Qui apporte quoi? or PerfectPotluck: which tool for your potluck?
Updated July 2026
Among potluck tools, PerfectPotluck is the anglophone benchmark: completely free, run for years by the small Take Them A Meal team in Virginia, with customizable sign-up sheets and an email reminder two days before the event. It's a serious competitor and deserves an honest comparison. SignUpGenius, meanwhile, is the best-known general-purpose sign-up tool, far broader than potlucks.
The difference comes down to two things. First, Québec: Qui apporte quoi? is, to our knowledge, the first potluck tool built for here, Québec French first, Canadian dollars, with the corn roast (épluchette de blé d'Inde) as a first-class occasion. Second, accounts: here nobody creates one, not even the organizer, while PerfectPotluck and SignUpGenius both require an account on the organizing side.
Ready in 2 minutes · free for up to 20 things to bring · no account
What PerfectPotluck, SignUpGenius, and Whocan do well
PerfectPotluck has done its job, for free, for a long time: customizable sheets, a recipe database, a serving calculator from 10 to 500 people, an automatic email reminder two days before the event. Its guests sign up without an account, email optional, exactly like here. If your group is comfortable in English and the coordinator is fine creating an account, it's a solid, no-cost choice.
SignUpGenius is much broader than a potluck tool: sign-up sheets for volunteering, schools, and fundraisers, with built-in payments and team features. That power has a business model: the free tier shows ads on every participant-facing page, and removing them requires a monthly subscription in US dollars, starting at $11.99 USD per month (the Silver tier, which covers only one ad-free sheet; Gold at $29.99 and Platinum at $59.99 USD per month cover more), per SignUpGenius's official pricing PDF.
And to be complete: Whocan.org, a Swiss non-profit, offers sign-up sheets that are free, account-free, ad-free, and unlimited, in several languages including French. It's a genuinely good tool, and we say so plainly. Its French is European though, and so is its footing: no Canadian dollars, no local vocabulary, and no corn roast on the menu.
A word on Meal Train (mealtrain.com), which sometimes comes up: it isn't a direct competitor, but a related case worth naming. Meal Train organizes a meal calendar to support one person or family through a hard stretch (a new baby, a loss, illness, surgery), not a one-time event like a potluck. Organizing one requires an account, and the interface is English only.
Why Qui apporte quoi? is built for here
Nobody creates an account: you set the table in two minutes, receive your organizer link by email, and your guests pick what they bring with just a first name. The suggestions speak local: tourtière and eggnog at Christmas, corn cobs and the cooler at the épluchette, disposable plates at the office party.
Emails never leave the app: never displayed on the page, never passed to anyone, they're only used for the recap and the day-before reminder. What the page does show (first names and dishes) is announced clearly before anyone presses the button.
And the price is a local price, paid once: free up to 20 things to bring per event, then $5.99 CAD to unlock that event, no subscription. The unlock also removes ads from your event's page. For comparison: removing ads from a single sheet at SignUpGenius takes an $11.99 USD subscription every month.
At a glance (July 2026)
| Qui apporte quoi? | PerfectPotluck | SignUpGenius | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account required | None, neither to organize nor to participate | Yes for the coordinator; guests sign up without an account | Yes for the organizer; participants sign up without an account |
| Language | Québec French first, English included | English only | English only |
| Price | Free up to 20 things to bring; $5.99 CAD once per event, no subscription | Completely free | Free with ads; paid tiers from $11.99 to $59.99 USD per month |
| Advertising | Ads on the free version; the $5.99 CAD unlock removes them from your event | No third-party ads observed (cross-promotion of its sister site) | Ads on all participant-facing pages on the free tier; removal starts at Silver ($11.99 USD per month, one sheet) |
| Automatic reminder | The day before, by email, free for everyone | Two days before, by email | Emails subject to the monthly quotas of the chosen tier |
| Home base | Québec: .ca domain, Canadian dollars, corn roast on the menu | United States (Virginia) | United States, USD pricing |
Sources (checked July 16, 2026)
- PerfectPotluck, home page: “Fast, Easy, and FREE”
- PerfectPotluck, official FAQ: free service, coordinator account, optional guest email, reminder two days before
- SignUpGenius, official pricing page: free tier with ads on participant-facing pages
- SignUpGenius, official pricing PDF: Silver $11.99, Gold $29.99, Platinum $59.99 USD per month
- Whocan.org, potluck sign-up sheet: free, no account, no ads
- Whocan.org, about: Swiss non-profit
- Meal Train (mealtrain.com), home page: a meal calendar to support someone after a birth, surgery, or illness, English-only interface
- Meal Train (mealtrain.com), page creation: sign-in required to organize
Frequently asked questions
- Why pick Qui apporte quoi? over PerfectPotluck?
- If your group lives in French, nobody wants to create an account, and you'd rather use a local tool (Canadian dollars, corn roast included), Qui apporte quoi? is built for you. PerfectPotluck remains an excellent free choice for an English-speaking group whose coordinator is fine creating an account.
- SignUpGenius does a lot more: why not use it?
- True, and if you're managing volunteer schedules or school fundraisers, SignUpGenius is probably the right tool. For a simple potluck, though, its free tier shows ads on every one of your guests' pages, and removing them takes a monthly subscription in US dollars. Here it's $5.99 CAD once, and only if you go past 20 things to bring or want the ads gone.
- What about Whocan.org, which is free, account-free, and ad-free?
- A good tool, run by a Swiss non-profit, and we say so plainly. If you're looking for a tool built for Québec though (local French, .ca, Canadian dollars, suggestions like tourtière and corn on the cob, a day-before reminder), that's exactly what Qui apporte quoi? is for.
- Are the numbers in this comparison up to date?
- They were checked on July 13, 2026, directly against the competitors' official pages (including SignUpGenius's pricing PDF), and every source is linked at the bottom of the page. If a number has changed since, write to us and we'll fix it.