How recurring ticket sales work, from the first payment to the last session

The short answer

Recurring ticket sales let an attendee pay for a series on a cycle, and get a ticket to every session while they keep paying. It’s a subscription, but for events: the attendee chooses a plan, the card is charged each week, fortnight or month, and each session’s ticket is made for them before it runs.

For the organiser it means steadier income and a room you can plan around. For the attendee it means never forgetting to book.

Recurring tickets vs one-off tickets

They work best side by side. A subscription without a casual ticket shuts out newcomers. A casual ticket without a subscription makes regulars book 40 times a year.

The parts of a recurring plan

The billing cycle

How often the attendee is charged. Weekly suits a weekly event and keeps each charge small. Fortnightly matches a lot of pay cycles. Monthly is tidy for both sides, and a longer cycle such as every three months or every year suits an annual membership-style commitment.

The cycle doesn’t need to match the event. A weekly class billed monthly is common. What matters is that the price per session makes sense for the number of sessions in each period.

Who the plan covers

One person, a couple, a family. A couple’s plan is two places at every session; each person gets their own ticket and QR code. Price it per person or set a combined price that rewards coming together.

Where they attend

If your series runs in person and online at the same time, the plan can say which the subscriber chooses, so you know how many to expect in the room.

The price

Price the subscription a little below the casual rate per session. Enough that regulars feel the benefit, not so much that casuals feel punished. If you change the price later, existing subscribers usually keep what they signed up for, and the new price is for new subscribers.

Places are reserved, not just paid for

This is where recurring ticket sales differ most from selling a bundle of tickets. A subscriber’s place at each upcoming session should be held for them before casual tickets sell, even though their ticket for that session hasn’t been made yet.

If the room holds 30 and 18 people subscribe, 12 casual places are left at each session. When someone cancels, their places at later sessions go back on sale.

Failed payments

Cards expire and get replaced. When a recurring charge fails, the subscription should fall behind rather than vanish: the subscriber is asked to update their card, the payment is tried again, and new tickets wait until it goes through. Sessions they already paid for are still theirs.

Tell subscribers up front that this is how it works, and most failed payments sort themselves out.

Pausing and cancelling

Make leaving easy. People subscribe more readily when they know they can stop, and an attendee who feels trapped costs more in goodwill than the subscription brings in.

• Pause. Billing stops for now. Sessions already paid for keep their tickets. Good for holidays and injuries.
• Cancel. No further charges. The subscription runs to the end of the period already paid for, then stops.

A pause isn’t the same as skipping a week. While the subscription runs, it covers every session; pausing stops billing until the subscriber resumes.

Where the money goes

Each charge should go to the organiser’s own payment account, the same as ticket money, with the booking fee handled the same way as on a ticket. Watch for platforms that charge a separate fee for selling a “season” or a membership on top of the ticket fee.

Is recurring right for your event?

Recurring ticket sales suit you if most of these are true:

• the same people come most sessions
• the event runs for months, or indefinitely
• people forget to book and then miss out
• steadier income would change how you plan

They suit you less for a short run of three or four dates, where a ticket to each date, or one ticket covering all of them, is simpler.

On One Ticket

Subscriptions live on a series. Open the series page, switch on Let people subscribe, and set:

• Who it covers: each option’s label and seats, from one person up to eight; each person on a plan gives their name and email and gets their own ticket
• Billing: each option’s label, price a ticket and how often: every week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, month, 3 months, 6 months or year
• Attendance options: the venue, and Online when any session is online
• Subscription details: what’s included and how to pause or cancel
• optionally Custom subscription pricing and one dropdown at checkout

Paid plans need Stripe connected; free plans work without it. Price changes apply to new subscribers, and people already subscribed keep their plan and price. See Subscriptions for a series.

Subscribers' places count against each session’s capacity before single tickets sell. If a session is somehow full when a subscriber’s ticket is due, they still get in and you’re told. Each ticket is made about a week ahead, with its own QR code. Subscribers manage their plan from a private link, with no account: pause billing, resume, update their card, or cancel at the end of the period they’ve paid for. If a payment fails they show as Past due and new tickets wait until it goes through. You see everyone on the Subscriptions tab of Orders, and you can set a plan to end at the period’s end. See Subscribers.

The money goes to your own Stripe account. The subscriber pays a small booking fee on each charge, the same as on a ticket, and you receive your full price. There’s no separate fee for selling a season. See pricing and the Subscriptions page.

Back to the complete guide to recurring events. Related: Membership vs recurring tickets, Automatic ticket delivery and Can people pay weekly or monthly for a series of events?