The Cheapest Way to Sell Tickets Online, According to Reddit

The cheapest way to sell tickets online, according to years of organizer threads on Reddit, comes down to three moves: pass fees to buyers and show them up front, avoid percentage-based platform fees once your tickets cost more than about 40 dollars, and never pay a platform anything for a free event. Follow those three rules and the platform question largely answers itself.

Communities like r/eventplanning and r/festivals rehash this topic constantly, and the consensus is remarkably stable. Here is the advice, with the arithmetic behind it.

What Does Reddit Actually Recommend for Keeping Ticketing Costs Down?

The recurring money-saving themes in organizer discussions on Reddit are fee transparency, fee structure, and matching the tool to the event size. The advice that shows up over and over:

• Pass fees to the buyer, but show them early. Most platforms let you choose whether to absorb fees or add them at checkout. Reddit's organizer consensus: pass them on — buyers expect a reasonable fee — but display the all-in price before the final step. Surprise fees at checkout are the number one abandonment complaint attendees voice.
• Percentage fees are fine for cheap tickets and brutal for expensive ones. A 5 percent bite of a 15 dollar ticket is 75 cents; the same bite of a 200 dollar VIP package is 10 dollars. Threads about competitions, galas, and conferences repeatedly land on this realization too late.
• Never pay for free events. Several platforms, Eventist included, charge nothing for free tickets. If yours does, switch.
• Watch the payment processing line. Card processing (roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents through Stripe or Square) exists everywhere. The question is whether the platform stacks its own fee on top, and how big that stack is.
• Selling from your own site beats renting a marketplace. An embeddable checkout keeps your buyer data and avoids marketplace dependencies — a theme we covered in how to sell tickets on your own website.

What Does the Per-Ticket Math Actually Look Like?

Run the numbers on one real ticket and the structural difference between percentage and flat fees becomes obvious. Take a typical percentage model — around 3.7 percent plus 1.29 per ticket in service fees, which is the neighbourhood Eventbrite operates in — versus a flat capped fee like Eventist's 2.99 CAD, before payment processing in both cases:

• On a 20 dollar ticket: percentage model charges about 2.03; the flat cap charges 2.99. The percentage platform is cheaper. Reddit is right that cheap tickets favour percentage models.
• On a 45 dollar ticket: percentage model charges about 2.96; the flat cap charges 2.99. This is the crossover point — roughly 40 to 46 dollars depending on exact rates.
• On an 80 dollar ticket: percentage model charges about 4.25; the flat cap stays at 2.99. You save about 1.26 per ticket.
• On a 150 dollar VIP or competition package: percentage model charges about 6.84; the flat cap stays at 2.99 — nearly 4 dollars saved per ticket, per order line.

Scale that last line: 1,000 tickets averaging 150 dollars is roughly 3,850 dollars of difference in service fees alone. Whether you absorb fees or your buyers pay them, that money left the room. The full breakdown across platforms lives in how much it costs to sell tickets online.

The rule Reddit converges on, restated plainly: below about 40 dollars, percentage fees are competitive; above it, a capped flat fee wins, and the gap grows with every dollar of ticket price.

Where Do "Free" Ticketing Platforms Make Their Money?

No ticketing platform is actually free for paid events — the revenue is just relocated. When a platform advertises "free," check for:

• Buyer-side fees. The organizer pays nothing; the attendee pays a service fee at checkout. That is still your event costing more, and your attendees notice.
• Payment processing margin. Some platforms force their own processor and keep a spread above raw card costs, rather than letting you use your own Stripe or Square account.
• Payout float and delays. Holding your revenue until after the event is a real cost to you and a real benefit to them.
• Upsells and lock-in. Free tier for basics, paid tiers for the features you actually need: email tools, custom fields, reports.

None of these are scams — they are business models — but Reddit's instinct to ask "who pays, and when?" is exactly the right question. Our guide to understanding ticketing fees unpacks each layer.

What Is the Cheapest Setup for Most Independent Organizers?

For a typical independent event in Canada, the cheapest credible setup is a flat-capped-fee platform, fees passed transparently to buyers, payouts through your own Stripe or Square account, and checkout embedded on your own website. Concretely, on Eventist:

• Per-ticket fees are capped at 2.99 CAD — never more, with no setup costs and no monthly minimums.
• Free events are free, full stop — useful for recitals, open houses, and community events.
• Payouts run through your own Stripe or Square account, so money arrives on your processor's schedule, not a platform's.
• The embeddable ticket widget (with theme customization) sells from your website, so you keep the audience relationship and the email list.
• Coupons, sales analytics, and email marketing are included rather than gated behind a paid tier.

This is the same criteria set Redditors apply in best-ticketing-platform threads — we have simply built the platform to score well on it. If you want the math run on your actual price points, book a call and bring last year's numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it cheaper to absorb ticket fees or pass them to buyers?

Passing fees to buyers is standard and keeps your face price intact, and attendees broadly accept modest, clearly displayed fees. What damages conversion is not the fee itself but discovering it late in checkout. Show the all-in price early and pass the fee on.

Can I really sell tickets online for free?

Only for free events. Eventist charges nothing when the ticket is free, and some other platforms have similar free tiers. For paid tickets, someone always pays — the honest comparison is total cost per order (platform fee plus processing) at your real price point, not the marketing headline.

Why do flat fees beat percentage fees on expensive tickets?

A percentage fee grows with the price forever; a flat capped fee stops. At 45 dollars the two models roughly tie, at 80 dollars the flat cap saves over a dollar per ticket, and at 150 dollars it saves nearly four. Competitions, galas, and multi-day passes — anything with high-value tickets — benefit most.

Are payment processing fees avoidable?

No. Card networks and processors charge roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction everywhere, and any platform claiming otherwise has moved the cost, not removed it. What you can control is the platform fee stacked on top and whether payouts flow through your own Stripe or Square account.