How to keep your Zoom link private so only ticket holders get in

The short answer

A Zoom link is just a link: anyone who has it can try to join. For a paid or private event you can’t make that impossible, but you can make it rare and easy to handle. Five layers do most of the work:

1. Never put the link on a public page. Send it only to people with a ticket.
2. Reveal it late. Show it shortly before the start, not weeks ahead.
3. Use a fresh link for every session, so an old link opens nothing new.
4. Keep the waiting room on and admit the names on your list.
5. Change the link if it leaks.

On One Ticket the first one is automatic, and the others are a setting or a button each.

Why links leak

Many leaks aren’t malicious. Someone forwards their confirmation email to a colleague “so you can come too”. A link sits in a shared calendar. A teacher’s recurring class link is still in a group chat from last year. Occasionally a link is posted somewhere public, and people who have no interest in the event turn up to disrupt it, which is what people call Zoombombing.

Paid events have a second problem: every person who joins through a forwarded link is a ticket you didn’t sell, and a place someone who paid may not get.

Layer 1: The link goes to ticket holders only

On One Ticket the public event page says the event is online and that the meeting link arrives with the ticket. It never shows the link. Neither do the series page, the website widget on your own site or the event details search engines read. Only ticket holders get it: on their ticket page, in their ticket email, in the calendar entry and in the reminders.

That means the link never needs to go in a social post, a newsletter or a flyer. Share the event page instead, and let the tickets carry the link.

Layer 2: Reveal it late

Under Ticket holders see the link, choose As soon as they book, or 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour before the start. Held back, the link is emailed to every ticket holder 15 minutes before the start, in the “Starting in 15 minutes” email, which always goes for a held-back link. Until then, the ticket and emails say so. For a series, the choice covers every online session: set it once, and change it for them all with Edit all sessions.

A late reveal gives a link fewer days to be forwarded and keeps it out of inboxes and calendars weeks ahead. For a paid workshop or class, 15 or 30 minutes is a good balance: early enough to test audio, late enough that the link has nowhere to travel. Calendar entries carry the link once ticket holders are allowed to see it.

Layer 3: A link per session

If you run the same class every week, don’t use one recurring link for every session. Give each session its own meeting, and the link on this week’s ticket opens this week’s class only.

With your own Zoom account connected in Settings › Zoom, One Ticket does this for you: Create a unique Zoom link for each session gives every upcoming session of a series its own Zoom meeting. For a one-off event, choosing Generate with Zoom means One Ticket creates the Zoom meeting for you when you save the event, made for that event alone. Creating Zoom meetings 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. On Free, schedule a separate meeting in Zoom for each session and paste each link. See weekly online classes on Zoom.

Layer 4: The waiting room and your list

A Zoom meeting One Ticket creates has the waiting room on, so nobody walks straight in. Whether you paste or generate, it helps to:

• Ask people to join with the name they booked under, in the event description and on the day.
• Keep your attendee list open in another tab while you admit people. Export it if you prefer a printout.
• Make a co-host your doorkeeper, so the presenter isn’t distracted.
• Check Zoom’s security menu before you start: it lets the host lock the meeting once everyone is in, stop people renaming themselves or sharing their screen, and remove someone.

Layer 5: If the link leaks

If you find your link posted somewhere it shouldn’t be, replace it:

• Generated meetings: make the meeting again from the event’s place. One Ticket creates a new meeting and removes the old one it made, so the leaked link stops working. Ticket pages and reminders still to come carry the new link.
• Pasted links: make a new meeting in Zoom, paste its link, and delete the old meeting in Zoom.

Either way, links in emails already sent and in saved calendar entries still point to the old meeting, so tell your ticket holders to use the link on their ticket page.

Spotting who came through a forwarded link

Attendees shows who opened the join link from their ticket. If your Zoom room has noticeably more people than that, some came another way: through a calendar entry, a copied link or a forward. It’s not proof of anything, but it’s a useful check after a paid session.

When a link must not be shareable at all

For a pre-recorded session you can go further. A premiere plays your video at a set time on One Ticket’s own watch page, and each ticket’s Watch link plays on one screen at a time, so passing it on doesn’t give a second person a seat. Premieres are 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. See premieres and our post on live webinars versus pre-recorded premieres.

Why the join link has to be a known site

While you’re new to One Ticket, a meeting link must point to a known meeting or video site, such as Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. Other links are held back until your payouts are verified. Join links go out in our emails, so keeping them to sites people recognise protects your ticket holders from look-alike links.

The complete guide to selling tickets to a Zoom event links every guide in this series. The webinars page shows how online tickets look, the online events guide has every setting, and fees are on the pricing page.