How do ticketing fees work? A guide for event planners
As an event creator, you need to know exactly how much you'll pay when using a ticketing platform – and what the key differences are in pricing models. We've got you covered with this guide.
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Ticket platform pricing can be a minefield, and the consequences for your events budget can be significant. Low cost ticketing for a charity event can mean more money raised for your cause, for example. And flat-fee festival ticketing vs percentage-based fees could be the difference between being able to afford everyone on your desired line-up, or having to cut an artist.
In this blog we breakdown how fees are charged and warn of some of the common pitfalls.
How do ticketing fees work?
All ticketing fees are made up of 2 costs:
The ticketing platform – this is the fee you pay to use the ticketing software, publish your box office, and get customer support. It could range from a flat fee of £0.60, up to a % fee that could cost you £20 per ticket. On 5,000 tickets that’s a £97,000 price difference!
Payment processing fee – this is the fee that payment processors like PayPal, Stripe, and Square charge to process the transaction and is usually a mixture of a fixed fee + a % fee. It’s charged per transaction and not per ticket.
Generally speaking the advertised price references the ticketing platform fee, with the payment processing fee being added on top separately. In this instance, the payment processing fee is usually passed directly on and there is no mark-up taken by the ticketing platform.
Be cautious of companies that bundle both of these costs together into one overall per ticket cost (e.g. Eventbrite in the UK is 6.95% + £0.59 per ticket, with payment processing fee included). At first glance the simplicity is appealing. However, this means:
You don’t know how much your processing fee is costing you and there may be a big mark-up included.
You will pay processing fees per every ticket and not per transaction.
They are likely to default you to their own payment processing provider as opposed to more globally recognised brands like Paypal, Stripe or Square.
Using their own payment provider means the money is in their bank account and they can control payouts.
It will make it difficult to compare like-for-like and find the best deal.
Now we know what you’re paying for, let’s take a closer look at the fees themselves…
The ticket platform fee
This is the cost that covers the technical team who develop the platform, the hosting and running of your box office, customer support for answering all your questions and the marketing to find new customers.
When it comes to looking at different ticketing platforms, you’ll find vast differences in prices, often hidden because they’re presented in a variety of ways. So here’s a breakdown on the types of pricing structures:
A flat fee per ticket: This keeps things simple and allows you simple budgeting. Particularly good value if you have higher ticket prices, as they won’t be affected by percentage pricing.
A percentage per ticket: This pricing is also simple, but be careful as these fees can often end up pretty hefty if your ticket prices are on the higher side.
A flat fee plus percentage: Beware – these types of fees give most of the benefit to the ticketing company, with very little benefit going to the event organizer. They also make it more complicated to calculate your costs.
Since payment processing fees are usually fairly constant across platforms – the ticket platform fee is what you should take most interest in. This fee is one of the key reasons event organizers look for an Eventbrite alternative.
Important tip: Watch out for ticketing platforms that sneak in extra costs around payment processing. TicketSpice, for example, adds 1% to your payment processing fees – which can have a bigger impact than you think on your overall ticketing costs. (Find out why Ticket Tailor is the fairer, cheaper TicketSpice alternative 👀.)
The payment processing fee
The fee for processing the transaction is often as much as the ticketing fee itself, but there is far less variation between platforms as most companies just pass the fee straight on to the event organizer.
First, you need to decide which payment processor to use. Stripe, Paypal and Square are the best known providers around the world, but you may have a local alternative that suits your customers better. You can often link more than one processor to your box office and ensure the best possible coverage.
The best way to understand the fee you’ll end up paying is to review their own pricing pages:
As an example, Stripe in the UK charges 1.5% plus £0.20 per transaction. So, if a customer buys one £10 ticket, the processing fee is £0.35. If a customer were to buy three £10 tickets in one transaction, the processing fee would be £0.65 – or £0.217 per ticket (one charge of £0.20 plus £30 × 1.5%).
Fees change depending on where your account is based and where the ticket buyer is purchasing from, so it can get complicated. However, given most events sell to customers in the country they’re based in, it should be easy enough to work out.
Real-life examples of ticketing platform pricing
To put these pricing models into context, here’s how fees stack up across several popular ticketing platforms when selling 500 tickets at different price points.
For 500 credits, you’ll pay £0.41 per ticket totalling £205.
Thanks to flat fee pricing, your total fees stay the same (£205) whether you’re selling 500 tickets at £5 or at £100 each.
Tip: You can also use a Pay-As-You-Go model with Ticket Tailor, which means you’ll pay a flat fee of £0.60 per ticket. So your 500 tickets would total £300 in ticketing fees (regardless of ticket price).
Eventbrite
Eventbrite uses a percentage-plus-fixed-fee model, charging 6.95% + £0.59 per ticket. With this structure, fees increase significantly as ticket prices rise.
For 500 tickets, fees range from £468.75 for £5 tickets to £3,770 for £100 tickets.
TicketSource
TicketSource charges 7% per order, which means organizers pay a percentage of whatever they earn. Selling 500 tickets at £5 leads to £210 in fees, rising to £4,200 when ticket prices hit £100.
TicketSpice
TicketSpice combines fixed and percentage fees – roughly £0.78 + 2.9% + £0.24 per ticket. As a result, fees grow as ticket prices increase.
For 500 tickets, you’re looking at approximately £725 at the £5 level, scaling up to around £1,960 at £100.
Do I have to pay these ticketing fees or can I get the customer to cover the costs?
Most platforms offer you the choice of passing all the fees on to the customer by adding a transaction or booking fee.
So if you have a £10 ticket with £2 in ticketing and payment processing fees you could add this on to your ticket price as a booking fee and charge the customer £12. This means that after all costs have been deducted you still end up with £10.
When do I have to pay and when do I receive my money?
When you pay your ticketing fees, and when you receive your money, depends on the payment processor you use.
If you’re using Stripe, Paypal or Square then they’ll usually automatically deduct their transaction fees and the fees of the ticketing platform – leaving you with the net ticket fee that you get to keep.
You should see this in your Stripe/Paypal/Square account almost immediately once a customer has purchased a ticket – but it may take a week or so until it’s available for you to transfer into your bank account.
Some “own brand” payment processors are a little less flexible. For example, Eventbrite doesn’t payout until after the event, similarly Ticket Source payout the Monday after your event. This means you may not be able to access thousands in ticket sales until after the event. This naturally has implications for your cash flow – and so is something you should carefully consider.
Not quite sure what to charge your attendees?
Deciding which ticketing platform you use can help you determine how to price your tickets. When you know exactly what fees you’ll be paying, you’ll have a better idea of how much you need to charge to be profitable while remaining accessible to your target audience.
Having said that – deciding what to charge isn’t always easy, and you might find these resources useful:
Also, check out these handy Ticket Tailor features which may make things more manageable for both you and your customers:
Paypal Pay Later – lets your customers split payments into three.
Overrides for recurring events – helps to make sure you’re maximising your pricing for busier time slots at recurring events.
💸 Don’t get caught out by eye-watering ticketing fees
With transparent flat fees, no sneaky mark-ups, and the freedom to choose your own payment processor, Ticket Tailor officially has the lowest ticketing costs in the industry. So you can hold onto wa(aaa)y more of your profits, and focus on running your best-ever events.
At Ticket Tailor, we talk time and time again to event creators who are saving hundreds and even thousands by switching over to our platform. Case in point: see how this event creator saves thousands each year after switching from Eventbrite. Nice 🙌.
