If you run events in 2026, you’re probably paying more in “ticketing fees” than you’d like to admit. Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, Humanitix, TryBooking: each takes a slice of every ticket, usually as a percentage plus a fixed fee, and often another cut for payment processing on top.

Sendd takes a very different approach: it treats your event as just one part of your overall business. You launch a branded store once, sell tickets alongside products, services, subscriptions, and donations, and pay a flat 1% platform fee with no subscription. The result is less fee drag and more room to reinvest in your brand.

The Old Guard: Marketplace-First, Fee-Heavy

Traditional event platforms were built as marketplaces first and business infrastructure second.

Eventbrite charges a service fee of 3.7% of the ticket price plus $1.79 per paid ticket in the US, plus about 2.9% payment processing per order. On a $50 ticket, that works out to about $5.09 in total fees, or around 10% of the ticket price.

Ticketmaster is even more extreme: real-world breakdowns regularly show buyers paying around 20–28% above face value once service, facility, and processing fees are added. A $145.50 arena ticket example landed at $180.55 after fees—roughly a 19% uplift.

Humanitix donates profits to charity, which is great, but the economics are still percentage-heavy: in New Zealand, the standard rate is 5% of the ticket price plus $0.49 per paid ticket (excluding GST), with discounted 3% + $0.30 tiers for charities and schools.

TryBooking positions itself as low-fee, but still combines a $0.50 ticket fee with a 2.5% processing fee in New Zealand, plus surcharges for foreign cards and certain wallets.

In every case, your revenue is shaved by a percentage of face value plus a fixed per-ticket hit, which compounds quickly as your events grow.

Sendd’s Model: A Store That Happens to Sell Tickets

Sendd flips the script.

Instead of being “an event on someone else’s marketplace,” you run your own online store that sells:

• Event tickets
• Physical products
• Digital downloads
• Services
• Subscriptions and memberships
• Donations

from a single branded storefront and even via QR codes.

Key structural differences:

• Pricing: 1% per transaction, no subscription fee, no setup costs, no lock-ins. (Even better if you are in NZ, as it’s a 30 cent flat fee without any 1% or Stripe charges.)
• Scope: Same pricing whether you sell tickets, merch, services, or recurring subscriptions—no separate “event” plan.
• Payments: You connect your own Stripe; Sendd does not bundle or mark up card processing, so its 1% is a pure platform fee.
• Operations: Payments, orders, and payouts for everything, including tickets and subscriptions, live in one dashboard, with buyers able to self-manage orders, downloads, and tickets.

Practically, you’re not forced into a “ticketing tool” at all—you’re building an actual commerce engine that happens to handle ticketing really well.

Side‑by‑Side: Ticketing System Comparison

Here’s a concise snapshot of how Sendd stacks up against the big ticketing platforms on pricing and positioning.

Ticketing Platforms Compared

The 200-Ticket Test: How the Fees Stack Up

Let’s make it concrete.

Imagine you sell 200 tickets at $50 each: that’s $10,000 in gross ticket revenue. Ignore raw card processing and just look at what each platform takes in ticketing/booking fees.

Sendd

1% platform fee on $10,000 = $100 in Sendd fees. You still pay card processing to Stripe, but you’d be paying that regardless of which platform you use.

Eventbrite

Using the 3.7% + $1.79 + 2.9% structure:

• Roughly $5.09 in total fees per $50 ticket, or around 10%.
• Across 200 tickets, that’s about $1,018 in fees on the same $10,000 in revenue.

That’s more than 10× Sendd’s platform fee.

Humanitix (NZ standard)

• 5% of $50 = $2.50, plus $0.49 = $2.99 per ticket (excl. GST).
• 200 tickets → around $598 in booking fees, which also cover processing on their gateway.

That’s about 6× Sendd’s platform cut.

TryBooking (NZ)

• 2.5% of $50 = $1.25, plus $0.50 ticket fee = $1.75 per ticket.
• 200 tickets → about $350 in combined ticket + processing fees.

Still over 3× Sendd’s 1%.

Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster’s fees fluctuate, but analyses show buyers often pay around 28% above face value on average, and specific breakdowns land near 19–21% for many shows.

On $10,000 in face-value sales, that implies somewhere between $1,900 and $2,800 in fees—many multiples of what a 1% platform fee looks like on the same revenue.

Why This Matters When You Scale

A one-off event can sometimes absorb “just a few dollars” in fees per ticket. But when you run recurring events or you’re trying to build a serious business around your audience, the difference between:

• ~1% platform fee (Sendd), and
• 5–10%+ blended fee (Eventbrite/Humanitix/TryBooking) or ~20%+ (Ticketmaster)

becomes a compounding drag.

Those extra points can be:

• Your paid ads budget for the next event
• Better talent, production, or venue upgrades
• A margin buffer that lets you lower ticket prices and still make money

Sendd’s model effectively says: “We’ll take 1% per transaction to run your store, tickets, products, subs and all, and stay out of the way.”

Beyond Price: Who Owns the Relationship?

The other big difference is who owns the customer.

On marketplaces like Eventbrite or Ticketmaster, attendees are nudged into the platform’s account system, email flows, and discovery experience. Your event is a listing inside their world.

On Sendd, your store is the product: your URL, your brand, your checkout, and your customer data. Tickets sit alongside merch, services, digital upsells, and subscriptions in the same storefront.

That matters if you’re trying to:

• Turn one-time attendees into long-term members
• Sell add-ons (workshops, coaching, merch) from the same link
• Run recurring revenue (subscriptions, retainers, memberships) tied to your events

Instead of spinning up a new “event page” on someone else’s platform every time, you’re steadily compounding traffic and trust into one permanent store.

Buyer Experience and Support Load

Sendd also leans into buyer self-service:

• Buyers can manage orders, downloads, subscriptions, and tickets from one place.
• That reduces the “can you resend my ticket?” or “I lost my download link” tickets that burn your time.

Traditional ticketing platforms do offer ticket management, but it’s usually siloed per event and doesn’t extend to your non-ticket revenue streams like digital products or services.

If you think of your audience as a community rather than just “ticket buyers,” the store-first approach becomes much more logical.

When the Old Platforms Still Make Sense

There are still cases where legacy platforms win:

• If you’re locked into strict venue contracts, Ticketmaster might be non-negotiable.
• If you’re a charity and want your fees to fund social impact, Humanitix is a strong narrative fit despite higher fees.
• If you desperately need discovery inside a large marketplace (and are willing to trade margin and data for it), Eventbrite’s marketplace gravity can help.

But if you already bring your own audience through socials, email, and partners, paying 5–20%+ in platform fees for “distribution” starts to look very expensive.

The Bottom Line: Tickets as One Revenue Stream, Not the Only One

Most ticketing platforms are optimized for one job: selling tickets to a single event.

Sendd is optimized for a different job: helping you run a modern, flexible online store where events are just one of many revenue streams, all under your brand, while charging a flat 1% platform fee and letting you keep the rest.

For event creators who think like business owners—not just promoters—that difference in pricing and structure adds up to a much bigger opportunity over time.