Yes, you can absolutely offer free and paid tickets at the same event. Nearly every ticketing platform lets you run comps, free RSVPs, and paid tiers side by side on one registration page. The part nobody warns you about is how each platform charges fees on each type of ticket, especially the free ones, because "free" for your guest is not always free for you. This guide shows you how to set up mixed ticket types cleanly, and how to make sure your comps do not quietly cost you money.
Think early-bird plus general admission plus a handful of free VIP invites plus a press list. That is four ticket types, three of them paid, one of them free, all on the same event. Standard stuff. Here is how to do it without the fee model biting you.
The three flavours of "free" ticket
Before you touch any settings, know that "free ticket" means three different things, and each is built differently.
The public free RSVP. Anyone can grab it, no code required. Perfect for community nights, open house events, or a free tier alongside paid workshops. You simply add a ticket type with a price of zero and leave it visible.
The comp or VIP ticket. Free, but only for people you choose: speakers, sponsors, press, the CEO's guest list. You do not want these on public display, so you hide them and hand out an access code. On Eventbrite you create a hidden ticket type and reveal it with an access code, which is the standard way to run a comp list.
The discount-to-zero. A paid ticket knocked down to nothing by a 100% promo code. Handy when you want the same ticket to be paid for most people and free for a chosen few. If the discount reduces the price completely, the ticket becomes free at checkout.
How fees work on free versus paid tickets
This is the bit that actually matters. On a paid ticket you expect a fee. On a free ticket, most platforms charge nothing, but "most" is doing some heavy lifting, and the paid side is where the real difference shows up. Here is the current picture across common platforms in the US.
| Platform | Free ticket fee | Paid ticket fee |
|---|---|---|
| Eventbrite | None | 3.7% plus 1.79 dollars service, plus 2.9% processing |
| Humanitix (US) | None | 5% plus 1.29 dollars, plus processing |
| Ticket Tailor | None (free under approx 5k tickets a year) | Flat per-ticket fee, own card processing |
| TryBooking (US) | None | 1 dollar plus 3.5% |
| eventcloud | None | None per ticket, flat 125 dollars per user per month |
Fee figures verified against Eventbrite, 2026 Eventbrite pricing breakdowns, and each platform's published rates. Read the small print yourself before you commit, because rates move.
Two things jump out. First, free tickets are genuinely free almost everywhere, so a free RSVP tier will not cost you a per-ticket fee. Second, the paid side is where the models diverge wildly. On a per-ticket platform, every paid ticket you sell is a billing event, so a wildly successful paid tier is also a wildly expensive one. On a flat model, selling more paid tickets changes nothing on your invoice.
The comp ticket trap
Here is the sneaky one. On some platforms a comp ticket created as a discount-to-zero on a paid ticket type can still trip a fee, because the system treats it as a paid ticket that happened to be discounted, not as a genuinely free ticket. The fix is to build comps as a proper hidden free ticket type with a zero base price, not as a 100% discount on a paid one. Same result for your guest, very different result on your statement if the platform charges on discounted paid tickets.
A comp is only free if the platform agrees it is free. Build it as a zero-price ticket, not a heavily discounted paid one, and check the fee line before you send a single invite.
How to set up mixed ticket types, step by step
The workflow is broadly the same wherever you sell. Follow this order and you will avoid the classic mistakes.
Step one: list every audience. Write down each group and what they should pay: early bird 79 dollars, general 99 dollars, student 49 dollars, VIP guest free, press free. Now you know how many ticket types you need.
Step two: create the paid tiers first. Set prices, quantities, and sale windows. Decide whether the attendee or you absorb the fee, and be honest that passing the fee on relocates it to your buyer rather than removing it, which can dent conversion on higher-priced tickets.
Step three: add the public free tier, if you have one, as a visible zero-price ticket with its own quantity cap so a free tier does not swallow your paid inventory.
Step four: build comps as hidden, zero-price tickets and protect them with an access code. Hand the code only to the people who should see the free option. This keeps freeloaders off your VIP list and keeps the ticket genuinely free.
Step five: test with a real checkout. Run one order per ticket type, including a comp, and watch the fee line on each. This five-minute check is the difference between a clean event and a nasty reconciliation surprise.
What to watch on the money side
Mixing free and paid tickets is easy. Keeping the economics clean is where organisers slip. A few guard rails:
Name your ticket types in plain language, too. "General Admission" and "VIP" tell a buyer exactly what they are getting, whereas "Tier 2 (Zone B)" makes people hesitate, and a hesitating buyer is a buyer you can lose. Set clear sale windows so early-bird pricing closes on its own rather than relying on you to remember at midnight. And if you are running comps for sponsors, agree in advance how many each sponsor gets, because "just add a few more" is how a free list quietly doubles.
Cap your free inventory so a popular free tier does not cannibalise paid sales. Keep comps hidden so they are not claimed by strangers. And remember that on per-ticket platforms your paid volume is the thing that scales your cost, which is the whole argument for a flat model when you sell a lot: on a flat plan a sold-out paid tier and a quiet one cost you exactly the same, while the per-ticket world charges you more precisely when you succeed. We dug into that hidden maths in our piece on the true cost of "free" ticketing platforms.
When a simple free-events platform is the better call
Honesty first. If you run occasional, entirely free events with modest numbers, you do not need a paid plan at all. Most platforms let free events run at zero cost, and paying a monthly subscription to sell nothing would be daft. A flat, unlimited model earns its keep once you are selling paid tickets often enough that per-ticket fees start compounding, or once you are juggling frequent events with a mix of free and paid tiers and want one predictable line on the budget.
The bottom line: offering free and paid tickets at the same event is standard practice and easy to set up. The only real decision is fees, both how they hit your paid tiers and whether your comps are truly free. Get the ticket types built cleanly, test every checkout, and you are done. If you want to compare how a flat model stacks up against per-ticket pricing for a mixed event, see our eventcloud versus Eventbrite comparison or the full pricing page.
