The short answer
A ticket fee pays for four things: taking the card, sending the ticket, running the door and keeping the list. If a platform charges you a percentage of the ticket price on top of that, the price has to go up to cover it, and the buyer never sees why.
The clean arrangement is a booking fee the buyer pays as its own line, and nothing taken from the ticket price. On One Ticket a $25 ticket is $25 to you and $26.45 to the buyer, and a free ticket costs nobody anything.
The cheapest option is no platform at all, and for a dozen people you know, that is the right answer. The comparison worth making is the fee against the hours, and the hours are in the post on forms and bank transfer.
Ready-made template
Backyard Cinema Night
Backyard cinema, already set up as an event you can open now. Pick a date and a venue, change what you like, and publish. Nothing is saved until you do, and you can start without an account.
- Forty beanbags, six to an order
- A small price and a cap
- The waitlist when it fills
Which fits your event?
Start from the one requirement that decides it.
| Your main requirement | Start with |
|---|---|
| A free event | Anything that makes free tickets free, One Ticket included |
| You want the full ticket price and the buyer to see the fee as a line | One Ticket |
| Twenty people you know, once, and no admin | A bank transfer and a list |
| A recurring room where the fee has to earn itself every week | One Ticket |
Three of these four rows are honest answers that are not a platform.
How it works in practice
Put your own price into the calculator; the schedule is stepped, not flat.
| On a $25 ticket | A percentage-of-price platform | A buyer-pays booking fee |
|---|---|---|
| You receive | Less than $25 | $25.00 |
| The buyer pays | $25 plus whatever is added | $26.45 |
| A free ticket | Sometimes a fee anyway | $0 |
| Who sees the fee | Nobody, clearly | The buyer, as a line |
One Ticket for a recurring room
Everything below follows from one decision: a series is one object, not a list of dates.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Who came back | After every session: how many came, how many had been before, who is new and who has stopped coming, by name, with an address to write to |
| Subscriptions | One subscription covers every session in a series. Each night's ticket is minted ahead of time |
| Paid out | Every ticket is charged to your own Stripe account. A new account is paid out to your bank two days after each event, once guests have said how it went; after a first clean event it is paid out as it sells |
| Fees | No platform fee on the ticket price. The buyer pays a booking fee: a platform tier of 35c to $1.45 a ticket, then 1.5% of the price above $100, plus card processing. On a $25 ticket that is $1.45 all in, so the buyer pays $26.45. Free tickets cost nothing |
| Refund if it changes | Move the date, start time or place after people have booked and every one of them can refund in full, booking fee included, until it starts, whatever your refund policy says. You are warned before you save, and everyone booked is emailed the new details |
| Refund requests | On a case-by-case event the buyer asks from their ticket. You have 3 days to refund or decline; a request nobody answers goes to One Ticket support, and your payouts are held until it is settled |
| Guest ratings | After each event, ticket holders rate it: stars and a few words. From 5 ratings the average shows under your name on every event page, good or bad. Notes are for you alone, and never say who wrote them |
| Scam protection | Every page is read before it can send an email, and our emails carry none of an organiser's own links or phone numbers. A new organiser's money is held until after the event, and anyone can report an event from its page |
| Verified tick | Earned by selling here: 3 past events, 25 tickets, no chargebacks, no ignored refund requests, and an average of 4 stars once there are 10 ratings. A chargeback or an ignored request takes it away at once |
| Block a person | Block an address from a ticket type, for this event or every one after it. No public list, no conversation at the door |
| Your page | Your colours, your title font, your cover. Nobody else's event on it |
| Import | Paste an Eventbrite link and the title, description, date, venue and ticket types come across |
| Not included | A marketplace. There is no search page and no audience to sell into; the people are the ones you bring |
One Ticket
Sell tickets. Keep every dollar.