Selling tickets for your own events: fees, refunds and the door

Quiz nights, supper clubs, wine tastings, Christmas parties — selling tickets yourself changes the maths on all of them. Here's how ticket money actually flows, what to put on the ticket page, how to write a refund policy for tickets, and how to run the door.

An event is the most profitable thing a lot of restaurants do on a quiet night. A quiz, a supper club, a wine tasting, a chef's table, a Christmas party sitting — you know your covers in advance, you know your food cost in advance, and you've been paid before anyone walks in.

That last part is the whole trick, and it only works if selling a ticket is genuinely easy. Here's how the money actually moves, and the decisions that matter before you publish.

Where the money goes

This is the bit people get wrong when they compare options, so it's worth being precise.

Where ticket money goes when you sell direct. The guest pays by card on your event page. The payment goes to your own card-processing account, not to a middleman. Two things come out: the card processor's own fee on the payment, and any per-ticket platform fee your booking system charges. What's left is paid out to your bank on your processor's normal schedule. You are the merchant of record throughout.

When you sell direct, the guest's card payment goes into your own payment account. You are the merchant of record — which means the money is yours from the moment it's taken, and it pays out to your bank on your processor's normal schedule rather than whenever a marketplace decides to settle up.

Two things come out of it: your card processor's fee on the payment, and any per-ticket fee your booking system charges. Those are separate charges from separate companies, and any provider that blurs them together is worth a second look. Check both before you price a ticket, because they come out of the same £35.

The other model is a ticketing marketplace, which sells your tickets alongside everybody else's, usually charges a per-ticket fee, and often holds the money until after the event. That can be worth it — see the honest bit below — but you should know which one you're choosing.

Pricing: tiers, add-ons and the fee question

Tiers are how you avoid leaving money on the table. Early bird and standard is the simplest useful version: the early price fills the room enough to guarantee the event runs, the standard price rewards you for the demand you then create. A cheaper "just the talk" tier and a dearer "with the paired flight" tier is the same idea applied to what's included.

Add-ons are where the margin usually is. An extra glass, a signed copy of the book, a bottle to take home — offered at the point of purchase, when the guest has already decided to come and is in a generous mood. They're much easier to sell then than on the night.

Who pays the booking fee? If your system charges a per-ticket fee, you can usually either absorb it or pass it to the guest. Absorbing it makes your headline price cleaner, which matters when someone is deciding in three seconds whether £35 is reasonable. Passing it on protects your margin but adds a line at checkout that some people abandon over. There's no universally right answer — but if you pass it on, show it early rather than revealing it at the last step.

What belongs on the ticket page

The page is doing the selling. Most underperforming event pages are missing the same handful of things:

• What it actually is, in one sentence a stranger understands. "Six wines, six small plates, two

hours, our sommelier talking you through it" beats "An Evening of Discovery".

• The date, the time it starts, and roughly when it ends. People are arranging babysitters.
• What's included — and what isn't. Is dinner in the price? Is it seated or standing? Is there

parking?

• A photo of the actual thing, not a stock photo of somebody else's dining room.
• How many are left, if it's honest. "58 of 60 sold" does more than any adjective.
• Your refund policy, in plain words, before they pay.
• Dietary and access information, or at minimum a line telling people how to ask.

Refunds: decide before you sell, not after

Tickets are different from tables. You've committed to the event on the strength of the tickets sold, so a refund a day before genuinely costs you — but "no refunds ever" reads badly and generates disputes.

The policy most venues land on:

Tickets are refundable up to [7] days before the event. After that we can't refund, but you're welcome to pass your ticket to someone else — just let us know the name.

That last clause is the useful bit. Transfer costs you nothing, keeps the seat filled, keeps the guest happy, and turns most refund arguments into an admin note. It's the single easiest improvement to a ticket policy.

Two more decisions worth making in advance:

• What happens if you cancel the event? Full refunds, always, and say so. It's the promise that

makes people comfortable buying early.

• What happens if they don't turn up? Nothing — they've paid. Which is exactly why events are less

stressful than bookings.

If you're a guest reading this hoping to get a ticket refunded: the event organiser's own policy is what governs it, so check your confirmation email and then ask them directly. Many venues will allow a transfer even when they can't offer a refund, and asking early makes it far more likely.

Running the door

The night itself is where a good ticket system earns its keep — or embarrasses you in front of sixty people.

What you want: a list your team can see on a phone or tablet, each ticket scannable, an obvious indicator when the same code is presented twice, and the ability to find someone by name when they've deleted the email. Print a paper list too. It costs nothing and it's the thing you'll be grateful for if the wifi has other ideas.

Two practical habits: send a reminder the day before with the QR code in it, and brief whoever is on the door about the tiers, because "I paid for the one with the wine" is a conversation that happens every single time.

When a ticketing marketplace is the better choice

If nobody knows your event exists, a marketplace's audience is worth paying for. Selling direct means you are doing the marketing — your list, your Instagram, your regulars, your window. For a first event in a town where you're not yet known, a marketplace fee can be cheaper than the empty seats.

The sensible pattern for most venues is to use the reach when you need reach, and keep your own channel running so that the second event sells on your own list rather than on somebody's platform. That's the compounding bit: every direct ticket buyer is a customer you can invite next time for free.

How this works in ResoFlow

Ticketed events are available on our À la Carte plan and above, and paid events need Stripe connected — ticket money goes straight to your own Stripe account. You can build tiers and add-ons, apply promo codes at checkout, and either absorb the platform booking fee or pass it to guests from the Events page's Settings tab. Free tickets never carry a fee, and the live rates for every payment type are in the fee calculator on Settings → Payments & deposits → Payments, with Stripe's own fees shown separately.

A couple of things worth knowing because they save you a bad evening: if a buyer's browser closes mid-payment the ticket is still issued automatically, and if the event sold out in those few seconds the payment is refunded automatically instead. Every buyer gets a ticket email with a QR code, and the Scanner checks them in at the door.

More detail: ticketed events, or the step-by-step in how do I publish an event and sell tickets?

If you want a hand setting the first one up

Setup is £199 and currently free. We'll go through which features suit your venue, configure the plan you choose — including your first event, its tiers and its refund policy — and import your existing bookings and customer list. It's done remotely: you get in touch, we arrange a transition day, and most venues are live within a day of it, subject to availability and how quickly a few decisions get made.

Plans start at £39 a month with no per-cover fees; ticketed events start on À la Carte. Free setup has the detail, or email [email protected] and tell us what you're planning.