Festival Ticketing Fees Compared: 12 Platforms on a $60 Pass (2026)

Festival ticketing fees come in two layers: the platform's own charge (a flat amount per ticket, a percentage of the price, or both) and payment processing, typically 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction through Stripe, or 2.8% plus 30 cents through Square. As of September 2026, the platform layer on a $60 CAD weekend pass runs from nothing (Zeffy, nonprofits only) to about $3.40 on Eventbrite and $12 or more on the majors-only platforms, and on a $25 day pass the flat-fee platforms pull ahead because a fixed fee does not care what the ticket costs. Below, 12 platforms priced on both passes, with who pays and when the money lands. Every number comes from the vendor's own pricing page, fetched for this article, or from our earlier ticketing fee comparison across platforms; each entry says which.

Key takeaways

• A percentage fee is a tax on your pass price: it grows every time you raise a weekend pass, while a flat fee stays put.
• On a $25 day pass, flat-fee platforms cost a dollar or less before processing; percentage platforms land between about $1 and $3.50. On a $60 weekend pass, Eventbrite is about $3.40.
• "Who pays" is a setting, not a fact. Passing the fee to the buyer moves it to the checkout screen; it does not make it smaller.
• Payout timing matters as much as the fee when artist deposits are due months before gates open. Platforms built on your own Stripe or Square account pay on a rolling schedule; marketplaces hold funds until after the event.
• Compare the fee plus the tools you would otherwise buy separately: scheduling, maps, vendor and volunteer management, scanner rentals.

Top picks at a glance

• Best overall for festivals that need more than a checkout: Eventist. $4.99 CAD flat per ticket with scheduling, maps, vendor and volunteer tools included, or $0.85 for general admission only.
• Best for the lowest fee on a plain checkout: Eventist's $0.85 general-admission rate, then TicketSpice at 99 cents and Ticket Tailor at $1.00 pay-as-you-go ($0.82 down to $0.40 on prepaid credits). All flat, whether your pass is $25 or $250.
• Best for registered nonprofits: Zeffy. No platform or processing fee; the buyer is asked for an optional tip.

How festival ticketing fees are structured

Three models exist, and the model matters more than the number:

• Flat per ticket. The same fee at every price point, so the festival ticketing software cost per ticket is known before you sell anything.
• Percentage plus a fixed amount. Eventbrite's 3.5% + $1.29 is the pattern: cheap on a $10 ticket, painful on a $250 VIP bundle.
• Negotiated or subscription. Tixr, Front Gate and Showpass's top tier quote per organizer; Luma sells a monthly plan that removes its percentage. Opaque in a first year.

Processing is the second layer on all of them. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 CAD per transaction in Canada and Square 2.8% + $0.30: at Stripe's rate, $2.04 on a $60 pass and $1.03 on a $25 pass regardless of platform. Our event payment processing guide covers Stripe versus Square, payout schedules and chargebacks. One more detail decides the real ticketing fees for festivals: whether the fixed part is charged per ticket or per order, since four day passes in one order means four fixed fees on a per-ticket model.

The 12 platforms priced on a $60 weekend pass and a $25 day pass

All figures are as of September 2026; "all-in" adds Stripe-rate processing where the platform does not bundle it.

1. Eventist: best overall for festivals that need scheduling, maps and crew tools, not just checkout

Who it is for: festivals of roughly 500 to 20,000 attendees that want ticketing, multi-stage schedules, live maps, vendor booths, volunteer tasks and phone check-in in one system.

Fees (published price list): festival package $4.99 CAD flat per ticket, bulk pricing from $2.99 at volume; general-admission events $0.85 CAD per ticket. No subscription, no setup fee, free events free. Payments run through your own Stripe or Square.

• $60 weekend pass: $7.03 all-in on the festival package ($4.99 + $2.04); $2.89 on the general-admission rate. $25 day pass: $6.02 all-in on the festival package; $1.88 on the general-admission rate.

What it does well: the fee never moves with the pass price, so a $250 camping bundle costs the same to sell as a day pass. Payouts arrive daily, weekly or monthly as you set them with Stripe or Square, which funds artist deposits in February. The attendee list is yours to export. The festival case study shows a multi-stage schedule with GA and VIP tickets running without a separate ticketing vendor.

What to watch: on a plain $25 day pass, $4.99 is a 20% fee. The festival package only pays for itself if you use the tools it replaces; if you only need a checkout, take the $0.85 rate. No RFID or cashless wristbands, no resale marketplace, no discovery marketplace on Eventbrite's scale.

2. Eventbrite: the marketplace, at a percentage that grows with your pass price

Who it is for: festivals that rely on marketplace discovery.

Fees (Eventbrite's Canadian pricing page): 3.5% + $1.29 CAD service fee per paid ticket, plus 2.9% payment processing per order. Free events are free; buyers pay by default.

• $60 weekend pass: $3.39 service fee, $5.13 all-in. $25 day pass: $2.17 service fee, $2.89 all-in.

What it does well: discovery. The app and email digests reach people who were not looking for you, which can be worth the fee in a first year.

What to watch: a $150 VIP pass carries a $6.54 service fee before processing. Payouts land after the event unless you qualify for advance payouts. Our Reddit guide to Eventbrite alternatives covers what organizers switch to and when staying is right.

3. Showpass: Canadian, tiered, and cheap on the entry plan

Who it is for: Canadian venues and festivals that want CAD pricing and box-office integrations.

Fees (Showpass's pricing page): Essential 1% + $0.59 per paid item, Professional 2.5% + $1.69, Premium by custom quote, plus 2.9% + $0.30 CAD processing. No monthly fee.

• $60 weekend pass: Essential $3.23 all-in; Professional $5.23. $25 day pass: Essential $1.87 all-in; Professional $3.35.

What it does well: the Essential tier is one of the cheapest percentage models here, in CAD from a Canadian company.

What to watch: the features festivals want tend to sit on the Professional tier, where the fee approaches Eventbrite's; scheduling, vendors and volunteers live in other tools.

4. Humanitix: a fair percentage with the profit going to charity

Who it is for: community and cultural festivals that want a lower percentage than Eventbrite.

Fees (Humanitix's Canadian pricing page): 2.1% + $0.99 CAD per paid ticket, 1% + $0.99 for charities and schools, plus Stripe processing. Free events are free.

• $60 weekend pass: $2.25 platform, $4.29 all-in. $25 day pass: $1.52 platform, $2.55 all-in.

What it does well: cheaper than Eventbrite at every price point, and the charity model is a genuine marketing asset.

What to watch: still a percentage, so a $200 VIP bundle costs $5.19 in platform fee; no schedule, map or crew layer.

5. Ticket Tailor: the lowest published flat fee for a plain checkout

Who it is for: organizers who want the cheapest checkout and run the rest of the festival elsewhere.

Fees (Ticket Tailor's pricing page, CAD selected): C$1.00 per ticket pay-as-you-go, or C$0.82 down to C$0.40 on prepaid credits, no monthly fee required, plus processing through your own Stripe, Square or PayPal.

• $60 weekend pass: $3.04 all-in at the pay-as-you-go rate. $25 day pass: $2.03 all-in.

What it does well: a flat fee that undercuts Eventist's $0.85 general-admission rate only on prepaid credits, no percentage anywhere, white-label checkout on your own domain.

What to watch: the pay-as-you-go rate is above Eventist's general-admission rate, the saving needs credits bought in advance, and there are no festival operations tools.

6. TicketSpice: 99 cents flat, with add-ons priced per month

Who it is for: fairs and festivals that want a flat fee and branded pages.

Fees (TicketSpice's pricing page): 99 cents per paid ticket (49 cents under $5 and at the box office), plus 2.9% + 30 cents processing. Email and texting are monthly add-ons; fees are deducted from payouts.

• $60 weekend pass: $3.03 all-in. $25 day pass: $2.02 all-in.

What it does well: a fee that stays flat on a $250 pass, taken out before the deposit lands.

What to watch: a US company whose pricing page does not quote CAD, so confirm the Canadian figure.

7. Universe: a low percentage on a simple checkout

Who it is for: small community festivals that want a ticket page and nothing more.

Fees (Universe's pricing page): 2% + $0.59 per ticket on the Starter and Standard plans, processing extra, Pro by custom quote. Free events are free.

• $60 weekend pass: $1.79 platform, $3.83 all-in. $25 day pass: $1.09 platform, $2.12 all-in.

What it does well: cheap and self-serve, with social sharing built in.

What to watch: no Canadian-dollar figure on the pricing page, and it is a checkout page, not festival management.

8. Zeffy: no fees for registered nonprofits

Who it is for: registered nonprofit festivals in Canada and the US.

Fees (Zeffy's pricing page): $0. No platform or processing fee; Zeffy asks the buyer for an optional tip and says roughly two in three leave one.

• $60 weekend pass: $0. $25 day pass: $0.

What it does well: the only genuinely free option for paid tickets here.

What to watch: nonprofits only, the tip prompt sits on your checkout, and the tools are built for fundraising.

9. Brown Paper Tickets: a buyer-paid 6% plus $1.99

Who it is for: organizers who want every fee on the buyer's side.

Fees (Brown Paper Tickets' pricing page): CA$1.99 + 6.0% per ticket, paid entirely by the buyer, card processing included.

• $60 weekend pass: $5.59, paid by the buyer. $25 day pass: $3.49, paid by the buyer.

What it does well: nothing comes out of your payout.

What to watch: one of the higher percentages here, forced onto the checkout screen, and Brown Paper Tickets has announced it is being retired in favour of Events.com, so it is not a platform to move to in 2026.

10. Luma: 5% on the free plan, or a subscription that removes it

Who it is for: tech, arts and community festivals with predictable volume.

Fees (Luma's pricing page): 5% platform fee on the free plan; Luma Plus is $59 per month billed annually and drops it to 0%. Stripe processing applies either way.

• $60 weekend pass: $5.04 all-in on the free plan; processing only, plus the subscription, on Plus. $25 day pass: $2.28 all-in on the free plan.

What it does well: at volume the subscription is cheap: 3,000 passes cost the annual plan, not 5% of everything.

What to watch: not priced in CAD, and no schedule, seat map or festival operations layer.

11. Tixr: custom quotes for large, sponsor-heavy festivals

Who it is for: larger music festivals with merch bundles and sponsor integrations.

Fees: not published; a custom quote per organizer, generally a percentage plus a fixed fee passed to the buyer.

What it does well: commerce beyond the ticket, including bundles and payment plans, at a scale where negotiating makes sense.

What to watch: no budgeting without a sales call, contracts can carry minimums, and the fit is stronger above 20,000 attendees.

12. Front Gate Tickets and Ticketmaster: the majors' model

Who it is for: stadium-scale festivals with venue or promoter contracts.

Fees (no published rate card): negotiated per event and not published; regulators have measured service, facility and processing charges at roughly 20 to 30% of face value, passed to the buyer.

• $60 weekend pass: roughly $12 to $18 in buyer-paid fees. $25 day pass: roughly $5 to $7.50.

What it does well: on-sale surge capacity and venue integrations that six-figure-attendance events need.

What to watch: not available to independents without a venue partnership; these fees are the checkout screenshots on r/festivals.

What festival ticketing fees add up to across a whole event

Take a 3,000-attendee festival selling 2,000 weekend passes at $60 and 1,000 day passes at $25, for $145,000 in revenue. Platform fees only, before processing: Eventbrite about $8,950, Humanitix about $6,020, Showpass Essential about $3,220, Ticket Tailor $3,000 at the pay-as-you-go rate, TicketSpice $2,970. Eventist's festival package is $14,970 at list or $8,970 at the $2.99 bulk rate, and $2,550 on the $0.85 general-admission rate. Processing adds about $4,205 plus 30 cents per order on every line.

Read that honestly. Eventist's festival package costs more than Eventbrite here, and the only reason to pay it is that it replaces the scheduling software, map tool, volunteer scheduler and scanner rental you would otherwise buy. If those are handled, a flat-fee checkout is cheaper.

Who pays, and when the money arrives

Every platform above except Brown Paper Tickets lets you add the fee at checkout or absorb it. Canada's Competition Act treats drip pricing as deceptive, so either way the all-in number must be visible early.

Platforms that run on your own Stripe or Square account (Eventist, Ticket Tailor, Humanitix, TicketSpice, Luma) pay on a rolling schedule as tickets sell; marketplaces hold funds until after the event by default. If you sell deposit-plus-instalment passes the schedule matters twice, which is why our guide to choosing Canadian festival ticketing software treats payouts as a first-class criterion.

How to choose

• Price your real ticket mix, not one ticket. Run day, weekend, VIP and camping through each fee model; percentages look fine on the day pass and hurt on the bundle.
• Add the tools you would buy anyway. Scheduling, map, volunteer and scanner costs belong on the same spreadsheet.
• Ask when you get paid before what it costs. A lower fee paid after the festival can cost more in bridge financing than a higher fee paid weekly.
• Check the currency. Several platforms publish US-dollar figures. Our multi-day festival ticketing comparison shows how the pass structure itself changes the fee math.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a fair ticketing fee for a festival?

Under a dollar per ticket for a plain checkout, or a flat few dollars when scheduling, maps and crew tools are included, as of September 2026. Ticketing fees for festivals above roughly 5% of face value on a weekend pass deserve a second look.

Is a flat fee or a percentage fee better for multi-day passes?

A flat fee, almost always. Weekend and VIP passes are your highest-priced tickets, and a percentage grows in proportion: on a $60 pass a flat $0.85 or $0.99 is a rounding error and 3.5% + $1.29 is over $3 before processing.

Do festival ticketing fees include payment processing?

Usually not. Most platforms quote a service fee and add 2.9% + $0.30 for Stripe (2.8% + $0.30 for Square), so the festival ticketing software cost per ticket you budget is the platform fee plus about 3% of the price plus 30 cents. Brown Paper Tickets and Zeffy are the exceptions.

When do ticketing platforms pay festivals?

Platforms that process through your own Stripe or Square account pay on a rolling schedule you choose, which can be daily. Marketplaces typically pay after the event unless you qualify for an advance. Ask before you sign.

Eventist's festival management and ticketing software is priced flat so the number on this page is the number on your invoice, whatever your passes sell for. For the gate side, see our event check-in playbook.

Ready to try it? Create a free Eventist account to set up your festival, or learn more about festival management and ticketing on Eventist.