Eventbrite fee calculator.

How the fees stack

Per ticket, then per order. Eventbrite's pricing page lists a service fee of 3.7% plus $1.79 for each paid ticket and a payment processing fee of 2.9% for each order. The service fee therefore grows with ticket count, while processing grows with order value. Free events carry no fees, and the fees apply to paid tickets only.

Buyer pays or you absorb. Eventbrite says buyers pay the ticket fees by default and that you can absorb them. When buyers pay, the fees are added on top of your price and deducted from the sale; when you absorb, they are included in your price and deducted from it. Your net is the face price either way minus whatever you absorb, so absorbing makes the buyer's price look lower but shrinks your payout.

Where it gets uncertain. The pricing page does not say what the 2.9% is applied to. We default to the order total including the service fee when buyers pay, and offer a switch for ticket price only. Use the platform's own payout report to settle which one it used on a real sale. Taxes are left out entirely.

Worked example

180 tickets at $20.00, average two tickets per order. Fees passed to buyers, processing on the order total: service fee $455.40, processing $117.61, total $573.01 paid by buyers on top (15.92% of ticket sales), you receive $3,600.00. Switch processing to ticket price only and processing becomes $104.40. Absorb the fees and you receive $3,040.20, which is $16.89 per ticket.

Methodology

Service fee = tickets x (3.7% x price + $1.79). Processing = 2.9% x base + any flat fee x orders, where orders = tickets / average tickets per order and the base is the order total (price plus service fee when buyers pay) or the price alone. Buyers pay: buyer sees price + service + processing per ticket and you keep the face price. You absorb: net = price x tickets - service - processing. Refunds remove the face price of refunded tickets; platform fees on them are kept unless you tick the box. Effective fee = total fees / ticket sales at face price. Orders are an average, not rounded, which makes every result exactly linear in ticket count. Eventbrite lists these as dollar amounts without naming a currency and says the plans are available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland; the defaults are US-style USD inputs you can overwrite.

What this page does not cover

• At-the-door or offline ticket types (Eventbrite says fees on those cannot be passed on), add-ons, donations, and Eventbrite plans other than the pay-per-ticket pricing shown.
• Payout timing and the reserve Eventbrite holds on scheduled payouts, which change when you receive money, not how much. See the explainer linked below.
• Sales tax or VAT added to tickets, local amusement or entertainment taxes, and any tax on your own profit. For US self-employment tax see IRS Topic 554; this is general information, not tax advice.
• Prices in other currencies, currency conversion, and any platform fee schedule that is not typed into the rate boxes. Rates change, so check the platform before you publish tickets.
• Chargebacks, no-shows, door sales, bar or merchandise income, and unsold comps. Add them to costs or sponsorship yourself if you want them in the answer.

Sources

• Eventbrite organizer pricing page: 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per paid ticket, 2.9% payment processing per order, no fees for free events, fees paid by buyers by default, retrieved 19 October 2026.
• Eventbrite Help Center, Understanding your event payout amount: passing on vs absorbing fees, payout timing, 20% reserve on scheduled payouts, refunds and chargebacks, retrieved 19 October 2026.
• Eventbrite Help Center, Eventbrite's Ticketing Fees (not readable by our automated fetch on the build date, so the processing base is a switch you can change), retrieved 19 October 2026.

Break-even and reverse-price arithmetic is standard cost-volume-profit maths worked from first principles, not copied from any single write-up.