How to compare payment processor quotes for ticket sales

You're looking at two payment quotes. One has the lower percentage, the other has the lower charge per transaction, and both sales teams say their offer will save you money. Meanwhile, your conference sells group bookings, some buyers use overseas cards, and refunds don't always return the original processing fee. Which quote is actually cheaper for your ticket sales?

The useful comparison is the total charge for the same set of payments, with the same refunds, card mix and payment currencies. Ask each provider to price those transactions in writing, then check when the money becomes available. The lowest headline percentage can lose once the rest of the charges apply.

You don't need to become a payments specialist to do this properly. You need a clear description of the sales you expect and an explanation of every charge that could change the result. We'll build that description, compare two fictional quotes, and work through the questions that often remain unanswered after a pricing call.

First, check what you're actually buying

A processor quote and a ticketing quote can cover different work. One may price only the movement of money. Another may include ticketing software and processing together. Before comparing the percentages, establish who will charge your business and which service the quote covers.

If you're choosing between payment providers that your ticketing platform supports, hold the ticketing arrangement constant. You're asking which permitted payment setup works best for the sales you already plan to run. Don't add the platform fee to one processor while leaving it out of the other.

If a platform bundles processing into its ticket charge, ask whether there is a separate processing cost at all. You may have one combined commercial offer rather than a processor you can negotiate independently. Apply the comparison to the actual bill you'll receive, rather than reconstructing a supplier's internal costs.

This guide concentrates on payment charges and conditions. Software subscriptions, seating tools and migration costs belong in the wider platform decision. Keeping those questions separate helps you notice whether a claimed processing saving depends on buying a different service or accepting another commitment.

Check whether your account can use the quoted arrangement for the events you're selling. Specify your business country, event country, bank account and sales period. A general public rate doesn't establish eligibility for a particular event business, and a quote for an approved account may have conditions that a new account hasn't met.

Build a transaction basket from real orders

The first thing you want to do is collect the information a provider needs to price your business accurately. Use a recent comparable event or a complete season when you have one. For a new event, build a realistic forecast and identify the assumptions openly.

Start with successful buyer payments, their values and the number of transactions. Keep ticket quantities too, but don't substitute them for payment counts. A buyer purchasing four places in one payment can produce a different fixed processing charge from four people buying separately.

Include discounts in the amounts buyers actually pay. If taxes, mandatory charges or add-ons form part of the payment, show them separately and ask which amounts attract the processing percentage. The amount collected by the processor may be larger than the ticket revenue your team uses in its event budget.

Next, separate the payment types that could attract different charges. Online cards and payments taken at the door may have different terms. Foreign-issued cards may cost differently from domestic cards. Other methods need their own confirmed rates when they represent a meaningful part of your sales.

Use the card issuing country information your provider makes available, rather than guessing from a buyer's postal address. A resident can use a foreign-issued card. A visiting buyer can pay in your event's currency. Those details matter because the pricing rule may follow the card, the currency or both.

Keep personal information out of the quote request. Providers need transaction categories, counts and values to calculate the offer. They don't need your attendee list or individual card details. A summary based on your reports usually provides a much clearer starting point anyway.

Translate the quote into charges you can reproduce

For each line, establish the rate, the amount it applies to and the action that triggers it. "Per transaction" needs an explanation. Does it mean every successful payment, every attempted authorisation, each ticket, each refund or something else? The difference can matter when buyers retry a declined card.

A percentage and a fixed charge work differently. The percentage rises with the payment value. A fixed charge rises with the number of chargeable actions. You can compare them only after deciding how many payments your expected ticket sales produce.

Ask whether the quoted percentage includes the relevant card network costs or whether those costs are added separately. If the offer describes a processor markup above other charges, ask for the complete calculation using your card mix. Comparing that markup with another provider's complete rate makes the first offer look artificially cheap.

Check minimum monthly charges, account subscriptions and any minimum term. Establish whether a monthly minimum replaces lower transaction charges or is added to them. Don't calculate both unless that is what the agreement requires. Ask for an example of a quiet month so your finance team can see the difference.

Price optional services separately. A fraud service, faster payout or additional reporting package might be worthwhile, but the quote should identify whether you chose it. If the advertised rate requires a paid package, include that package in the comparison rather than treating it as an unrelated upgrade.

Get the rounding rule too. A provider may round each transaction's fee before adding the total. For an initial estimate, the aggregate calculation can be useful, but the final check should reproduce the provider's method closely enough to explain the actual statement.

International cards and currency conversion need separate lines

An international card charge and a conversion charge can apply for different reasons. Don't combine them into one estimated allowance before you know the rules. Otherwise, you'll struggle to see which part of the cost changes when your audience changes.

Stripe's currency documentation distinguishes the currency of a buyer's payment method, the currency charged and the currency received by the business. It also explains that a buyer's bank can charge for conversion or cross-border use. Those buyer charges are separate from the charges in your business's processing quote.

Ask the provider to price an overseas card paying in your usual currency. Then ask for the same purchase where the payment also requires conversion before your business receives it. Does each example trigger an international card charge, a conversion charge, both or neither? Keep the answers with the quote.

Find out what exchange rate the provider uses and when it fixes that rate. An explicit conversion fee doesn't necessarily describe the complete difference between currencies. Ask for the amount your business would receive in a worked transaction, with the conversion method and every applicable charge identified.

For comparison purposes, use a common currency and a consistent conversion assumption. Label converted forecasts clearly. If you change the assumed exchange rate for only one provider, you're comparing a currency forecast with a processing offer and won't know which one produced the difference.

You can still choose a payment setup with higher international charges if those sales are commercially worthwhile. The point is to know their cost before advertising overseas. Don't interpret a more expensive foreign-card payment as a reason to reject an audience without checking the money the event would retain.

Model refunds without counting the same cost twice

Refunds reduce the revenue you keep, and they may leave processing charges behind. Those are different amounts. Your comparison needs to show both without adding the original fee twice or describing returned ticket revenue as an extra processing charge.

Stripe's refund documentation, checked in October 2026, says its original processing fees are not returned when a completed payment is refunded. Your own agreement must explain what your provider charges you, including any platform arrangement. Don't assume every provider treats refunds identically because the underlying payment technology looks familiar.

Ask about full and partial refunds. Which original fees are credited? Is there a new refund charge? Is that charge applied per refunded order, per ticket or per refund action? Two partial refunds against one order could have a different cost from returning the same total in one action.

If your initial processing calculation includes every original successful payment, the fees retained on refunded orders are already included. Add only new refund charges and subtract any fee credits the quote actually provides. This is an easy place to exaggerate costs while trying to be thorough.

Use ordinary refunds for your normal comparison, then calculate event cancellation separately. A cancellation can require returning almost all buyer payments while subscriptions or processing charges remain payable. Our event refund policy guide covers the customer promise; the quote comparison needs the provider's charges for delivering it.

Ask how refunds are funded after money has reached your bank. A cheap refund fee doesn't solve a shortage of available cash. Confirm the route for returning funds to the payment account, any additional charge and who handles a refund that cannot complete immediately.

Keep disputes separate from approved refunds

A payment dispute starts through the buyer's bank and can create costs even while your team is contesting it. It isn't the same process as approving a refund because a buyer can no longer attend. Ask each provider to describe both processes independently.

Stripe's explanation of how disputes work describes the disputed payment amount and applicable dispute fees being debited as part of the process. That is a reason to separate the disputed sale, the provider's dispute charges and any later recovery when comparing offers.

Ask what triggers a dispute fee, whether responding attracts another charge, and what happens to each fee if you win. Establish who receives the notice and who must submit evidence. A provider saying it supports disputes doesn't necessarily mean someone prepares your response for you.

Use your own history where it is relevant. If the business has no reliable history, show a clearly labelled scenario instead of borrowing a generic dispute rate and presenting it as an event forecast. The uncertainty should remain visible to the person approving the purchase.

Keep ordinary refunds and disputed payments from overlapping in your calculations unless you're deliberately modelling that specific situation. A single order shouldn't become two lost sales just because it appears in two reports. Ask your bookkeeper how the reports identify reversals, credits and final outcomes.

You don't have to assign a speculative dollar value to every support difference. If your team cannot receive notifications or submit evidence within the required process, resolve that before choosing the provider. A small apparent saving doesn't compensate for an arrangement your business cannot operate.

Work through two fictional quotes

Let's put the pieces together. Every rate and transaction amount in this example is invented, in USD, to demonstrate the comparison. These are not market prices, Loopyah prices or customer results. We're comparing processing only, with identical ticketing costs outside the calculation.

Assume a six-month selling period with 2,000 tickets at $50 each. Buyers make 1,000 successful payments of $100, producing $100,000 in original payments. There are no taxes or add-ons in this example, and the organizer absorbs the processing charges.

Of the original payments, $20,000 comes from foreign-issued cards. Within that amount, $10,000 also requires currency conversion. Treat those figures as values used to calculate charges, with the conversion amount already expressed in USD. There is no additional exchange-rate movement in the example.

During the period, 50 separate $100 orders receive full refunds. Another four $100 orders are disputed. The disputed orders are different from the refunded orders. Assume all four disputes are lost, no disputed money is recovered, and neither provider charges separately for submitting evidence.

Quote A charges 2.4% of all original payments plus $0.30 for each successful payment. Its base processing charge is therefore $2,400 plus $300, or $2,700. Quote B charges 2.7% plus $0.10, producing $2,700 plus $100, or $2,800.

If you compare only those base rates, A saves $100. Now include the other agreed charges. A adds 1.5% on foreign-issued card payments, producing $300. B adds 0.5%, producing $100. Both add 1% on the $10,000 requiring conversion, which is $100 each.

A also charges $40 monthly for six months, or $240. B charges $30 monthly, or $180. There are no monthly minimums, setup charges, payout charges or other fees in either fictional offer, and neither requires a commitment beyond the stated six-month period.

Both retain all original processing charges after refunds, including the original international and conversion charges where applicable. Those retained amounts are already in the original calculations. A adds $2 for each refund action, producing $100. B adds $0.50, producing $25. Each refunded order requires one action.

For the four disputes, A charges $20 each and B charges $15 each. Those dispute charges total $80 and $60. The original payment fees remain included in both calculations, and the final lost outcomes produce no fee credits in this example.

Add the charges and A costs $3,520. B costs $3,265. The quote with the higher base percentage costs $255 less for this basket because the other charges more than offset its higher base fee. That conclusion depends on the stated transactions and conditions.

Source: illustrative arithmetic using the invented rates and transaction basket explained above. Refund principal and disputed principal are excluded from these processing-charge totals. The chart compares charges, rather than the amount of ticket revenue retained or when the business receives its money.

Check what those totals mean for your event

The total charge answers which quote is cheaper for the basket. It doesn't describe the event's profit. You still have production costs and other obligations, and the refunded or disputed ticket amounts no longer fund them. Keep that distinction clear when presenting the comparison.

In the example, ordinary refunds return $5,000 and lost disputes remove another $400. Subtracting those amounts from $100,000 leaves $94,600 before processing charges. A then leaves $91,080, while B leaves $91,335, before ticketing costs and all other event expenses.

Don't subtract the $5,000 or $400 again when adding the processing totals. They were already removed from the original payments. Equally, don't subtract another estimate of processing fees retained on those orders. Both quotes already charged processing on all 1,000 original payments.

You can express the processing total as a percentage of original payments, provided you identify the denominator. A is 3.52% of $100,000 and B is 3.265%. These are calculated effective costs for this example, including account and exception charges. They are not the providers' headline processing percentages.

For a useful internal comparison, show the total charge and the money retained on the same page. Your finance colleague can then see whether the recommendation comes from lower fees, different refund assumptions or an entirely different sales forecast. The arithmetic should survive someone asking you to explain one transaction.

Change the assumptions that could reverse the answer

The example doesn't prove that B is always cheaper. A has a lower percentage on ordinary payments, while B charges less per payment. The result changes with basket value, transaction count and the charges attached to international cards, refunds and account use.

Keep the original payment value at $100,000 but reduce the count to 500 successful payments averaging $200. Holding the other example inputs unchanged, A's base becomes $2,550 and B's becomes $2,750. Their complete totals become $3,370 and $3,215. B's advantage falls to $155.

That sensitivity isn't advice to force people into group purchases. It shows why your real order pattern belongs in the quote. Changing checkout to manufacture a lower payment count can create other commercial problems, and your processor calculation doesn't establish whether buyers will accept the change.

Test domestic-only sales too. Remove the example's international and conversion charges while keeping its other assumptions. A then costs $3,120 and B costs $3,065. B still costs less, but the gap is only $55. Your audience mix explains most of the original difference.

Then test lower sales against fixed account charges and commitments. If fewer events run, monthly charges may become a larger share of what you collect. Ask whether the subscription can pause and whether a minimum processing obligation still applies. Use the written conditions before changing those figures.

Choose scenarios your business could actually face. A conference attracting more overseas delegates and a venue selling more individual tickets have different uncertainties. You don't need a huge collection of forecasts. You need to know which plausible change would make the current recommendation wrong.

Compare money availability as well as charges

A provider can have the lower total fee and still create a problem if your business cannot access money before supplier payments fall due. Keep payout conditions next to the cost calculation, while avoiding the mistake of treating every temporarily held dollar as a fee.

Stripe's payout documentation distinguishes when pending funds become available from the schedule used to send available money to a bank. It also notes that the bank can take additional time. A promise of daily payouts therefore needs more explanation than the word "daily" provides.

Ask for the first-payout conditions, the normal timetable and any event-related holds or reserves that could apply to your account. Establish whether days mean business days or calendar days. A quotation should explain what happens around weekends and the point at which a payment enters the timetable.

For the comparison, identify the earliest supplier bill that depends on ticket money. Ask each provider to show how the expected sales would become usable cash before that date. Include any confirmed faster-payout charge only if you would actually use that service and meet its eligibility requirements.

If you need borrowing because of a payout restriction, include the financing charge under your stated borrowing terms. Keep the held principal separate. Our event cash-flow forecast guide explains how to map those dates against the bills; the processor choice needs to fit the resulting cash requirement.

Ask providers to calculate the same sample transactions

Once you've built the basket, send it unchanged to every shortlisted provider. Ask for a written estimate of total charges, the applicable terms and a clear list of exclusions. A blank refund line means unanswered until someone confirms that no additional charge applies.

Request an ordinary domestic group order, an international card order and a partial refund calculation. Use amounts from your own sales pattern. Ask the provider to show the original amount, each charge, any fee credit and the final amount retained. That is much easier to audit than a general claim about competitive pricing.

Also ask for a sample statement with customer details removed. Can your bookkeeper match successful payments, refunds, disputes and charges to the amount deposited? If a charge appears on a later invoice, establish how that invoice connects to the payment report. Otherwise, the first bank deposit may look cheaper than the final cost.

Confirm the quote's validity date, minimum commitment and renewal terms. If a discount depends on volume, ask whether it applies to all payments in the period or only those above the threshold. Get the lower-volume calculation as well so the sales forecast doesn't quietly become a contractual promise.

Where the quote conflicts with standard terms, resolve the difference before signing. Keep the agreed explanation with the offer. Someone reviewing the account next season should be able to identify which rates were approved without reconstructing a conversation your team had months earlier.

Make the statement test part of the quote

Before accepting the offer, choose a completed event and ask whether the provider can price its payment summary using the proposed terms. You don't need to transfer the actual business to learn how the calculation behaves. The point is to replace an attractive sample transaction with the combination of orders your event really receives.

Include the selling months with little activity. A busy launch can make a monthly charge look insignificant, while the account stays open through a quiet season. Ask when charges start, when they stop and whether unfinished refunds or disputes require the account to remain active after the last ticket sale.

Check the meaning of a volume discount against that record. Is the provider measuring original successful payments, payments after refunds or money deposited? Do international transactions count towards the same threshold? If the threshold concerns a period longer than your event season, establish whether you qualify before using the discounted rate in the comparison.

Keep the original transaction dates when testing timing. Moving all sales into the busiest month can change the effect of minimum charges and account billing. It can also hide the gap between an early ticket launch and the event date, which may matter to the provider's account review.

Once the provider returns its estimate, ask your bookkeeper to reproduce a few of the lines independently. Check one refund, one international payment and a month with low sales. Resolve discrepancies in writing. If the answer depends on a condition absent from the quote, add that condition before anyone signs.

Ask who can authorise a change to your pricing after launch. If a higher sales forecast, a new event category or a different bank account triggers another review, your team needs to know before making that change. Record how the provider notifies you, when revised charges begin and what options you have if you disagree. That protects the comparison from becoming outdated while everyone is still relying on the original quote during the season.

Decide what the saving would actually justify

A lower processing bill is useful when the arrangement supports the purchases your event needs. Before choosing it, confirm that buyers can use the required payment methods and your team can run the supported refund process. Price only the offers that meet those requirements, otherwise the cheapest result may describe a service you cannot use.

Be careful with promised improvements in payment acceptance. A sales estimate about more completed purchases is separate from a confirmed reduction in fees. Ask what evidence supports the claim, which buyers and payment types it concerns, and whether your own checkout could reasonably produce the same result. Keep an unverified promise outside the guaranteed savings calculation.

The same applies to time saved in the accounts team. A cleaner statement might reduce work, but you need to check the actual report before assigning a value. Let the person who closes the accounts review it. Their answer about missing references will be more useful than your guess about a polished dashboard.

If changing providers requires integration work, testing or staff training, record those costs separately from the recurring processing calculation. A saving across a full year may take time to recover the cost of moving. Establish which events could use the new arrangement and when, rather than assuming the entire year's sales will move immediately.

Keep any benefits you can't verify as reasons to investigate, with a named question and a person responsible for answering it. You can still prefer a provider for support or simpler administration, but explain the choice honestly. A decision that costs slightly more can be sensible without being described as a fee saving.

Confirm who pays without hiding the buyer's total

Absorbing a payment fee and passing an allowed charge to buyers create different commercial outcomes. Neither choice changes the need to understand the underlying calculation. Ask the provider to show both your deductions and the complete buyer payment so the comparison doesn't hide a cost by moving it.

For covered US live-event tickets, the FTC's fee-rule guidance requires known, calculable mandatory charges in the upfront total, with specified exceptions. Itemisation is allowed, but it must not overshadow that total. Check the rules applying to your event and markets before deciding how the buyer sees the charges.

If you hold the buyer's complete price constant, a higher processing cost can reduce the amount your event keeps. If you hold the underlying ticket price constant and pass a charge through, the buyer may pay more. Use one stated assumption across quotes. Our guide to absorbing or passing ticketing fees develops that pricing decision.

Choose the provider whose confirmed total and payment conditions work for your actual events. Keep any unresolved charge visible until it has an answer, and ask finance to check the first real statement against the approved basket. If it differs, investigate the transaction category or contract term responsible before assuming the advertised rate was the rate you paid.