Internet Ticketing & Per-Ticket Fees

An Explanation

 

Some people wonder why they can't find an Internet ticketing system that doesn't charge per-ticket fees. This is a discussion on the reason why this is not possible.

 

Established Internet Ticketing Systems with a One-Time Cost Don't Exist

There are no Internet ticketing systems that don’t have per-ticket fees. At least none that have been around for any length of time and are a profitable, established business. Also, be wary of Internet ticketing companies that charge very low fees when compared to others, as there are a lot of start-up companies that come and go quite frequently because they don't understand the market.

 

Why Per Ticket Fees?

Internet ticketing systems are not as simple as some people initially assume. They are not a basic shopping cart type-of system due to the complexity and variations of multiple events, on-sale / off-sale times, widely varying prices, seat selection, orphaned seat prevention, unique inventory control... The list goes on and on.

Internet ticketing software is sold on a per-ticket fee basis because the on-going technical requirements and costs (staff, equipment, etc) are far too extreme for any single venue to cover. Whereas, an Internet ticketing company, such as ours, has the resources in place to cover these costs collectively for numerous organizations, while collecting a modest fee in relation to the amount of use of each specific venue … the per-ticket fee. This fee covers equipment, maintenance, security, administration, technical support, training, on-going development, etc.

 

A Manageable Expense

A per-ticket fee is a manageable expense. Assuming such a system was for sale at a one-time cost, it would cost you a few hundred thousand dollars to license an existing system, with the addition of monthly tech support costs, training costs, upgrade costs, dedicated technical staffing, etc, etc, etc. That's a lot of money to calculate as a cost per sale of each ticket. Whereas, when paying a per-ticket fee, you know your exact ticketing system cost per ticket. This makes your sales margins simple to calculate and adjust.