A lot of planners don't realize these are two different decisions until they need them to be.
Two switches, not one
On your event dashboard, you'll see a Website card and a Forms card, and each one shows its own status - Unpublished or Published - with its own Publish button.
Publishing your website doesn't publish your form, and publishing your form doesn't publish your website. You control each one independently, whenever you're ready.
This matters because "ready to show guests something" and "ready to accept RSVPs" are often two different moments in your planning process.
Not using a public website at all? Leave it unpublished.
If you're only sending a direct registration link - say, through an email invitation or a personalized link - and you don't need a public-facing event page, you can simply leave the website unpublished. Nothing forces you to publish it.
Your form can go live on its own, and guests who go straight to your registration link will never notice the website was never turned on.
Want to announce your event before registration opens? Publish the website first.
This is the move for a save-the-date. Publish your website while leaving your form unpublished. Guests can visit your event page, see the date, location, and any details you've added - agenda, speakers, sponsors, whatever you've built out - but there's no way to register yet, because the form isn't live.
When you're ready to open registration - maybe a few weeks later, once tickets are finalized or your guest list is locked - go back to the Forms card and publish the form separately. Nothing about your website changes; it simply starts linking through to a working RSVP experience instead of nothing.
💡 Example: You're planning a museum gala. Two months out, you publish the website only - guests can see the date, the venue, and the dress code, but registration isn't open yet.
A month later, tickets and table assignments are finalized, so you publish the form and registration goes live. A week after that, you realize the parking instructions are outdated, fix them in the builder - but the site still shows the old version to visitors until you click Republish changes to push the update out.
💡 Tip: This is exactly how you'd handle a conference "mark your calendar" announcement or any event where you want to build anticipation before you're ready to manage RSVPs.
Where to publish each one
From your event dashboard, find the Website card and click Publish - or open Edit website and use the Publish button in the top-right corner of the builder.
Do the same for the Forms card - click Publish directly from the dashboard, or from inside the form builder itself.
Publishing isn't a one-time thing - that's what "Republish changes" is for
Once your website or form is live, it doesn't automatically update every time you make an edit. If you go back in and tweak your event website - swap a photo, fix a typo, add a new block - or make changes to your form after it's already published, those changes only exist in your draft until you push them live.
You'll know there's something waiting to go live because the Publish button changes to Republish changes. That's your signal that the live, public version of your website or form doesn't yet match what you're looking at in the builder.
⚠️ Note: Guests visiting your live event page or form will keep seeing the old version until you click Republish changes. Don't assume an edit is live just because you saved it in the builder.
Test before publishing
After publishing (or republishing) either your website or your form, open the live link in an incognito or private browser window - not just the in-app preview - to confirm guests are seeing exactly what you expect.
Next steps
See also: Build your event website, Build your event registration form, Event Registration Testing Checklist.
Need more help? Get support from our Community Forum.
Find answers and get help from the RSVPify Support team and our community.