Clubs and events
What does a ticketing system cost a club or society?
What does a ticketing system cost a club or community group over a full year? Three worked examples, including the payment fees of the ticketing platform.
· 5 min read
The question comes back at every annual general meeting: what does that ticketing system actually cost us? The treasurer wants one number, the committee wants to know whether it could be cheaper, and nobody feels like putting three price lists side by side. For a club or community group, the cost of a ticketing system depends on two things: how many paid tickets you sell per event, and how many events you run in a year. Three examples show you straight away where your club stands.
What makes up the cost of a ticketing system?
There are two bills, and it pays to keep them apart:
- The software: what you pay the ticketing platform. With Passavo that is a fixed amount per month or per year, or nothing at all on the free plan. Nothing is taken per ticket sold.
- The payment fees: what your payment provider (Mollie, Stripe or Bancontact Pro) keeps per online payment. You have that cost with every ticketing platform; sometimes it is hidden inside a commission, here it runs directly between you and your provider.
What does not come on top: no service fees for your buyers, no set-up costs and no scanners to rent. Your volunteers scan with the scanning app on their own smartphones, and every buyer gets their ticket as a wallet pass, on every plan.
Example 1: the brass band with four paid events
This year the brass band is running:
| Event | Paid tickets |
|---|---|
| Mussel supper in March | 220 |
| Spring concert in May | 90 |
| Quiz night in October (per team) | 18 |
| Christmas concert | 95 |
| Sponsored walk (free registration) | 0 |
On the free plan you sell up to 100 paid tickets per event, with as many events a year as you like. Free registrations, like the ones for the walk, never count. So three of the four paid events stay under the limit. Only the mussel supper goes over, and you pay for that one event on its own: €19.00, once, with no subscription. You can do that up to 2 times per calendar year.
Over a whole year the software costs the brass band €19.00. If you also want to sell tickets on the door of the mussel supper with the counter point of sale, you need the Start plan.
Example 2: the youth club with a party every month
The youth club holds a party every month from September to June, each with a hundred and fifty paid tickets: ten parties, 1,500 tickets a year. Paying for ten events one by one isn't possible, and isn't meant to be: this is exactly what the Start plan is for. It costs €9.00 a month or €90.00 a year, for up to 3,000 paid tickets a year, with no limit per event, and the counter point of sale included.
An annual subscription costs ten times the monthly price. A monthly subscription can be paused during your quiet months: you get no invoices and carry on working on the free plan. If the youth club pauses in July and August, it pays for ten months and ends up at the same amount as an annual subscription. Pause for longer, and paying monthly is cheaper. If you sell all year round, pick the annual subscription and stop thinking about it.
Example 3: the sports club with matches and season passes
The football club sells tickets for every home match, a club party and a tournament — together well above 3,000 tickets a year. Then Growth is the plan: €29.00 a month or €290.00 a year, with no cap on the number of tickets, and with season passes, gift vouchers and your own domain included.
At that scale the payment fees weigh more than the software. That is the next question.
What are the payment fees of a ticketing platform?
A payment provider charges per payment, not per ticket. If a family buys four tickets in one order, that is one payment and so one transaction fee. How much that is depends on your provider and the payment method; those rates change outside our control, so check them on your provider's price list. Which provider suits your club is explained in Which payment provider should you choose?
Your buyers' money goes straight into your own account with that provider. We keep none of it and never see your payouts. How to trace a payout for your bookkeeping is covered in Payouts and fees.
The costs in one table
| Your club | Plan | Software per year |
|---|---|---|
| A few events, all but one under 100 paid tickets | Free + one event paid separately | €19.00 |
| An event every month, up to 3,000 tickets a year | Start | €90.00 |
| More than 3,000 tickets a year | Growth | €290.00 |
On top of that come your provider's payment fees, which you have with every ticketing platform.
How to work out the bill for your own club
- Write down the number of paid tickets for each event last year.
- Count how many events went over 100.
- Use the table above to choose your plan, and check the amounts on the pricing page.
Want to know how that fixed amount compares with a platform that charges per ticket? Read Subscription or commission for tickets. You can try a paid plan for 14 days first, and the free plan starts without card details.
