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Chobble Tickets vs Zeffy

Zeffy is a Canadian fundraising platform for registered nonprofits. It charges nothing for its tools and asks donors for an optional contribution to Zeffy at checkout. Here is how Chobble Tickets compares.

Open source & self-hosted Zeffy alternative

Chobble Tickets is a white label ticketing platform made in the UK by a community interest company. Its source code is published under the AGPL-3.0-only licence, so anyone can read it, fork it, or run their own copy. Zeffy does not publish its source code.

Zeffy is free for organisations. Donors see a request for an optional contribution to Zeffy on every form. That contribution is Zeffy's only income, and it pays for card processing on every organisation using the platform, including those whose donors do not tip. Chobble Tickets charges organisers £50/year or £5/month and takes no per-ticket fee.

Both platforms sell tickets, scan QR codes at the door, and take no cut of ticket income. They differ in who can sign up, how money reaches the organiser, and how much of the checkout carries the provider's own branding.

Pricing comparison

Zeffy has no subscription and no fee on tickets sold. It covers card processing on every payment. Its only revenue is the optional contribution asked at checkout: the wording and suggested amounts cannot be customised, the suggested percentage falls as the payment grows, and around 60% of donors leave something. A contribution is not refunded when the underlying payment is refunded.

Zeffy's documentation describes one safeguard on this model. If an organisation raises large amounts by card with few or no contributions, Zeffy says it would reach out and could agree a temporary limit on card payments while other payment methods stay open.

Chobble Tickets is a flat £50/year or £5/month, or £25/year for charities, community groups, artists and musicians on the annual plan. There are no per-ticket platform fees and no feature tiers. You pay Stripe, Square, or SumUp processing separately, and ticket income goes straight to your own payment account.

Managed hosting is prepaid, not a subscription. Chobble stores no card details for automatic renewal. If a prepaid term ends without renewal, the site enters read-only mode for 24 months: the organiser keeps full read access and can export everything, payments can restart at any time, and nothing is owed for the read-only months.

At the calculator's default of 200 tickets at £10, Chobble Tickets costs £50 plus about £70 of processing at Stripe's UK rate, £120 in total. Zeffy costs nothing beyond the tips some donors choose to leave.

Zeffy is free, so it costs less than Chobble Tickets at every volume. The calculator shows what Chobble Tickets costs after processing, which is the part Zeffy asks donors to cover instead.

Interactive cost calculator

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

Total takings £2,000.00
Chobble Tickets Zeffy
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

"Your share" assumes the organiser pays the fees out of the ticket price. Where a platform lets the organiser add its fees on top, the buyer pays them and the organiser keeps more than the figure shown. These figures exclude VAT and cover paid tickets. Several platforms charge nothing for free tickets, and the notes below record that where it is published.

Zeffy charges organisations nothing: no subscription, no platform fee on tickets, and it covers card processing. Its only revenue is the optional contribution it asks donors for at checkout, which around 60% of donors leave; the suggested percentage falls as the payment grows, the wording cannot be customised, and a contribution is not refunded when the underlying payment is. Ticket money reaches the organisation by payout after a 1-3 business day anti-fraud review: weekly by default (every Monday), monthly on the first Monday, or the next business day for eligible organisations, and payouts cannot be triggered manually. Chobble Tickets: £50/year or £5/month flat (£25/year for charities, community groups, artists and musicians on the annual plan) + Stripe, Square or SumUp processing (1.5% + 20p), paid straight into the organiser's own payment account. Source: zeffy.com/home/free-online-fundraising-platform and support.zeffy.com (checked 10 October 2026).

Feature comparison

Zeffy is an all-in-one fundraising platform for nonprofits: donations, events, memberships, auctions, raffles, an online store, and a donor CRM. Chobble Tickets is a purpose-built ticketing and hire platform for any organiser. Here is the breakdown:

Both platforms offer

  • Online ticket sales with multiple ticket rates and prices
  • Free tickets alongside paid ones
  • Capacity limits on ticket sales
  • Events that run across several dates, with per-date lists or capacity
  • Custom questions on the booking form
  • Discount codes
  • Automatic sales cut-offs that close booking when a deadline passes
  • Pay-what-you-want pricing
  • E-tickets with QR code check-in by phone
  • Confirmation emails to buyers
  • Recording offline payments such as cash or bank transfers
  • Attendance and sales reports as downloads
  • Refunds and cancellations managed by the organiser
  • Multiple team members with different permissions
  • Forms that can be embedded on another website
  • Data exports as spreadsheets

Zeffy has features Chobble Tickets doesn't

  • Raffles - prize pools, ticket bundles, numbered tickets, and a winner draw from the entrant list
  • Auctions - item listings with images, outbid alerts, and automatic payment collection from winners
  • Memberships - tiered memberships with renewal options and personalised membership cards by email
  • Peer-to-peer campaigns - supporters fundraise for your cause with leaderboards, built for a-thons
  • Online store - merchandise with photos, variants, discounts, and stock tracking
  • Donor CRM - contact profiles with giving history, attendance, and email engagement, with segments and saved lists
  • Email campaigns and newsletters - send to your contacts and track opens, clicks, and unsubscribes, plus printed letters through Donor Mail and a custom domain for the sending address
  • Automated reminder emails - schedule a reminder to attendees with the details they need on the day
  • Scheduled ticket rates - give each rate its own start and end sale dates for early bird windows and timed releases
  • Ticket bundles - combine several tickets into one purchase
  • Tax receipts and Gift Aid - automatic tax receipts in the US and Canada with eligible amounts configurable per ticket rate, and Gift Aid claims through a Swiftaid connection in the UK
  • Recurring donations - monthly giving plans that donors manage in their own Zeffy account
  • AI grant finder - a free tool on Zeffy's website that searches thousands of grants for your nonprofit
  • Tap to Pay app - take in-person card payments through an iPhone or Android phone, with no card reader hardware and no fees. It runs in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Germany, and does not support tablets, auction forms, recurring donations, or membership forms
  • QuickBooks sync - one-way sync of payouts into QuickBooks Online, broken down by campaign
  • Zapier and viaSocket - no-code automations, with viaSocket connecting Zeffy data to more than 2,300 apps
  • AI assistants - read-only Claude and ChatGPT connectors that answer questions about your fundraising data
  • Translated forms - Spanish in the US and French in Canada
  • WordPress plugin and tracking - a donate button plugin, campaign embeds, Google Analytics for US accounts, and Meta Pixel

Chobble Tickets has features Zeffy doesn't

  • Open source - the complete product source is published under AGPL-3.0-only with no proprietary feature tier
  • Self-hosting - run the same product on your own servers without a Chobble software charge
  • Custom domain - a yourname.tix.chobble.net address instantly, or point your own domain at it. Zeffy forms live on zeffy.com addresses generated from the form name, which cannot be changed after creation
  • Public-facing website and CMS - a homepage, content pages, news posts, and a contact form with spam protection, edited in Markdown
  • Encryption at rest - attendee data is stored with hybrid RSA-OAEP + AES-256-GCM encryption rather than plain database rows
  • Direct payments - ticket income goes straight into your own Stripe, Square, or SumUp account, with no payout schedule and no platform holding the money first
  • A checkout with no provider branding - no contribution request, no powered-by line, and no provider emails about the platform. On Zeffy the contribution request appears twice on every form with wording you cannot change
  • Deposits and balance payments - take a deposit or set a £0 reservation, then collect the balance by link, cash, or bank transfer
  • Daily and multi-day events - per-date capacity with a calendar picker and holiday blackouts
  • Groups and tiered tickets - VIP, early bird, and other tiers through event groups with a shared capacity cap
  • Packages and required choices - sell several listings as one package, or require a choice such as a room, meal, or materials kit
  • Payment-confirmed capacity - a place is used only when payment confirmation arrives, and if confirmed payments race for the last place, the later order is refunded automatically
  • Promo codes, discounts, and add-ons - surcharges and opt-in add-ons with stock limits
  • Apple & Google Wallet tickets - attendees can add tickets to their phone wallet
  • ICS calendar and RSS feeds - subscribers get automatic calendar updates, and events syndicate to feed readers
  • Write-capable APIs - a public API for listings and availability plus an authenticated admin API that can change data, and webhooks on every registration. Zeffy's API and webhooks are read-only
  • Custom email providers - send confirmations from your own domain through Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, or Mailgun, with editable templates
  • Purchasable events and sign-up forms - donations, dues, and volunteer sheets without an event to attend
  • No advertising to your attendees - Zeffy's privacy policy describes retargeting ads for Zeffy through Google Ads and Facebook Custom Audience using email addresses submitted on its forms
  • Open to any organiser - Zeffy accepts only nonprofits with a bank account in the organisation's name, in six countries
  • Community Interest Company - a UK CIC whose assets are locked for community benefit

Payments and payouts

Zeffy processes payments itself through Stripe and sends payouts to your bank account: weekly by default (every Monday), monthly on the first Monday, or the next business day for eligible organisations. Payments pass a security and anti-fraud review that typically takes 1 to 3 business days, payouts cannot be triggered manually, and money received late in the week can miss the Monday payout and arrive in the next cycle.

With Chobble Tickets, each payment is charged to your own Stripe, Square, or SumUp account at the moment of purchase. There is no payout schedule to wait for and no platform holding the money.

Both platforms let the organiser issue refunds. On Zeffy, a donor's contribution to Zeffy is not refunded automatically when you refund a ticket, because it covers the processing Zeffy paid on your behalf.

Who can sign up

Zeffy is only for nonprofits and registered charities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Germany, with a bank account in the organisation's name. Individuals and for-profit businesses are not eligible. The US requires an EIN, Ireland a Charity Registration Number, Germany a Vereinsregisternummer, and Australia an ABN; the UK needs no charity number. Each Zeffy organisation has a single admin account, and other users work with the permissions that admin grants.

Chobble Tickets has no nonprofit-only requirement and no country restriction of that kind. Community groups, charities, schools, caterers, venues, and hire businesses all run on it, alongside commercial events.

Data and attendee relationships

Zeffy stores user and donor data on Amazon RDS servers in Canada, with images on S3, and says it stores no card details, which Stripe processes under PCI Service Provider Level 1. It offers two-factor authentication, account change notifications, and breach procedures, and states compliance with GDPR, UK GDPR, PIPEDA, Quebec's Law 25, and the CCPA. Canada carries a European adequacy decision, and US processors are covered by standard contractual clauses, per the policy.

Under the GDPR, Zeffy's privacy policy places Zeffy as the data controller for personal data collected through its services, and as a processor when it sends organisation emails on an organisation's behalf. Its policy also describes advertising for Zeffy through Google Ads and Facebook Custom Audience, matching submitted email addresses to online profiles, with an opt out.

On Zeffy, buyers and donors become contacts in the provider's CRM, which tracks giving history, attendance, and email engagement, and donors can hold accounts on zeffy.com. Organisers can export payments, transactions, payouts, tax receipts, and contacts as spreadsheets, and import contacts from a spreadsheet or Mailchimp.

Chobble Tickets does not run a marketplace, build platform-level profiles, or advertise to your attendees. Attendee names, contact details, ticket links, payment references, and written answers are encrypted at rest, and every registration reaches you by webhook and through a documented API.

Both platforms let you take your data with you. Chobble Tickets adds a complete database backup and event setup export as versioned JSON through catalogue import and export, so a site can move to another Chobble Tickets host.

Source code and self-hosting

Zeffy is proprietary hosted software. There is no public source repository, no self-hosting option, and no published local development setup.

Chobble Tickets publishes its full source under AGPL-3.0-only. Managed and self-hosted deployments run the same product, and self-hosting carries no Chobble software charge, with infrastructure and payment services arranged separately.

When Zeffy might be the better choice

  • You are a registered nonprofit and want to pay nothing at all
  • Your donors do not mind a contribution request at checkout
  • You want auctions, raffles, memberships, peer-to-peer campaigns, or an online store beside ticketing
  • You need a donor CRM with segments, email campaigns, and printed letters
  • You want recurring donations and automatic tax receipts or Gift Aid
  • You need in-person card payments through a phone with no card reader
  • You want QuickBooks, Zapier, or AI-assistant connections

When Chobble Tickets is the better choice

  • You want ticket income paid straight into your own Stripe, Square, or SumUp account rather than arriving by payout
  • You want a checkout with no provider branding and no contribution request
  • You need a custom domain, a public website, or full white labelling
  • Privacy matters: encrypted attendee data, no ad retargeting, and no platform profiles
  • You are not a registered nonprofit, or you are outside Zeffy's six countries
  • You want open source code you can read, fork, or self-host
  • You need a write API, webhooks, wallet passes, or calendar and RSS feeds
  • You need deposits, balance payments, or daily events that hold capacity per date
  • You want a complete database backup and event setup you can move to another host
  • You want a predictable flat cost: £50/year or £5/month, or £25/year for charities, community groups, artists and musicians on the annual plan

Who runs Zeffy?

Zeffy was founded in Montreal by François de Kerret and Thibaut Jaurou, who began with a volunteering marketplace before building the fundraising platform under the name Simplyk. The company announced its rebrand to Zeffy in April 2022 as it expanded to the United States. Third-party sources disagree on the founding year: CB Insights says 2016, several directories say 2017, and Stripe's customer story says 2018.

In November 2021 Simplyk raised a $3.7M CAD seed round led by Ring Capital with Real Ventures and Panache Ventures. The privacy policy names the operating company as 9355-0861 Québec Inc., doing business as Zeffy, a Quebec corporation. Zeffy is a certified B Corporation, lists a team of 60 or more, and has offices in Montreal, Paris, and Newark, Delaware. Its marketing site reports more than 100,000 charities using the platform and over $2 billion raised.

Chobble Tickets is run by Chobble CIC, company number 17050113, a UK Community Interest Company. A CIC has an asset lock that limits how company assets can be transferred and requires them to be used for community benefit. All of Chobble's code is public under AGPLv3, and the platform can be self-hosted without depending on Chobble as a company.

Sources

The pricing, feature, privacy, and company information on this page was checked on 10 October 2026. Features and policies may change. Check the source pages for current details.