How an arisan works, and how to run the draw fairly

Guide · Updated 28 September 2026 · By the Savings Circle team at FutureTech

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An arisan is a rotating savings group that is part of social life in Indonesia. Members meet regularly, often monthly, each pays the same amount, and a draw picks one member to take the whole collection. A member who has won stays out of later draws, so everyone wins exactly once.

There is no interest. For many groups, such as neighbours in the same RT, a family, colleagues or school parents, the arisan is as much about meeting as about money: the meeting keeps people in touch, and the pot helps with bigger purchases.

How does an arisan work?

  1. An organizer sets the amount, the schedule and the number of members.
  2. At each meeting every member pays their share, in cash or by bank transfer or e-wallet.
  3. The draw, the kocok, is done by shaking a container of rolled slips with the names of members who haven’t won yet, until one falls out.
  4. The winner takes the collection, often hosts the next meeting, and their name leaves the draw.

How is the draw kept fair?

Doing the kocok in front of everyone is what makes it trusted. When members can’t all attend, as in an online arisan, people need another way to see that the draw wasn’t arranged. Some groups instead fix the full order at the first meeting.

What goes wrong in an arisan?

How do you run an arisan with Savings Circle?

  1. Create the group. Choose “arisan” as its name type, then set the currency and what each person pays per round. The app uses your word on every screen and reminder.
  2. Add members from your contacts. They don’t install anything.
  3. Set the order. Run a random draw in front of everyone, or enter the order you agreed. A random draw saves its seed, so anyone can check later that it wasn’t changed. Members can ask to swap turns, and the swap is recorded too.
  4. Record payments as they come in, by cash, bank or mobile wallet, with a screenshot as proof if you like. It works offline and syncs later.
  5. Remind the late ones. One tap opens WhatsApp, SMS or Telegram with a polite message in their language.
  6. Record each payout. Every entry is dated. A correction is added as a new entry, and the original stays in the history.

Savings Circle never holds or moves money. Members pay each other the way they already do; the app is the shared record of who paid, who is next and what is owed.

Other names for the same idea

In Indonesia it is arisan. The same system is a committee in Pakistan and India, a tanda in Mexico, a susu in Ghana, a chama in Kenya and a paluwagan in the Philippines. Economists call all of these rotating savings and credit associations, or ROSCAs. Savings Circle works for any of them.

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