A growing number of events are moving from Eventbrite to TicketSignup. Many Eventbrite customers are frustrated with new subscription fees and price increases. Beyond pricing, there are many features on TicketSignup that help events make money, cut costs, and save time. This blog provides an overview of why customers are moving their events from Eventbrite to TicketSignup.
Customer Stories: From Eventbrite to TicketSignup
The Red Horse Inn features Wine on the Terrace and Wine Inside events throughout the year, bringing different musical guests to the inn. Attendees can also pre-purchase food options. Eventbrite’s new fees caused them to look for alternative platforms, as they can do as many as several small events each week. In addition to TicketSignup’s free platform with no subscription fees, Red Horse Inn was also able to automate sales and admissions tax and save money with per cart pricing when attendees bought tickets and food.
Charm City Run already uses RunSignup for all of their endurance events. Previously, they used Eventbrite for mostly free events held across their stores. They switched to TicketSignup when Eventbrite began charging and enforcing ticket limits on free events. With all of their events on one platform, Charm City Run can leverage free Email Marketing, with the ability to send emails to all contacts across all endurance and ticket events. In addition, the dynamic event list features all upcoming events.
Holy City Brewing switched to TicketSignup because they liked free event websites that featured their brand and event information; rather than Eventbrite’s brand, Eventbrite’s search options, and paid ads for other creators’ events. In addition, they can cost-effectively pre-sell add-ons and fulfill them on site with the Ticket App.
Eventbrite Customers Want Less Expensive and Better Solutions
Eventbrite’s pricing does not make sense for events of any size. First, Eventbrite charges a per ticket fee. In addition, they added subscription fees last year to monetize free events and further increase margins on paid events. Finally, they charge for Eventbrite Boost; that means events need to pay to do things like send marketing emails.
With TicketSignup events save money in a variety of ways. TicketSignup’s pricing is per cart and not per ticket. With an average cart of 3 tickets, this results in significant savings. Moreover, there are no subscription fees with TicketSignup. Finally, all of our marketing tools are free – including free and unlimited Email Marketing.
TicketSignup’s pricing means events of all sizes save money. Here are cost differences between Eventbrite and TicketSignup (Note that events that sell more than 5,000 paid tickets get a volume discount on TicketSignup).
Other key notes on TicketSignup’s family-friendly pricing:
- TicketSignup charges a processing fee per cart – NOT per ticket (average cart has ~3 tickets!)
- Includes all credit card fees
- Volume Pricing available starting at 5,000 paid Tickets/Year
- Weekly on-time payouts (No 20% reserves – and we don’t charge an extra 3% for daily withdrawals, which are available upon request and approval on TicketSignup)
- We handle chargebacks & sales tax for you
- Option to increase processing fees and keep the difference!
- No contracts. We want happy customers so you’re never locked into using TicketSignup and your data is always available to you.
Free Events are Always Free on TicketSignup
When we say no subscriptions or hidden fees, we mean it – for every event, even the free ones! We are talking to a growing number of events that use Eventbrite for free events and are frustrated with the new pricing changes. TicketSignup’s free platform that makes every feature (including Email Marketing) available for every event makes sense.
Eventbrite’s subscription fees for free events are a bit surprising given their strategic focus on being a marketplace. A successful marketplace needs to attract both supply (events) and demand (potential attendees). By adding subscription fees, Eventbrite will churn events because free (and paid events looking to save money) will move to lower cost platforms with better technology like TicketSignup. That means there are fewer potential attendees on Eventbrite’s site – and fewer events and traffic for Eventbrite to monetize paid ads. This vicious cycle of reduced supply and demand weakens a marketplace strategy and Eventbrite’s claim that they help events sell tickets.
Feature Your Brand – Not Eventbrite’s
Eventbrite features Eventbrite’s brand on each event page. With TicketSignup, events get a free website that features their event’s brand and never TicketSignup. See these examples for some of the differences.
- Eventbrite’s logo
- Search bar to find other events
- Menu items to navigate to other pages on Eventbrite’s website
- Orange Eventbrite branding
- Event logo, images, and text
- Custom menu with pages containing event information
- Custom branding
- Sticky calls to action – Buy Tickets and Donate
TicketSignup Doesn’t Promote Other Events on Your Event Website
We don’t promote other events on your event website. Eventbrite sells paid ads on all free and paid events. That means Eventbrite makes money from subscription fees, processing fees, and ad real estate from every event on their platform. In addition to this very high take rate, there are inherent conflicts. For example, this beer fest page features paid ads for other events happening in the same city, on the same day, and at the same time.
Your event is what is valuable. For multi-event organizations, we make it easy to feature all of your events dynamically on your event websites. For example, the Els for Autism Foundation features its regional fundraising golf tournaments in a dynamic list on their website (built on TicketSignup – custom domains and subdomains supported for free!)
Free and Unlimited Email Marketing
Unlike Eventbrite Boost, TicketSignup makes it free and easy to market your event. TicketSignup’s free Email Marketing is Mailchimp/Constant Contact but purpose-built for events. It saves so much money and makes it incredibly easy to send beautiful emails that end up in inboxes that we actually use it ourselves – https://info.ticketsignup.io/knowledge-base/ticketsignup-newsletters/.
For customers transitioning from Eventbrite to TicketSignup (or cutting another email platform), you can easily imported unlimited custom lists. Then leverage all of our email features – from automated drip campaigns and replacement tags integrated with your event data to prebuilt emails and our extensive component library.
Increase Revenue Per Ticket Sold
Many events are capacity limited. A really powerful way to increase revenue per ticket is by upselling add-ons. TicketSignup’s integrated store lets events easily sell items, experiences, upgrades, and more with powerful features including:
- Offer items per ticket, per purchase, and/or in the standalone store
- Automatically include items with certain tickets. For example, VIP tickets get 2 drinks.
- Fulfill items on site with the Ticket App
- Share inventory and manage availability across events via TicketSignup’s Warehouse
- Advanced inventory and pricing options available per item and per variant (i.e. color, size)
- Coming soon- self-serve option to add items to an existing ticket purchase
Since TicketSignup’s pricing is per cart and not per ticket/item, purchasing add-ons is cost-effective for attendees. On the other hand, Eventbrite charges a per ticket and per item fee, making it cost prohibitive to purchase tickets and items. The same carts on the right with 2 $20 tickets and one $20 t-shirt have very different processing fees – $9.54 on Eventbrite and $4.70 on TicketSignup.
Accept Donations
TicketSignup helps nonprofits raise more money. Events can accept donations when attendees buy tickets, as a standalone donation, and/or on the checkout page with a customizable “Add Donation to Cart” option. TicketSignup only charges a flat 4% processing fee (including all credit card fees) to help nonprofits get more online donations. There are dozens of other features purpose-built for nonprofit events – donation discounts, live donation goal thermometers, tax deductible ticket settings, recurring donations and more.
The Loppett Foundation is hosting this year’s COOP FIS Cross-Country World Cup – the first world cup cross-country ski race to be held on US soil in twenty years! They used TicketSignup to reserve free tickets, as well as sell paid VIP spots and parking. In addition to collecting over 6,000 emails (for 23,000 free tickets), they raised $40,000 in donations and sold nearly $50,000 of add-ons (hats and carbon offsets). It’s a powerful example of how even free events can leverage TicketSignup’s features to raise money (and grow email lists) for great causes.
Multi-Date and Timed Entry Events
Unlike Eventbrite, TicketSignup is purpose-built for recurring events that happen across multiple days and/or with timed entry. Our patent-pending next generation timed entry ticketing has an efficient time slot database with Calendar driven interfaces for attendees and directors.
We make it easy for attendees to select a date, ticket type, and time when they want to attend. From the dashboard, it’s easy to manage tickets and track sales with actionable calendars. There is also pricing that is purpose-built for timed entry; for example, prices increase on October 10th and ticket sales close 5 minutes after each time slot.
Easy and Free On Site Technology
TicketSignup’s mobile Ticket App makes managing check-ins, on site sales, and more easy. Customers love the Ticket App – across the board, we get feedback that it takes 2-3 minutes to train staff how to use it. While the Ticket App is extremely user-friendly, it is powerful. The Ticket App has several features that former Eventbrite customers really like:
- Control the data and permissions of staff/volunteers using Ticket App. They can’t see your event’s total ticket sales or revenue.
- Full & partial check-ins, fast QR code scan, and lookup by name
- Add-on fulfillment
- Edit ticket holder info directly in the app
- Point of Sale integration with Square – so that your event can sell tickets on site with affordable and reliable hardware
- Free Waiver App so that you can replace paper waivers for free
Want to learn more? Check out our full webinar on how to transition from Eventbrite to TicketSignup.