With the right event ticketing and registration solution, you can collect attendee information, sell tickets, and accept payments in a cost-effective way. But, there are some event ticketing tools out there that retain full control of your payouts, attendee information, and payment processing. Do you really want to give up control of these items?
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at Eventbrite and explain why it isn’t the most cost-effective solution for small businesses in terms of ticketing fees. We’ll also compare it with Event Smart – a feature-rich event management solution that gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility with your event tasks and charges lower fees than Eventbrite.
Quick Overview of Eventbrite Pricing
Eventbrite is an event registration and ticketing platform that allows event organizers to create and promote events, customize an event page, and sell tickets online.
Eventbrite does not charge fees for free events which means that if you organize an event where attendees don’t have to purchase tickets, you can market your event through Eventbrite without being charged any fees. This enables first-time event organizers to get started without having to worry about selling tickets or accepting payments.
However, you will be charged a fee for each paid ticket you sell depending on which plan you’ve subscribed to.This means is that, in addition to payment processing fees, you’ll also be charged for each paid ticket that you sell. This isn’t cost-effective considering there are alternative options out there that you can use to sell paid tickets and avoid extra ticket fees.
Let’s quickly take a look at two alternatives to Eventbrite that let you sell paid tickets for free:
Event Smart
Event Smart is a complete event management and ticketing solution that enables event organizers to collect online event registrations, create and sell tickets, manage attendee information, and much more.
With Event Smart, you get a dedicated event website for collecting online event registrations, selling tickets, and receiving online payments. It lets you sell paid event tickets for as low as a $10 per month flat fee and gives you access to multiple payment options including credit and debit cards, Stripe, and PayPal with Venmo.
Event Espresso
Event Espresso is a premium event management plugin for WordPress that offers several event registration and ticketing features right out of the box.
Event Espresso lets you create and sell tickets, accept payment from registrants, track event attendance, and more, while ensuring you’re in full control of your brand, payments, and customer data. It’s a suitable option if you’re looking for a WordPress plugin solution for your event website and don’t want to pay extra for selling paid tickets.
Now that we have a basic understanding of what Eventbrite and Event Smart have to offer, let’s see how they stack up when it comes to event ticketing fees.
Eventbrite Ticketing Fees Explained
Here, we’ll compare and contrast two popular event management solutions – Eventbrite and Event Smart– on the basis of the ticketing fees they charge.
Fee per Paid Ticket
Eventbrite offers three different pricing plans for organizing paid events:
Plans explained:
- Essentials. Charges 2% + $0.79 fee per paid ticket and offers only one ticket type. So, if you’re selling 100 tickets each for $25, you’ll be charged $32.25 in addition to payment processing fees.
- Professional. Costs 3.5% + $1.59 fee per paid ticket and gives you access to unlimited ticket types. So, if you sell 100 tickets each for $25, you’ll be charged $44.125 in addition to payment processing fees.
- Premium. Its Premium plan is available as a tailored solution and fees are charged based on the size and complexity of your event. It lets you create unlimited event ticket types.
With Event Smart, you won’t be charged a per-ticket fee which means that you can sell more tickets without having to pay an additional fee for every ticket you sell. It only charges a flat fee of $10 per month for integrating your payment system which allows you to receive payments through your event registration website. Of course, you also have the option to set up multiple ticket and registration options.
Be sure to check out our post on How much money can you save with Event Smart? to use an online ticketing saving calculator and see exactly how much you can expect to save.
Pass Ticketing Fees to Attendees
If you’re looking to charge for your event tickets but don’t want to pay Eventbrite fees out of your own pocket, you can choose to pass on the fees to the attendees. You’ll have to use Eventbrite Payment Processing to use this option.
According to Eventbrite, by passing ticket fees to the buyer, you’ll be able to simplify your budgeting and accounting as you won’t have to worry about how much you’ll be charged for each ticket you sell. On the other hand, if you use PayPal to process your transactions, you won’t be able to pass on the ticketing fees to the registrant.
Here are some reasons why you shouldn’t pass on the ticket fees to your attendees:
- Attendees might decide not to complete their registration. When you surprise prospective attendees with additional charges once they reach the final step (i.e. the checkout page), this creates a barrier to completing the purchase.
- Poor online registration experience. It delivers a poor online registration experience because it’s essentially the same as not being transparent about your pricing or having hidden charges. Plus, event attendees who purchase expensive tickets (VIP tickets or backstage passes) will be charged even higher ticket prices.
- Doesn’t actually make it easier for event organizers to ‘manage their budget’. Passing ticketing fees on to attendees doesn’t make it easier to keep track of payouts because you’ll still be paying payment processing charges depending on how your attendees choose to pay for their tickets. Additionally, since alternative event ticketing providers – like Event Smart – don’t charge a per ticket fee for paid tickets, you won’t have any additional fees to pass on to your customers in the first place.
Event Smart ticket selector lets you offer multiple ticket options at the same time and easily communicate ticket availability. In addition to this, it lets you check the number of tickets remaining based on ticket type or event datetimes.
Event Smart also lets you clearly display ticket information on your event page including the ticket details, ticket sales start and end times, and number of date and times available. You can also limit the number of tickets that can be bought per event or per order.
Payment Processing Options
A good event management platform gives you access to multiple payment gateways on your event website. Offering both offline (check or invoice) and online (such as PayPal and credit cards) options to your attendees gives them more flexibility to pay for their tickets using the payment gateway of their choice.
Let’s take a look at the payment processing options available with Eventbrite:
How Attendees Can Pay
Eventbrite Payment Processing is the default method for collecting online payments when you create a paid event on Eventbrite. While attendees can choose to pay using PayPal or Authorize.net, if you choose to process transactions using Eventbrite Payment Processing, you’ll have access to a suite of additional features that’ll help you streamline event tasks such as registration transfers, accepting credit card payments on-site, reserved seating, and event invoices.
Payouts for Event Organizers
Once you sign up to an event ticketing solution like Eventbrite, you have no choice but to rely on their services to receive payments. Your transaction proceeds go to the payment processor first and are then rerouted to your account at their discretion. This means that you may have to wait some time before the funds are made available in your account.
Eventbrite Payment Processing solution enables you to accept transaction proceeds 4 to 5 days after your event ends on Eventbrite. Plus, you’ll be charged a payment processing fee of 2.5%.
Control Over Payment Processing
You don’t have control over your payment processing since Eventbrite handles it on your behalf. Eventbrite begins processing your transaction proceeds and deducts processing fees after your event ends.
In case the payout day falls on a holiday or a weekend, your proceeds will begin processing the following bank day. Alternatively, you can use direct deposit payouts to speed up how early you get paid.
In comparison, here are the payment processing options available with Event Smart:
How Attendees Can Pay
Event Smart comes with several different payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, Authorize.net and Braintree. You can use your own payment processing solution to receive payments directly. This way, you would only have to pay their processing fees.
Payouts for Event Organizers and Control Over Payment Processing
Event Smart gives you access to a dedicated event website which allows you to receive payments directly into your account. In other words, whenever an attendee registers for your event and purchases a ticket, the payment will be reflected in your account and you can withdraw it whenever you’d like.
Conclusion
Event registration and ticketing platforms can help you organize, manage, and accept payments for events through your event website. If you’re looking to organize paid events, it’s worth taking a step back to see how much you’ll be charged per paid ticket you sell, how much control you’ll have over payment processing, and how the platform handles payouts.
Between Eventbrite and Event Smart, which event ticketing solution are you leaning towards and why? Let us know by commenting below.
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