If you want a straight event ticketing fees comparison without the marketing fog, here it is up front: on a $50 paid ticket in 2026, Eventbrite adds roughly $3.64 in platform fees, TryBooking about $2.75, Humanitix around $2.04, Ticket Tailor as little as $0.30, and a flat-fee platform like eventcloud adds nothing per ticket at all. Those are the platform fees stacked on top of card processing, which everyone pays. This guide lines up Eventbrite, Ticket Tailor, Humanitix and TryBooking side by side, shows the working, and tells you honestly which one wins for your event size.
The one number that never changes: card processing
Before any platform adds its cut, there is a fee nobody escapes. Card networks take roughly 2.9% plus about 30 cents per transaction to move money. On Stripe's standard US pricing that is exactly 2.9% + $0.30. Whether you sell on Eventbrite, Humanitix or your own website, that floor is there. So when a platform screams "low fees", the only question that matters is what it charges on top of that floor. That is the bit you actually get to choose, and it is the bit this comparison isolates.
The definitive 2026 fee table
Here is the lowest fee ticketing platform question settled with published numbers. Every figure below is the platform fee on a paid ticket using each company's own US pricing as of June 2026, with the unavoidable 2.9% + $0.30 card processing stripped out so you are comparing like with like.
| Platform | Platform fee per paid ticket (on top of processing) | Free events? | Where the money lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eventbrite | 3.7% + $1.79 per ticket | Free to list, paid features cost extra | Eventbrite holds, pays out after the event |
| TryBooking (US) | 3.5% + $1.00 per ticket | Free events are free | Platform wallet, payout on request |
| Humanitix | 2.1% + $0.99 per ticket (1% + $0.99 for charities) | Free events are free | Held, paid out post-event |
| Ticket Tailor | $0.30 to $0.85 per ticket (prepaid vs pay as you sell) | Free under roughly 5,000 tickets a year | Your own Stripe or PayPal, direct to you |
| eventcloud | $0 per ticket ($125/user/month flat instead) | Free events included, charities free for life | Your own Stripe, direct to you |
Those rates trace straight to source: Eventbrite's published 3.7% + $1.79 service fee plus 2.9% processing, Humanitix's 2.1% + $0.99 booking fee with the charity discount, Ticket Tailor's per-ticket credit tiers from around $0.30 to $0.85, and TryBooking's US rate of $1 per ticket to the attendee plus 3.5% to the organiser. Read the spread again. On the same ticket, the gap between the cheapest and the dearest platform fee is roughly tenfold. That gap is not a rounding error, it is somebody's marketing budget.
What the fee actually costs on a real ticket
Percentages are slippery, so let us put real prices through the machine. Here is the platform fee (processing still excluded) on two common ticket prices.
| Platform | On a $25 ticket | On a $50 ticket | Effective rate at $50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eventbrite | $2.72 | $3.64 | 7.3% |
| TryBooking | $1.88 | $2.75 | 5.5% |
| Humanitix | $1.52 | $2.04 | 4.1% |
| Ticket Tailor | $0.30 to $0.85 | $0.30 to $0.85 | 0.6% to 1.7% |
| eventcloud | $0 | $0 | 0% |
Notice what the flat per-ticket charge does to cheap tickets. Eventbrite's $1.79 fixed component barely registers on a $400 conference pass, but on a $25 community ticket it is the difference between a fair fee and a fleecing. Ticket Tailor's model flips the logic: because it charges a small fixed credit per ticket and takes no percentage, it is brilliant for low-value, high-volume free or cheap events and gets relatively pricier as your ticket price climbs (still cheap, just less dramatically so). There is no single winner here, only a winner for your ticket price.
A percentage fee is a silent partner who never works a shift, never answers an email, and takes a cut of every ticket you sell. Flat pricing is buying that partner out.
Fees are not just about price, they are about when you get paid
The sticker fee is only half the story. The other half is cash flow, and it rarely makes the pricing page. Eventbrite holds your ticket money and pays out after the event has happened, which means you can sell out in January and still be waiting on the cash in March. TryBooking routes funds through a platform wallet you draw down from. Humanitix similarly settles after the event. Platforms that run on your own Stripe account, including Ticket Tailor's optional setup and eventcloud as standard, drop the money into your bank on the normal processing schedule, because it was never anyone else's money to hold. If you are floating venue deposits and supplier invoices months before the doors open, that timing can matter more than a few cents per ticket.
So which is the lowest fee ticketing platform?
Honestly, it depends entirely on what you are selling, and anyone who answers without asking your ticket price and volume is selling, not advising. Three clear patterns hold:
For small, cheap or free events, the lean per-ticket platforms win. If you are issuing a few hundred free tickets a year, or selling low-price community tickets, Ticket Tailor and Humanitix are hard to beat, and Ticket Tailor's free tier (under roughly 5,000 tickets a year) is genuinely free. A flat subscription would be a more expensive way to do the same job. Use the cheap tool and keep the difference.
For charities and schools, look past the headline rate. Humanitix drops to 1% + $0.99 for not-for-profits and channels its profits to charity, which is a real and admirable model. Ticket Tailor gives registered charities a 50% discount. If you are fundraising, these are strong options, and so is a programme that removes the platform fee entirely.
For conferences, trade shows and anyone selling at volume, the per-ticket maths turns against you. This is where a percentage of "lots of tickets" quietly becomes a four or five figure annual leak, and where a flat-fee platform pulls ahead. At $125 per user per month, eventcloud costs $1,500 a year for one user. Against Eventbrite's roughly $3.64 platform fee on a $50 ticket, you break even at about 412 tickets a year, and every ticket after that is margin you keep instead of donate. The full head-to-head, including features and payouts, lives in our eventcloud versus Eventbrite breakdown.
The trade-off the cheap platforms do not advertise
Low fees often come with a light toolkit, and that is a fair trade until it is not. Ticket Tailor is wonderfully inexpensive, but it will not design and print conference badges, run an onsite check-in suite, or manage multi-track sessions with capacity limits. Humanitix and TryBooking lean towards community and consumer events rather than corporate conferences. If all you need is a checkout and a QR code, paying more would be daft. If you are running a 1,500-person summit with sponsors, badges and three session tracks, the "cheap" platform that cannot print a badge pushes the cost sideways into bolt-on tools and manual admin. The honest comparison is not fee versus fee, it is total cost versus total cost, with everything the event actually needs included.
Run your own number before you sign
The sum that settles it is short: tickets per year x average price x the platform's percentage, plus any fixed per-ticket charge times your ticket count. Compare that annual total against a flat subscription, add the same 2.9% + $0.30 processing floor to both sides, and the cheaper option for your specific event falls out of the maths. Use your real prices and your real volume, not a tidy example.
If you sell a few hundred cheap tickets, stay on a lean per-ticket platform and pocket the difference. If you are pushing past a couple of thousand paid tickets a year, or you want badges, check-in and white-label without a fee on every sale, run your figures against eventcloud's flat pricing. And if you are a registered charity or state school, our free-for-life charity programme takes the platform fee to zero so more of every ticket reaches the cause. Whichever way the numbers point, do the arithmetic first. The only fee worth paying is the one you genuinely cannot avoid.