Booking fees
A booking fee is the amount a buyer pays on top of the ticket price, and it belongs to whoever is running the platform rather than to the event.
A booking fee, sometimes called a service fee, is a charge added at checkout on top of the face value of the ticket. It is set by the ticketing platform and is usually either a percentage, a fixed amount per ticket, or both. It is separate from the payment costs charged by a bank or card scheme.
Who actually pays it
On paper the buyer pays. In practice the organiser does, because the number the buyer compares against other events is the total at checkout. A charge that lands late in the process reads as a price rise, and it is the event that gets blamed for it.
That is why so many organisers choose to absorb the charge and advertise a round number instead. The money comes out of the same pot either way; what changes is whether the audience notices.
What has to be shown
European consumer rules expect the total payable to be clear before the buyer commits, including any unavoidable charge. Ticket fees that only appear on the final screen are the sort of practice regulators have been narrowing for years.
There is a practical reason too. Fees revealed late are the most common cause of an abandoned basket. A page that shows one price the whole way through converts better than one that is technically compliant and still feels like a surprise.
What Passavo adds at checkout
There is no booking fee. We charge a flat amount per month and take nothing per ticket sold, so the price you advertise is the price the buyer pays at checkout and nothing is added on our side.
If you want to cover your own payment costs, you build them into the ticket price you set. The price in the shop is then the whole price, shown before the buyer commits, and what you charge stays yours to decide.
Also searched for as
- service fee
- ticket fees
- transaction fee
- handling charge
Common questions
Do you add anything to the ticket price?
No. The buyer pays what you set. Your own payment provider charges you for handling the payment, and that agreement is between you and them.
Can we add our own charge if we want to?
Yes, by building it into your ticket price. No separate line is added at checkout, which keeps the total honest on the first screen as well as the last.