How Ticketing Platforms Disguise Their Fees
Where a low headline rate, a charity pledge, a buyer fee or a free-events floor can sit beside a larger charge
Ticketing platforms usually publish their fees on a pricing page. The number on the page is not always the number an organiser or attendee pays, because the charge can be split across two fees, attached to a donation, shifted onto the buyer, or described as flat when its share of a cheap ticket is large.
This guide sets out the patterns the reviewed providers' published pages show. Every figure comes from a dated comparison page on this site, and each section links to the page that records its source.
A discount off a charge can still leave the charge higher than a platform that never makes it. The check throughout is the total charge, who pays it, and what funds any pledge attached to it.
A free-events floor is not a low rate
Most platforms on the comparison list charge nothing on free events. The same platforms charge a percentage plus a fixed amount on each paid ticket. Eventbrite charges 6.95% + £0.59 per paid ticket in the UK, Humanitix 4.67% + £0.46, Ticketpass 3.8% + £0.40 on Essentials, and TicketSource 7% per paid booking.
A headline that pairs "free events free" with those paid rates describes a floor of zero, not a low rate on paid tickets. The paid rate is what an event that sells tickets pays. Tito, TixFox and Weezevent also charge nothing on free events and a fee on every paid one.
The zero figure states the cost of a free event. It does not state the cost of the event that sells tickets.
Two fees at the same rate
Ticketpass publishes two charges on each Essentials ticket at the same rate: a booking fee of 1.9% + £0.20 and a service fee of 1.9% + £0.20. Together they are 3.8% + £0.40, but "1.9% + £0.20" is the figure that headlines the page.
Ticketpass's Give Back 50 pledge donates up to 50% of the booking fee, not the service fee. On a £15 ticket the booking fee is about £0.49 and the service fee about £0.49; the pledge donates up to about £0.24, and the service fee sits outside it.
A single rate named twice is one charge in two parts. Reading the booking fee alone understates what the ticket carries by the amount of the service fee.
A pledge funded by the charge on the ticket
Two providers on the list direct part of what they charge to a cause. Ticketpass donates up to 50% of its booking fee; Humanitix donates 100% of its profits. Both are funded by the fee charged on the ticket, not by the platform's own income.
Across 500 £15 tickets (one per payment, before VAT), Ticketpass Essentials charges about £485 and donates up to about £121 of it. The same 500 tickets cost about £263 on Chobble Tickets: £50 hosting plus about £212 in Stripe processing. The £222 difference, donated directly to the same charity, is about £100 more than the pledge sends, and the organiser still spends less.
Ticketpass's own terms describe the pledge as "not a binding contractual obligation but a commitment". Humanitix donates 100% of profits rather than a share of the fee, so the amount depends on what the company counts as cost before profit. The where ticketing money goes guide sets the pledges beside the charges that fund them.
A reduced charity rate is a discount on a charge, not its removal. Humanitix's charity rate of 3.33% + £0.25 and Ticket Tailor's 50% charity discount both still charge on each paid ticket. A lower rate funds the donation the same way the standard rate does.
Flat fees that are large percentages
A charge described as a fixed amount per ticket does not change with the ticket price, so its share of the price rises as the price falls. Ticket Tailor charges 60p per paid ticket pay-as-you-go; on a £3 stay-and-play ticket that is 20% of the price.
TixFox charges 38p, or 30p on tickets under £5; the 30p rate is 10% of a £3 ticket. Weezevent charges 2.5% + £0.99, and the 99p fixed portion alone is about a fifth of a £5 ticket.
Ticket Monkey charges 25p per paid ticket including VAT, which is still about 8% of a £3 ticket.
"Flat" describes the shape of the charge, not its size. On a £50 ticket the same 60p is 1.2%; on a £2 ticket it is 30%. A per-ticket fee that looks small next to an expensive ticket can be the larger share of a cheap one.
Free for organisers when the buyer pays
FIXR is free for organisers because ticket buyers pay 4.99% + £0.49 per ticket plus VAT, with a £1 minimum. Resident Advisor says promoters pay nothing because buyers cover a service fee. Ticketebo is free for organisers because buyers pay 4.95% (incl. VAT) per transaction, with a 75p minimum. The organiser can choose to absorb it instead.
PromoTix sells its ticketing as fee-free for organisers, and its UK price list charges attendees 3.5% + £1.19 on every paid ticket. That is £1.54 on a £10 ticket, or 15.4% of the price. Removing the fee means moving to a Professional plan whose subscription price the site does not publish.
The total cost of selling a ticket is not lower because the buyer is charged instead of the organiser. The buyer pays a fee above the underlying card-processing cost, and the organiser chooses whether to absorb it or pass it on.
A headline written for organisers ("free for organisers") and a headline written for buyers ("service fee £x") describe the same transaction from two sides. Quoting the one that reads lower does not change what the ticket carries.
A zero floor with requested contributions
Dandelion charges no subscription and no mandatory fee on tickets sold through the platform. It normally asks organisers for 1% of completed sales, asks buyers for a donation at checkout, charges £25 for events that send buyers elsewhere, and sells paid boosts that raise an event in public listings.
The advertised 0% is the floor, not the expected cost. Whether the organiser pays depends on contributions the platform records as voluntary. A "no fee" platform can still take a share of sales through a request the organiser is expected to meet.
Affiliate, rep and boost schemes
Several reviewed providers run schemes that pay a third party when a ticket is sold. FIXR has a rep and affiliate network where promoters sell tickets on the organiser's behalf and earn commission. Humanitix issues shareable affiliate codes, and Dandelion sells listing boosts.
A promoter earns commission on tickets sold through their link. An attendee who buys through a rep's code pays the same price as one who does not, so the code rewards the promoter rather than reducing the fee on the ticket. A "deal" reached through an affiliate link is an ordinary sale that pays the promoter, not a price cut funded by the platform.
Visibility on a marketplace can be paid as well as earned. Dandelion's boosts and Ticket Tailor's Discover area place paid positioning beside organic listings, and the reader cannot tell them apart from the listing alone.
Bundled processing that hides the margin
Some providers quote a single fee that includes payment processing. Humanitix, EVENTIM.Light, Ticketebo and the Ticketpass booking fee each fold the card cost into the platform charge.
A bundled figure does not show how much of it is the platform's margin and how much is the card-processing cost. Chobble Tickets separates £50 a year for hosting from Stripe's 1.5% + 20p, so the platform take and the processing cost read separately.
Many of these figures are also quoted excluding VAT. Ticketpass and Humanitix both exclude VAT from their headline rates, so a price compared on the headline alone is 20% lower than the VAT-inclusive charge. Add 20% to compare like-for-like.
The subscription you also need
A headline ticketing fee can sit on top of a subscription the headline omits. Wix Events adds a 2.5% service fee to paid tickets and requires a Wix Business & eCommerce website plan, priced from about £276 a year, plus 2.1% + 20p in Wix Payments processing.
Self-hosted software quoted as free can carry a similar catch. Hi.Events is free under the AGPL but shows a "Powered by Hi.Events" notice unless a $499 commercial licence removes it.
The ticketing fee and the prerequisite subscription are both costs of selling tickets on that platform. Quoting one without the other understates the total.
Comparison tables the platform writes
Fee comparison tables published by platforms tend to quote current figures for themselves and out-of-date figures for everyone else. That observation, and the undisclosed promotion it sits beside, is on the honest advertising page.
The checkable response is a table that links every figure to its source and the date it was checked. The platform fee calculator does that for the providers reviewed here, and each comparison page repeats its sources at the foot of the page.
Prices that move
A signed-up rate is not a locked rate. Eventbrite's pricing has changed multiple times over the years, generally trending upward, and a platform that changes operator can change terms with it.
Ticketpass changed operator on 9 October 2025, when Fanex Group Ltd acquired the business. Fanex Group Ltd lists one person holding 75% or more of its shares, who is also the executive chairman of the investment firm Liberté Capital. Ticketpass's terms describe the Give Back 50 pledge as a commitment rather than a binding obligation.
What limits a change is the structure underneath the price. Chobble Tickets is a community interest company limited by guarantee with no share capital, so control cannot be acquired by buying a stake. Its code is published under AGPL-3.0-only, so an organiser can run the same product on another host.
Questions to compare
- What is the total charge on a typical ticket, including every fee, VAT and payment processing?
- Who pays that charge, the organiser or the attendee?
- Does the platform charge separately on free events and paid events, and what is the paid rate?
- If there is a charity pledge, is it a share of the booking fee, of all fees, or of profit?
- Is a flat fee a small share of a cheap ticket, or a large one?
- Is the rate locked, and could a change of operator change it?
- What subscription, licence or branding requirement sits underneath the headline?
The where ticketing money goes guide lists the published rates and pledges behind these patterns. The flat-rate ticketing guide compares the pricing models directly, and the platform fee calculator applies each reviewed rate to a ticket price and volume.