Pricing an event is six decisions, and each one depends on the last. Where to set your base price, how many different prices to offer, who covers the fees, and what to do if sales are slow.
One price for the people who commit first, one you actually planned, and one for whoever turns up on the night. The middle one is your base price, and everything else is a deliberate step away from it.
Rewards the people who commit first, and gives your announcement something to be urgent about.
This is your base price. Everything above and below it is a deliberate step away from this number.
Covers the cost of a walk-up and quietly rewards everyone who bought in advance.
Three prices is a common setup, not a rule. Plenty of events do fine with one. What matters is knowing which of them is your base price, because that is the number every other decision is measured against.
Pricing is not one decision, it is a sequence, and taking them out of order is what makes it feel impossible. You cannot choose how many prices to offer before you have a base price, and you cannot weigh the fee question before you know what a ticket costs.
Every other number on this page comes from this one. Pick it before you think about extra prices, discounts or fees, because each of those is a step away from a base price you have not chosen yet.
Work from what the evening costs to put on and how many seats you have, then check it against what your audience already pays for a comparable night out.
Avoid: Do not price from capacity. Dividing costs by a full house sets a number that only works if you sell out, and it is the most common way an event loses money while looking affordable.
Most events need more than one price and fewer than they think. Each tier has to answer "what do I get" in one sentence, or it is not a tier, it is a discount with a fancier name.
Every ticket type carries its own price, its own quantity and its own on-sale window, so tiers are separate products rather than a single price with conditions attached.
Avoid: Do not create a tier you cannot describe in one line. If the only difference is the price, buyers read the higher one as the real price and the lower one as what they should have paid.
Early bird pricing works because it ends. The single fastest way to break it is to extend it once, because from then on every deadline you set is a suggestion.
Scheduled price changes let you set a price ladder right on the ticket, so early bird rolls into regular pricing on its own, on the date you pick.
Avoid: Do not extend it. The people who bought early to beat the deadline are exactly the supporters you least want to teach that waiting is rewarded.
A general discount lowers your price. A targeted one reaches a group you actually want without moving the number everyone else pays. The difference is entirely in who can get it.
Discount codes can be a percentage or a fixed amount, with usage caps and schedules, and can be limited to online or to the door. Hidden ticket links reach one group without appearing on the public page at all.
Avoid: Do not run an open discount code in public. Everyone finds it, it becomes your actual price, and the buyers who paid full price notice.
This is the decision organizers agonize over and it is genuinely a judgment call about your audience, not a rule. What matters is that you decide it deliberately and that the checkout does not surprise anyone.
On every event you choose whether to pass the Ticket Falcon fee and the card processing fee to buyers or absorb them. The two are toggled separately and can be changed any time before doors.
Avoid: Do not decide this by copying another event. Their audience is not yours, and the same fee that goes unmentioned at a concert gets remarked on at a school fundraiser.
The instinct is to cut the price. That is the one move you cannot undo, and it punishes the people who already bought. Almost everything else is reversible.
Add value instead of removing price: release a better tier, open a timed-entry slot, bundle something in, or open a waitlist if the good seats are what actually sold out.
Avoid: Do not cut the headline price mid-run. Every buyer who paid full price now knows they overpaid, and they are the ones who talk about your event.
Deciding whether to pass fees on or absorb them is much easier once you have seen both numbers on your actual price rather than a rounded example. The calculator on our pricing page runs the same math as checkout, so it shows what your buyer pays and what you take home, with each fee toggled separately.
Open the fee calculatorEvery one of these is a decision made early and quietly, and every one of them shows up as a number at the end of the night.
Costs were divided by a full house, so the number only works at 100 percent sold. At a realistic attendance the event loses money while looking cheap.
The fix: Divide by the attendance you honestly expect, not by capacity. If that price feels too high, the problem is the budget or the room, and it is much cheaper to find that out now.
The deadline passed, sales were slower than hoped, and it came back for one more week. Every future deadline you set now reads as optional.
The fix: Set it to flip automatically by date or quantity so the decision is already made. If you genuinely need more low-priced inventory, release a different named tier instead of reopening the old one.
A code meant for one group gets posted publicly, everyone uses it, and it quietly becomes your real price.
The fix: Use hidden ticket links for group-specific offers, and put a usage cap and an end date on every code you do issue.
The buyer decided at one price and is asked to pay another. Some of them just close the tab, and you never see it happen.
The fix: Decide the fee question deliberately, then say it up front. Whether you pass fees on or absorb them matters far less than whether the buyer saw it coming.
Six ticket types, three of which differ only by price. Buyers cannot tell what they are choosing, so they either pick the cheapest or leave.
The fix: Cut back to tiers you can describe in one line each. If a tier has no describable difference, it is a discount, and it should be a code with a cap rather than a permanent option.
Sales are slow, so the price comes down, and sales stay slow because the people who have not heard about the event still have not heard about it.
The fix: Check reach before price. A quiet middle stretch is normal in almost every ticket run. Cutting the price of something no one has seen changes nothing except your revenue.
Every decision above is one you make. These are the parts that should not need remembering once you have made it.
Each type carries its own price, quantity and on-sale window, so a tier is a real product rather than a price with conditions.
Set a price ladder right on the ticket and it switches on the date you pick, so early bird rolls into regular without anyone staying up for it.
Keep a presale, VIP or comp type off the public page, then reveal it with a password or automatically when sales open.
Every type, including hidden ones, has a link that drops it straight into the cart, so an offer reaches one group and no further.
Percentage or fixed amount, with usage caps and schedules, and codes that work online only or at the door only.
Choose separately for the Ticket Falcon fee and card processing, on every event, changeable any time before doors.
The calculator on the pricing page runs the same math as checkout, showing what your buyer pays and what you take home.
Pay-what-you-want and sliding-scale types, for donations, access pricing and name-your-seat fundraising.
Bill a table, a sponsorship or a group block with a deadline you choose, and the seats stay held while the invoice is open.
Ring a $0 sale for a volunteer or guest of the house. It issues a genuine ticket, scans at the door, and the reason is recorded.
Price by section, tier or proximity to the stage, all on one map, where the seat itself is the difference between tiers.
Funds deposit to your own Stripe account with Direct Payouts, rather than sitting with a platform until after the event.
This guide is about what to charge and why. These pages are about our own costs, and about how each tool works.
What Ticket Falcon costs, with a calculator that shows both sides of any ticket price.
See pricing and feesThe other half of the job: what to do at each stage of the run, and what to measure.
Read the selling guideDiscount codes, scheduled price changes, hidden links and tracking, in product detail.
See marketing toolsBill tables, sponsorships and group blocks, with seats held until the deadline.
See invoicingSeat maps and price zones, for events where the seat is what the buyer is choosing.
See reserved seatingDoor sales and comps, each issuing a real ticket straight onto the check-in list.
See the box officeTicket types with their own rules, early bird that flips itself, discount codes that hold their limits, and the money deposited to your own account as you sell. Free to start, with no monthly fee.