TicketSource is free to event organisers, which is true and also not the whole story. Here is the arithmetic, using their own published rates and real ticket prices, so you can see what the booking fee comes to across a year.
We build websites and ticketing for touring performers, so we are not neutral. Everything below is checkable against TicketSource's own pricing page, and we have said where their deal is genuinely good.
7% + VAT per paid booking — 8.4% in practice — with a minimum of 25p + VAT.
The important part, and the part they deserve credit for: that figure includes all credit and debit card processing. There is no separate payment charge bolted on at checkout. A lot of platforms quote a low percentage and then add processing on top. This one does not.
Free events cost nothing. In-person bookings you record yourself cost nothing. If your event is cancelled they refund the buyer in full, fee included.
You can absorb the fee inside your ticket price, or add it at checkout. Most organisers add it, which is why a £22 ticket shows as £23.85. You receive your full £22 and your customer covers the 8.4%.
So TicketSource does not bill you. It costs you nothing directly. What it costs is the £1.85 your customer hands over that never reaches you.
Actual prices from UK touring shows, August 2026.
| Ticket | Face value | Booking fee | Customer pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard theatre ticket | £22.00 | £1.85 | £23.85 |
| Standard, larger venue | £24.00 | £2.02 | £26.02 |
| Adult comedy ticket | £18.00 | £1.51 | £19.51 |
| Child ticket | £15.00 | £1.26 | £16.26 |
| Group of four | £80.00 | £6.72 | £86.72 |
| Family ticket, admits five | £68.00 | £5.71 | £73.71 |
Because it is a flat percentage with no cap, the fee is largest on your best-value ticket. A family ticket that fills five seats hands over £5.71. Per head that is actually your cheapest ticket to sell — £1.14 against £1.51 on an adult — but the cash amount per booking is the biggest on your list.
Sell 205 people a night across thirteen dates you promote yourself, on the ticket mix above, and your audience pays roughly £3,533 a year in booking fees. None of it reaches you.
Where a venue promotes the show and sells the ticket, none of this applies. It is only the dates you put on yourself.
TicketSource charge 4.5% + VAT instead of 7% + VAT if you connect your own Stripe account. You also get paid as you sell rather than the Monday after the event.
Worth knowing about. But you then pay Stripe's own processing on top — 1.5% + 20p on a standard UK card — so the two largely cancel out. On a £68 family ticket it puts about 73p back in your pocket rather than the £4.41 you would keep selling the same ticket from your own website.
If you are staying on TicketSource, connect your own Stripe anyway. The cash-flow alone is worth it.
Published UK rates, mid-2026. Verify before you rely on any of them.
| Platform | Fee | On a £22 ticket |
|---|---|---|
| Skiddle | 10% + 25p | £2.45 |
| DICE | ~10% commission | ~£2.20 |
| TicketSource | 7% + VAT, all in | £1.85 |
| Eventbrite | 6.95% + 59p | £2.12 |
| Fatsoma | 5% + 49p | £1.59 |
| Outsavvy | 3.5% + 30p | £1.07 |
| Ticket Tailor | flat, from 26p | £0.26 |
| Your own website | Stripe only, 1.5% + 20p | £0.53 |
TicketSource sits in the middle, and for a village hall or a one-off it is a perfectly sensible choice — free to set up, no contract, good support, and they carry the chargeback risk. It is touring acts with a run of self-promoted dates where the percentage starts to matter.
Put your ticket price, your fee rate and your dates into the calculator and see what it comes to across a year.
Rates on this page were taken from TicketSource's published pricing in August 2026 and from live checkouts for UK touring shows. Fees change. Check yours before making a decision, and tell us if anything here is out of date.