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Chobble Tickets vs PTA Events

PTA Events is a popular platform built specifically for PTAs and school fundraising. Here's an honest look at how Chobble Tickets compares.

Different platforms, different approaches

PTA Events is a dedicated platform for Parent-Teacher Associations, founded in 2013 by a PTA parent who wanted to simplify event management and fundraising. It's grown into a comprehensive suite covering ticketing, auctions, prize draws, volunteer management, e-commerce, and communications. It also powers the related PTO Events, Clubs Hub, and Charity Hub services.

Chobble Tickets is a general-purpose ticketing platform run as a Community Interest Company. It focuses on doing core ticketing well — with flat pricing, open source code, and encrypted attendee data — but doesn't have PTA-specific features like prize draws or volunteer coordination.

Note: PTA Events is a separate company (PTA Events Limited), not part of Parentkind. If you're comparing Parentkind as a membership organisation (with insurance, advisers, and resources), see our Chobble Tickets vs Parentkind comparison instead.

Pricing comparison

PTA Events offers two plans:

  • Starter plan (free): 3.95% platform fee per transaction, plus Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p, or 1.2% + 20p for registered charities). Higher fees apply to auctions (5%), prize draws (7.5%), and competitions (5%).
  • Premium plan (£299.99 + VAT/year): Reduced 1.5% platform fee on standard transactions, 4.95% on auctions/raffles/competitions, plus advertising and sponsorship tools, and Qflow ticket scanning included at no extra cost.

Both plans let you pass fees on to buyers, so the PTA itself may pay nothing — though this means attendees pay more per ticket.

With Chobble Tickets, it's a flat £50/year (£25 for charities and community groups), with no per-ticket fees or platform commission. You only pay Stripe or Square processing. Whether you sell 50 tickets or 5,000, the cost stays the same.

For a £10 ticket on PTA Events' Starter plan, combined platform and payment fees come to roughly 55-60p per sale. On Chobble Tickets, you'd pay only the payment processing fee (roughly 35p on a £10 ticket via Stripe). The more tickets you sell, the bigger the difference.

Interactive cost calculator

Drag the sliders to see how costs compare at different volumes:

Total takings £2,000.00
Chobble Tickets PTA Events
Annual fee £50.00 £0.00
Platform fees £0.00 £0.00
Payment processing £0.00 £0.00
Total cost per year £0.00 £0.00
Cost per ticket £0.00 £0.00

PTA Events Starter plan fees: 3.95% per transaction + Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p). Premium plan (£299.99+VAT/year) reduces platform fee to 1.5%. Fees can be passed to buyers. Chobble Tickets: £50/year flat (£25 for community groups) + Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p). Source: ptaevents.freshdesk.com (March 2026).

Feature comparison

Both platforms offer:

  • Online ticket sales via Stripe
  • Apple Pay and Google Pay at checkout (via Stripe)
  • Email confirmations to attendees
  • Capacity management to prevent overselling
  • Free event support (no payment setup needed)
  • Attendee data export (CSV on Chobble, 14 built-in reports on PTA Events)
  • The option to pass fees to buyers

Ticketing and events

Both handle the basics of creating events, selling tickets, and managing attendees. PTA Events adds time-slot management (useful for things like Santa's Grottoes), ready-made event templates, and merchandise/uniform sales through a built-in shop. Chobble Tickets focuses on core ticketing with features like pay-what-you-want pricing, registration deadlines, overbooking prevention, and event grouping for multi-event bookings with a single checkout.

Fundraising tools

This is where PTA Events really shines for PTAs. It includes:

  • Prize draws and raffles with automatic random winner allocation, ticket bundles, and prize listings
  • Online auctions with standard incremental or blind sealed-bid formats, starting bids, reserves, and bid increments
  • 100/200 clubs for recurring number-draw fundraisers
  • Donations page for accepting donations outside of events
  • Gift Aid declarations collected at checkout, with treasurer reports to help claim back 25% from HMRC on eligible donations (the PTA is responsible for submitting claims to HMRC)

Chobble Tickets doesn't have any of these fundraising tools — it's focused purely on event ticketing.

Volunteer management

PTA Events includes purpose-built volunteer coordination: create tasks, set up time slots, recruit volunteers, track sign-ups, and send automatic reminders. Chobble Tickets doesn't have volunteer management.

Communication

PTA Events has built-in messaging for committee members, class representatives, and parents, plus a newsletter tool and news article CMS. Chobble Tickets offers customisable email templates for ticket confirmations but doesn't include a newsletter or CMS.

Check-in and entry

PTA Events offers QR code scanning via the Qflow app. On the Premium plan, Qflow is included at no extra cost. On the Starter plan, it's available as an add-on (£48-72/year depending on school size). Smaller events can use the printable Door Validation List instead. On Chobble Tickets, QR code check-ins work with any phone camera and are included at every price point with no add-ons needed.

Data and privacy

PTA Events is a proprietary platform — you can't inspect how your data is stored or processed. Chobble Tickets is open source and encrypts all attendee data at rest using hybrid RSA-OAEP and AES-256-GCM encryption. You can inspect the code, self-host, and export your data at any time.

Customisation and integrations

Chobble Tickets offers custom domains, light and dark themes, markdown event descriptions with image uploads, customisable email templates, an embeddable widget, a public & admin API, webhooks, custom questions, RSS and calendar feeds, Apple & Google Wallet support, and a choice of email providers.

PTA Events provides a branded microsite for your PTA, advertising and sponsorship tools (Premium plan), 14 built-in reports, and a community pages CMS.

When PTA Events makes more sense

If your PTA needs the full fundraising toolkit — prize draws, auctions, 100 clubs, volunteer management, merchandise sales, Gift Aid collection, and parent communications — then PTA Events is purpose-built for that. It's designed specifically for the school fundraising context and its features reflect years of feedback from PTAs. The ability to pass platform fees to buyers means the PTA's direct costs can be kept low.

PTA Events is also a good choice if you want an all-in-one platform that covers ticketing, e-commerce, communications, and volunteer coordination in a single tool.

When Chobble Tickets makes more sense

If your PTA mainly runs ticketed events and doesn't need auctions, raffles, or volunteer tools, Chobble Tickets is simpler and cheaper. At £25/year for community groups with no per-ticket fees, the savings add up quickly — especially for popular events where percentage fees eat into your fundraising total.

It's also a better fit if you care about data privacy and encryption, want to use your own domain, need API integrations or webhook automations, or want a platform that works for non-school events too. And because it's open source, you can self-host for free if you want full control.

Who owns PTA Events?

PTA Events Limited (Companies House #09404586) was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Bedford. It was founded by David Cooke, who built the platform in 2013 for his children's school PTA. The company is owned by David Cooke, Geraldine Cooke, and James Stonor — all individuals, with no corporate shareholders.

PTA Events and Parentkind are separate organisations with no shared ownership or directors. They have a commercial partnership where Parentkind promotes PTA Events to its member PTAs, but PTA Events is an independently owned private limited company, not a subsidiary or part of the Parentkind charity.

Chobble Tickets is run by one person as a Community Interest Company (CIC) — a UK legal structure that locks the company's assets for community benefit. All of Chobble's code is public under AGPLv3, and the platform can be self-hosted by anyone without depending on Chobble as a company.

Pricing sources

The pricing information on this page was verified in March 2026. Fees may change — check the links below for the latest figures.