Most people hunting for eventbrite alternatives aren’t unhappy with the product — they’re unhappy with the math. A percentage plus a per-ticket fee sounds small on one ticket and looks brutal on a sold-out run of 300. The short answer for 2026: if you want the fee line to hit zero, self-host your ticketing with BuddyNext and Eventonomy; if you want SaaS convenience with kinder math, Ticket Tailor and TicketSpice charge a flat fee per ticket instead of a percentage; and if you’re a nonprofit, Zeffy removes fees entirely.

Here are nine options, ranked with the fee structure — and what each platform quietly doesn’t do — front and center.

The 9 alternatives at a glance

Platform Fee model Best for
BuddyNext + Eventonomy No platform fees; you pay hosting and payment processing only Recurring organizers who want the fee line gone
Ticket Tailor Flat fee per ticket, not a percentage Independent venues and mid-size paid events
Humanitix Percentage plus per-ticket fee, donated to charity Organizers who want fees doing good
TicketSpice Flat fee per ticket, highly customizable pages High-volume events watching margins
Zeffy No fees for nonprofits; runs on optional tips from buyers Registered nonprofits
Lu.ma Free events free; percentage on paid tickets Tech and creator events with a calendar following
Eventzilla Low flat-ish per-ticket pricing Conferences and registration-heavy events
Dice Booking fee shown to fans upfront Music venues and club nights
Meetup Organizer subscription instead of ticket fees Recurring community gatherings

How the fee models actually differ

There are only four fee structures in this market, and knowing which one you’re in matters more than any feature list. Percentage-based platforms (Eventbrite, Lu.ma, Humanitix) scale their cut with your ticket price — fine at low prices, painful at high ones. Flat-fee platforms (Ticket Tailor, TicketSpice, Eventzilla) charge the same on a workshop ticket as on a gala ticket, which flips the math for anything expensive. Subscription models (Meetup) trade per-ticket costs for a fixed monthly bill. And self-hosted ticketing (BuddyNext) removes the platform from the transaction entirely — the only unavoidable cost left is the payment processor’s cut, which every platform on this list passes through anyway.

One more thing to check before you switch: who holds the money. Some platforms pay out after the event; tools that connect directly to your own Stripe or PayPal account pay you as tickets sell. Cash flow is a feature.

The alternatives, reviewed

1. BuddyNext (paired with Eventonomy)

BuddyNext is a free, block-native Community OS for WordPress, and its Eventonomy app turns your own site into the ticketing platform: event pages, RSVPs, and paid tickets with no per-ticket platform fees, because there’s no platform in the middle taking one. Payments run through your own processor, so the only cut anyone takes is the card fee you’d pay anywhere. Sell ten tickets or ten thousand — the platform’s share stays zero.

What Eventbrite can’t match is what surrounds the ticket. BuddyNext gives buyers a real membership — activity feed, Spaces, profiles, messaging — so this year’s attendees become next year’s community instead of a CSV you’re not allowed to email.

  • Ticketing and RSVPs with zero platform fees per ticket
  • Attendees become members you can actually reach, on a site you own
  • Real-time feed, Spaces, and messaging around your events
  • Block-native editing inside WordPress, free core
  • Free gamification add-on for repeat-attendance streaks and badges

There’s a second-order effect worth naming: with no fee pressure, you can experiment. Pay-what-you-want tickets, cheap member pricing, free community nights — pricing decisions stop being negotiations with a platform’s cut and start being pure strategy. Organizers who switch tend to run more events, not just cheaper ones.

Best for: organizers running multiple events a year, where saved fees compound fast.

The honest drawback: you host and maintain the WordPress site yourself — setup takes an afternoon, and updates are your job, not a vendor’s.

2. Ticket Tailor

Ticket Tailor built its whole identity around one promise: a flat fee per ticket rather than a percentage. For anything with a decent ticket price, the difference against percentage platforms is immediate and large — the fee on a premium ticket is the same as the fee on a cheap one, which is the whole point.

  • Flat per-ticket pricing that gets cheaper with prepaid bundles
  • Direct payouts through your own Stripe or PayPal
  • Clean box office and door-list tools
  • No forced marketplace branding on your pages

Best for: independent venues and organizers selling mid-to-high-priced tickets.

The honest drawback: no discovery network — it sells tickets to the audience you already have.

3. Humanitix

Humanitix charges fees in the familiar percentage-plus-per-ticket shape, then donates them to children’s charities. You’re not saving money over Eventbrite so much as changing where the money goes — which, for community and cause-driven events, changes how the fee feels to buyers.

  • Feature parity with mainstream ticketing: tiers, discount codes, seating
  • Booking fees fund charitable programs
  • Buyers can see the impact framing at checkout
  • Solid accessibility options

Best for: organizers whose audience cares about the fee story.

The honest drawback: the fees still exist and still come out of someone’s pocket; margins don’t improve.

4. TicketSpice

TicketSpice pairs a flat fee per ticket with unusually deep page customization — you build the checkout flow you want rather than accepting a template.

  • Flat per-ticket fee, kind to high-volume events
  • Drag-and-drop page builder with conditional logic
  • Timed entry, capacity controls, and mobile scanning
  • You keep your own payment processing relationship

Best for: attractions, festivals, and high-volume sellers who care about conversion.

The honest drawback: the flexibility means more setup work up front, and it’s oriented toward US organizers.

5. Zeffy

Zeffy’s pitch to nonprofits sounds too good to be true and mostly isn’t: genuinely no platform fees and no processing fees on tickets or donations, funded by optional tips buyers can add at checkout.

  • Zero fees for registered nonprofits, including processing
  • Ticketing, raffles, memberships, and donation forms in one
  • Tax receipts handled automatically

Best for: registered nonprofits running fundraisers and community events.

The honest drawback: nonprofits only, and the tip prompt at checkout is how the lights stay on — some buyers find it pushy.

6. Lu.ma

Lu.ma is the aesthetic pick: fast, beautiful event pages, subscribable calendars, and a following among tech and creator audiences. Free events cost nothing; paid tickets carry a percentage.

  • Event pages that look designed without a designer
  • Calendar subscriptions that market future events automatically
  • Approval-based registration for curated rooms

Best for: free or low-price events where the page itself is part of the invite.

The honest drawback: paid ticketing is the weakest part of the product — the percentage fee model is exactly what you left Eventbrite over.

7. Eventzilla

Eventzilla is the quiet workhorse: registration-focused, priced with a low per-ticket fee, and aimed at conferences, trainings, and multi-session events rather than club nights.

  • Low per-ticket pricing with no monthly commitment
  • Agendas, sessions, and attendee self-service
  • Recurring event and waitlist support

Best for: conferences and workshops that need registration logistics more than hype.

The honest drawback: the interface feels dated next to Lu.ma or TicketSpice, and there’s no meaningful discovery.

8. Dice

Dice rebuilt event ticketing around the fan: app-based tickets, waiting lists that actually work, and booking fees shown upfront instead of springing at checkout. It’s a music-first platform — venues, promoters, club nights.

  • App-based tickets that resist scalping and resale bots
  • Waiting lists that return tickets to real fans
  • Fan data and remarketing tools for promoters

Best for: music venues and promoters who fight scalpers.

The honest drawback: it’s built for the music world; community workshops and conferences don’t fit, and fans do pay booking fees.

9. Meetup

Coming from Eventbrite, Meetup is a different trade rather than a lower fee: you pay an organizer subscription instead of per-ticket cuts, and you get a discovery network of people looking for recurring things to do.

  • Subscription pricing means free-to-attend events cost you a flat amount
  • Genuine local discovery for recurring groups
  • RSVP and waitlist basics handled

Best for: recurring free or cheap community gatherings, not ticket revenue.

The honest drawback: weak paid ticketing, and your members live in Meetup’s network rather than your list.

Switching without losing sales

Move between events, never mid-sale. Pick a date after your current event closes out, export your attendee and order history while you still have full access, and rebuild your next event on the new platform from scratch rather than trying to migrate live listings. If Eventbrite discovery genuinely drives a chunk of your sales, run one transition event listed in both places — full ticketing on the new platform, a small allocation on Eventbrite pointing buyers to your real page — and watch where the money actually comes from.

Then do the boring, decisive thing: put last year’s real numbers into each fee model. Tickets sold, average price, refund rate. The right platform usually falls out of that spreadsheet in about five minutes, and it’s rarely the one with the prettiest homepage.

FAQ

Who actually pays the ticket fee — the organizer or the buyer?

Every platform lets you choose: absorb the fee into your price or pass it to the buyer as a line item. Passing it on protects your margin but inflates the sticker price at checkout, which measurably hurts conversion on price-sensitive events. Flat-fee and self-hosted models shrink the problem instead of relocating it.

Can I email my attendees after the event?

Read the data terms before assuming so. Marketplace platforms treat buyers as their users first, and marketing permissions vary. With self-hosted ticketing on BuddyNext, attendees are members of your site — the contact relationship is yours by default, subject only to ordinary consent rules, not platform policy.

What happens to fees when I refund a ticket?

This is the fine print that stings: on several percentage-based platforms, some or all fees aren’t returned to you when you refund a buyer, so a canceled event can cost you money you never kept. Flat-fee platforms and self-hosted setups make refund math simpler — check each platform’s refund policy before a high-risk event, not after.

If I self-host ticketing, what do I still have to pay?

Three things: web hosting, your payment processor’s percentage on each card transaction (unavoidable everywhere), and your own time for setup and updates. What disappears is the platform’s cut on top. For an organizer selling a few hundred tickets a year, that deleted line item usually dwarfs the hosting bill many times over.

Is the Eventbrite discovery traffic worth the fees?

Sometimes, and it’s worth being honest about when. If strangers finding your event is how you sell most tickets — public workshops in a big city, say — the marketplace earns its cut. If most buyers come from your email list, socials, or word of mouth, you’re paying a discovery tax on an audience you already brought. Check your traffic sources; the answer is usually already in your data.