How to run a paid Zoom webinar in Australia

The short answer

A paid Zoom webinar in Australia is three jobs: set the session up in Zoom, sell tickets in Australian dollars with the join link going only to people who paid, and run it on the day across several time zones. This post is a run sheet, from three weeks out to the day after.

If you’re still choosing between a meeting and a webinar, read Zoom meeting or Zoom webinar for a paid event first. For the price itself, see paid or free webinar: how to price an online event.

Three weeks out: pick a time that works across Australia

Australia spans several time zones, and daylight saving makes it messier. Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia don’t move their clocks, while New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and South Australia do. A 7 pm start in Sydney is a different hour in Brisbane for half the year, and much earlier in Perth.

A few habits help:

• Set the event’s own time zone to where you’re presenting from. One Ticket shows the time in the event’s zone, and when a viewer’s own clock differs, their ticket shows Your time too and emails link to Check your time.
• Name the time zone in the title or first line if your audience is national, such as “7 pm AEDT (4 pm in Perth)”.
• Avoid the school run and dinner for a national audience. Lunchtime in the east is mid-morning in the west, which often works for business webinars.

Our post on running a webinar people actually show up to has more on timing.

Two weeks out: set up the Zoom side

Either schedule the webinar in Zoom yourself, or let One Ticket create it.

Scheduling it yourself works on every One Ticket plan. Make a webinar for this session (not a recurring one you use for everything), turn off Zoom’s own registration so people don’t fill in two forms, and copy the full join link.

Letting One Ticket create it is on Pro and Team. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. Connect your own Zoom account once in Settings › Zoom, then in the event’s place choose Online, and under Generate with Zoom set the Zoom type to Webinar. One Ticket creates the Zoom webinar for you when you save the event, on your account, in the event’s time zone and without Zoom’s registration form. Your Zoom account needs the Webinar add-on. The steps are in how to create a Zoom link automatically.

Either way, add your panellists and any co-host in Zoom, and plan a practice run with them.

Two weeks out: set up the tickets

1. Create an online event and paste the link, or let it be created as above.
2. Choose when ticket holders see the link: as soon as they book, or 15, 30 or 60 minutes before the start. A later reveal means fewer chances for a paid link to be passed around. See keeping your Zoom link private.
3. Add ticket types. A standard price, an early bird that ends on a date, or a member price as a secret ticket that only people with its access code see.
4. Set a capacity below the number of attendees your Zoom webinar licence allows.
5. Choose a refund policy. It’s shown to buyers before they pay. If you’ll send a recording to everyone booked, say so, because it changes how people think about refunds.
6. Connect Stripe. Payments go into your own Stripe account, in Australian dollars when that’s your organiser’s currency.

The buyer pays a small booking fee on top of your ticket price, and you receive your full price. The same fee applies on every plan; the figures are on the pricing page.

A note on GST

If you’re registered for GST, ask your accountant how it applies to your ticket price before you set it, and price accordingly.

One week out: fill the seats

Share the event page wherever your audience is: your newsletter, LinkedIn, a partner’s mailing list, a member group. Buyers don’t need an account to book. If you sell out, a waitlist can hold names, and you can raise the capacity if your Zoom licence allows. The webinars page shows what buyers see.

What buyers get automatically

Every ticket holder gets the ticket email with Add to Google Calendar, Outlook and a calendar file, carrying the join link once they’re allowed to see it. They get reminders the day before and on the morning, and a “Starting in 15 minutes” email with the link just before you begin. You don’t send any of this by hand.

On the day

• Join early from your own Zoom account and start the practice session with your panellists if you use one.
• Keep your attendee list open. Online events don’t need scanning; Attendees shows who opened the join link from their ticket.
• Welcome latecomers in chat. Some will book in the last hour; they get the link straight away.
• Use Q&A for questions, with a moderator picking the best ones.

Afterwards

Zoom records the webinar if you turn recording on. One Ticket doesn’t fetch recordings from Zoom, but on any plan you can send the recording to everyone with a ticket as a replay: paste the link (and its password, if it has one) and choose when it goes out. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. See the guide on replays.

Then check your numbers in Reports, and plan the next one while the audience still remembers this one. The complete guide to selling tickets to a Zoom event links every guide in this series.