Your ticketing invoice shows what you pay in fees. This model shows what your platform actually costs you over a year, including the parts that never appear on an invoice: cash held before payout, staff hours, manual data work and buyers you can't reach again. Enter last season's numbers, compare them with an alternative, and see where your money really goes. Results appear on screen. No form, no sales call required.
Every field starts blank. Use your own figures, and where you're unsure, enter your best estimate. You can change anything and the results update as you type. Nothing you enter is saved or sent.
Enter a few numbers above and your results will appear here.
These figures are estimates based on the numbers you entered. They're meant for planning and comparison, not as a forecast or a quote.
The model follows the total cost of ownership framework in SquadUP's white paper, The True Cost of Generic Ticketing. It adds up six cost lines for each column, using only the numbers you enter.
| Cost line | How it's calculated |
|---|---|
| Fees | Service and processing fees, as entered |
| Payout timing | Tickets × average price × share held × days held ÷ 365 × cost of capital, plus reserve amount × reserve days ÷ 365 × cost of capital |
| Refunds and chargebacks | Cases × minutes per case ÷ 60 × hourly cost, plus dispute fees |
| Operations | Staff per day × hours × event days × hourly cost, plus finance hours × event days × finance hourly cost |
| Data and integrations | Exports per month × 12 × hours per export × hourly cost, plus tool cost per month × 12 |
| Audience | Unique buyers × (1 − share you can email) × cost to acquire a buyer |
The total is the sum of the six lines. One-time switching costs are added up separately and never mixed into the annual total, because a cost you pay once shouldn't be compared directly with one you pay every season. When the alternative costs less per year, the payback period is the one-time switching cost divided by the annual difference, shown in months.
Three inputs are hard to pin down: cost of capital, the share of buyers you can reach, and the cost to acquire a buyer. For those, you enter a low and a high figure, and the results show a range. If the range is wide, those inputs are driving your answer, and they're worth firming up before you make a decision.
What the model doesn't do: it doesn't put a number on brand effects directly, predict revenue changes from a different checkout experience, or account for terms specific to your contract. It also doesn't include SquadUP's pricing. If you'd like to compare against SquadUP specifically, a specialist can walk through your numbers with you.
It estimates what your ticketing platform costs you over a year across six lines: fees, payout timing, refunds and chargebacks, staff time, data work and audience reach. You can enter a second scenario, such as a different platform, compare the two side by side, and weigh the difference against one-time switching costs.
Last season's ticket volume, average ticket price, event days and unique buyers, plus your fee and payout statements, staff schedules and a rough sense of how much manual data work your team does. If you don't have a number, use your best estimate and refine it later. The results update as you go.
The model multiplies the revenue held before payout by the average number of days it's held and your cost of capital, then divides by 365. For cost of capital, use the interest rate on your line of credit or what your cash would earn elsewhere. Your finance team will know which fits, and the model doesn't assume a rate for you.
There aren't any. Every input starts blank, because costs vary too much between organizers for a borrowed average to be useful, and a default figure can make results look more precise than they are. Your own numbers, even rough ones, give a more honest answer.
The results are only as good as the inputs, so treat them as a planning estimate, not a forecast. The model doesn't put a number on brand effects, revenue changes from a different checkout experience or terms specific to your contract. The low and high ranges show how much your answer depends on the hardest-to-know inputs.
Look at where your costs sit, not just how big the total is. If most of it is in audience reach or staff time, a lower per-ticket fee won't fix it. The model doesn't include SquadUP's pricing, so to compare against SquadUP specifically, a SquadUP specialist can walk through the numbers with you.