Ticket Price Calculator
Enter the fixed costs of the event, the cost for each person who attends, how many tickets you expect to sell, the profit you want and the percentage the ticketing platform or card processor keeps. You get the total cost, the break-even ticket price, the ticket price that reaches your profit target, and the revenue and fees at that price. Nothing is sent anywhere.
In one sentence: A ticket price has to cover the event's total cost and your profit after the ticketing fee is taken off every sale.
Formula: total cost = fixed costs + cost per attendee × attendees; net share per ticket = 1 − fee %; break-even price = total cost ÷ (attendees × net share); target price = (total cost + target profit) ÷ (attendees × net share); revenue = target price × attendees; fees = revenue × fee %.
Fixed costs, per-attendee costs and the fee
Event costs fall into two groups. Fixed costs are paid whether ten people come or two hundred: venue hire, speaker or performer fees, sound and lighting, insurance, marketing, design and printing. Per-attendee costs rise with every ticket sold: catering, drinks, name badges, a printed programme, a goodie bag, a workshop kit. Put each cost in the right group, because it changes how the price responds to the number of tickets you sell.
The fee is the share of each ticket that never reaches you. Ticketing platforms, payment processors or both take a percentage, and it is easy to set a price that covers costs before fees and falls short after them. This calculator divides by one minus the fee, so the price you set leaves you the full amount needed once fees are taken. If your platform also charges a fixed amount per ticket, add that to the cost per attendee. If you pass the fee on to buyers as a separate booking fee, set the fee here to zero.
Break-even price and target price
The break-even price is the lowest ticket price at which the event pays for itself if you sell the number of tickets you entered. With the example figures, 5,000 of fixed costs plus 15 for each of 200 attendees is a total cost of 8,000. After a 5% fee, each ticket keeps 95% of its price, so break-even is 8,000 ÷ (200 × 0.95) = 42.11.
The target price adds the profit you want. A 2,000 profit target on the same event gives 10,000 ÷ 190 = 52.63 per ticket. Selling 200 tickets at that price brings in 10,526 in ticket revenue, of which 526.30 goes in fees and the rest covers the 8,000 cost and the 2,000 profit.
The attendee number is the one to be careful with. Fixed costs are spread over the tickets you sell, so if you sell fewer, the break-even price rises. Rerun the numbers with a cautious attendee count as well as your hoped-for count and see how far apart the two prices are. If the cautious price is one your audience would not pay, the event needs lower fixed costs or a different format. The break-even calculator works the other way round, finding the number of tickets you must sell at a given price.
Using the result
Treat the target price as a floor for planning, then set the published price with your audience in mind. Early-bird and full-price tiers, group discounts and complimentary tickets all change the average price per ticket; what matters is that the average across everything you sell reaches the target price. Build the cost figures from a full budget: the event budget calculator totals every line, and the catering price per guest calculator or a caterer's quote gives the per-attendee food cost. Sales tax or VAT, where it applies, is added on top of the prices shown here.
Frequently asked questions
Should free or complimentary tickets count as attendees?
Count them in the per-attendee costs, since they still eat and drink, but not in the tickets sold. The simplest way is to add their cost to fixed costs and enter only paid tickets as attendees.
What if I have sponsorship income?
Subtract it from fixed costs before you enter them. Sponsorship covers part of the cost so tickets do not have to.
Is my data stored?
No. Everything runs in your browser.