzes events hosted on the Greenvelope platform occurring between July 1, 2025 and June 15, 2026, extracted July 15, 2026. Events after June 15 were excluded so that every event’s response collection was effectively complete at extraction.
Inclusion rules. Events with at least 10 and no more than 1,000 invited recipients were included, for a final set of 70,624 events. The lower bound excludes tiny sends where one reply swings the rate by double digits; the upper bound excludes broadcast-style mailings whose response behavior showed they were announcements rather than RSVP events. Roughly 50 records with malformed fields were removed.
Definitions. Response rate is (yes responses + no responses) ÷ invited recipients, computed per event from raw counts; medians are reported because event-level rates are not normally distributed. Yes-share is total yes responses ÷ total responses, pooled within each category.
Classification. Where hosts selected a specific event type, that label was used. Events filed under generic platform categories were classified by keyword rules applied to the event’s name (for example, “mitzvah,” “graduation,” “grand opening”), with rules matched in specificity order. 54% of generic-category events were classified this way; the remainder could not be classified confidently and were excluded rather than guessed. Event names were used solely for classification and are never published.
Limitations. This is single-platform data. Greenvelope invitations are individually addressed, designed, and support targeted reminders, and hosts who choose the platform are selecting for response quality, so these benchmarks should be read as what well-run invitations achieve rather than an industry-wide floor. Categories with the smallest samples carry wider uncertainty and are noted in the table caption.
Versioning. This is version 1, published July 2026. Planned additions include reminder-effect analysis (response recovery after first and second reminders) and time-to-response distributions. Changes will be appended here with dates, never silently replaced.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good RSVP response rate?
Across 70,624 events on Greenvelope over twelve months, the median response rate was 85.3%, so anything at or above the mid-80s is solid for a personal event. The right benchmark depends on the event: weddings run 88.9% at the median, birthdays 82.4%, corporate events 74.6%, and galas 55.0%.
What percentage of wedding guests RSVP?
Across the weddings measured in this report, the median wedding received responses from 88.9% of invited guests, and 80.9% of those responses were yes. As a planning rule of thumb: expect roughly 9 in 10 guests to reply and roughly 4 in 5 replies to be acceptances.
Do most guests RSVP yes or no?
Yes. Across 4.3 million responses measured, 78.9% were acceptances. The yes-share varies by event type, from 88.0% for Sweet 16s and quinceañeras down to 67.3% for golf outings, but for every event type measured, a response is more likely to be a yes than a no.
Which events get the highest RSVP response rates?
Bar and bat mitzvahs top the table at a 94.6% median response rate, followed by engagement parties (92.3%), bridal showers (90.0%), and weddings and rehearsal dinners (both 88.9%). Formal family milestones with fixed dates consistently out-respond every other kind of event.
How were these benchmarks calculated?
From first-party Greenvelope platform data: 70,624 events with 10 to 1,000 invited guests, occurring July 2025 through mid-June 2026. Response rate is yes-plus-no responses divided by invited recipients, reported as per-event medians. Full inclusion rules, classification method, and limitations are published in the methodology section of this report.
Related Resources
Explore more guides in the Greenvelope resource hub: