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Chobble Tickets vs Resident Advisor

Resident Advisor is the go-to ticketing platform for the electronic music scene. Here's how a small, open source alternative compares on pricing, features, and data ownership.

Pricing comparison

Resident Advisor (RA) charges approximately 10% per ticket as a service fee, which includes payment processing. RA doesn't publicly list exact fee rates — they negotiate with promoters — but 10% is the figure widely cited by third-party comparison sites. On a £15 ticket, that's roughly £1.50 gone in RA fees.

Chobble Tickets is a flat £50/year (£25 for charities and community groups) with no per-ticket fees at all. You only pay Stripe or Square processing fees on top (1.5% + 20p in the UK). If you sell more than about 35 tickets at £15 each in a year, Chobble Tickets is already cheaper.

On higher-priced tickets the gap grows fast. A £30 ticket costs roughly £3.00 in RA platform fees — that's under 20 tickets to break even against a full year of Chobble Tickets.

Interactive cost calculator

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

Total takings £2,000.00
Chobble Tickets Resident Advisor
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

Resident Advisor fees: approximately 10% per ticket (includes payment processing). RA does not publicly list exact fees — they are negotiated with promoters. The 10% figure is widely cited by third-party comparison sites. Chobble Tickets: £50/year flat + Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p). Sources: weticket.com, support.ra.co (March 2026).

Data ownership and privacy

When you sell tickets through RA, your attendees become part of the RA ecosystem. RA markets events to your audience, and your attendee data lives on their platform. You're building RA's audience as much as your own.

With Chobble Tickets, attendee data is encrypted with hybrid RSA/AES encryption and stays under your control. There's no platform cross-promoting other events to your audience, and no marketing emails sent to your attendees.

Payouts

RA pays promoters after the event — typically the Tuesday following your event, with an additional 1–3 business days for funds to reach your account. That means your ticket revenue is locked up until after the event is over.

Chobble Tickets uses Stripe or Square directly, so payments go straight to your account with standard processing times. You're always in control of your own payment processor account.

Feature comparison

Both sites share some features:

  • Online ticket sales with payment processing
  • Apple Pay and Google Pay at checkout
  • QR code or barcode scanning for entry
  • Email confirmations to ticket holders
  • Capacity management to prevent overselling
  • Embeddable ticket widgets for your own website
  • Refund processing

Resident Advisor has some features Chobble Tickets doesn't, and vice versa:

Resident Advisor has features Chobble Tickets doesn't:

  • Electronic music community — RA reaches millions of fans across 100+ countries, specifically looking for club nights, festivals, and electronic music events
  • Automated marketing to 2 million subscribers — RA sends push notifications, emails, and web notifications to fans who've opted in, promoting your events alongside editorial picks
  • Curated editorial and RA Picks — 50+ local ambassadors curate weekly newsletters and homepage features that drive traffic to events
  • RA Bumps — paid priority placement in event listings to boost visibility above other events
  • Ticket resale with anti-tout technology — built-in face-value resale with barcode withholding until 24 hours before the event to prevent fraud (RA claim 2-4% additional revenue on sold-out events)
  • Abandoned basket recovery — automated emails to fans who started but didn't complete checkout (RA claim 5% conversion uplift)
  • 2-click checkout — streamlined payment with PayPal, iDEAL, Bancontact, and Venmo (US) alongside Apple Pay and Google Pay (RA claim 33% conversion uplift)
  • DJ charts, reviews, and mix hosting — artist profiles, DJ charts, album reviews, and music features that drive traffic to events and build artist credibility
  • Crowd flow and entry time analytics — post-event data showing when fans arrived, for operational planning and optimisation
  • RA Scan app — barcode scanner with guest list management, real-time attendance monitoring, and live multi-device syncing
  • Secret venue reveals — automated emails revealing the venue location to ticket holders, for invite-only or secret events
  • 30+ currency support — sell across 100+ countries with local payment methods
  • RA Guide — city guides and venue reviews that drive footfall to events and build audience awareness
  • Guest list management — import guest lists, add guests at the door, and manage comps alongside standard ticket sales
  • Embeddable ticket widget — embed RA ticket sales on your own website
  • B-Corp certified — RA is a certified B-Corp, demonstrating commitment to social and environmental standards

Chobble Tickets has features Resident Advisor doesn't:

When Resident Advisor might be better

  • You're running electronic music events and want access to RA's audience of clubbers and music fans
  • Event discovery matters more to you than saving on fees — RA's listings drive real ticket sales
  • You need built-in ticket resale for events that sell out
  • You want your events associated with the RA brand and its credibility in the electronic music world
  • You have very low volume (under ~35 tickets/year) and prefer paying per ticket over an annual fee

When Chobble Tickets might be better

  • You want predictable, flat-rate pricing with no per-ticket fees
  • Privacy and encryption matter to you
  • You don't want a platform marketing to your attendees or promoting other events to your audience
  • You run events outside the electronic music scene (or a mix of event types)
  • You're a community group, charity, or school (£25/year)
  • You want Apple/Google Wallet integration, calendar feeds, or RSS
  • You value open source and the ability to self-host
  • You already have your own audience and don't rely on a platform for discovery

Who owns Resident Advisor?

Resident Advisor was founded in 2001 in Sydney, Australia by Nick Sabine and Paul Clement. Both co-founders each hold between 25% and 50% of the company's shares according to Companies House records. CEO David Selby has stated publicly: "We're an independent business — we don't have investors." RA became a certified B Corporation in 2024, with an overall B Impact score of 87.6. The company is headquartered in London with offices in Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, and Melbourne, and has approximately 200+ employees.

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. Resident Advisor does not publicly list exact fee rates — they are negotiated with promoters. The approximately 10% figure used here is based on third-party comparison sites and industry reports. Fees may change — check the links below for the latest information.