Eventbrite now charges every event that sells more than 25 tickets a subscription fee. While they did not announce the price increase, their main pricing page now has 2 pricing options for events. Events can pay Eventbrite subscription fees per event or per month:
Eventbrite’s Subscription Fees
Eventbrite’s new subscription fees are in addition to:
- Increased per ticket fees rolled out earlier this year. Ticket fees grew to $1.79 + 6.6% per ticket including credit card fees. Compare this to TicketSignup’s per cart fee of $1 plus 6% per transaction including credit card fees – and just $.80 plus 4.8% for events that sell more than 5,000 tickets.
- Charging for Emails with Boost. Yes, even with a Pro subscription you can only send 10,000 emails per day – expensive for organizations with more than 10,000 contacts! TicketSignup’s Email Marketing is free. Send unlimited emails to unlimited contacts (we make it easy to import!)
- Charging more for event ads across their site. This blocks the majority of events that do not pay for ads from Eventbrite’s promise to “reach more people”. Non-advertising customers drive traffic to Eventbrite so that Eventbrite can make more money from ad sales. Now non-advertising events have to pay more in subscription and ticket fees so that Eventbrite can make more money from ticket sales too! Versus TicketSignup where we never advertise to your attendees. Instead, we give you a free website that’s optimized for SEO, easy to design, features your event branding, and has cool tools like source tracking so you can really see what drives ticket sales (hint: it’s probably not Eventbrite)!
Pricing Comparison
Let’s compare Eventbrite and TicketSignup fees for a small customer:
| 2 Events Subscription | 500 Tickets, 2 Tickets per Purchase @ $25 | 2,000 Email Contacts Subscription | Total Cost | |
| Eventbrite | $100 | $1.79 + 6.6% per ticket | $15/month* | $2,000 |
| TicketSignup | $0 | $1 + 6% per transaction | $0 | $1,000 |
Let’s take a look at fees for a mid-sized customer that sells 5,000 tickets per year across 10 events:
| 10 Events Subscription | 5,000 Tickets, 2 Tickets per Purchase @$25 | 18,000 Email Contacts Subscription | Total Cost | |
| Eventbrite | $1,908 (10,000 emails/day) or $500 (250 email/day) | $1.79 + 6.6% per ticket | ~$200/month* | $20,133 |
| TicketSignup | $0 | $.80 + 4.8% per transaction | $0 | $8,000 |
And for a large customer that hosts 25 events and sells 50,000 tickets per year:
| 25 Events Subscription | 50,000 Tickets, 2 Tickets per Purchase @$25 | 250,000 Email Contacts Subscription | Total Cost | |
| Eventbrite | $1,908 | $1.79 + 6.6% per ticket | ~$2,500/month* | $203,908 |
| TicketSignup | $0 | $.75 + 4.5% per transaction | $0 | $75,000 |
Every event, particularly those with recurring events, will be hit with significant costs to continue using Eventbrite. However, Eventbrite is likely looking to grow their bottom line and ensure a positive investor outlook heading into this week’s Q2 earnings call to rally stock prices.