We have been analyzing our TicketSignup product and are considering lowering the price of TicketSignup. We want to grow from 1 Million tickets per year to 10 Million per year in 2030. To do that, we want to use the strategy that made us successful in the endurance market – best product, best service, lowest price.
There are several key thoughts, which we will go into more deeply below:
- TicketSignup is less expensive to support than RunSignup.
- TicketSignup is less expensive to develop RunSignup.
- There are more recurring Ticket events, which lower support costs.
- The average event size of Ticket customers is larger than the average on RunSignup.
- RunSignup relies on a robust Timer partner channel with revenue share.
- RunSignup is lower priced than other endurance registration vendors, yet TicketSignup is not.
- Different businesses might need different pricing
- Payment Processing Efficiency Advantage
TicketSignup is reaching critical mass in terms of both product differentiation, especially with our Calendar Based ticketing capability for recurring timed events and volume of business (over 1 Million tickets). We are also getting to the point where the product is contributing nearly 10% of company revenue and is expected to become half of the revenue over the next decade.
We also have aggressive goals for the company: we want to grow the ticket volume from 1 Million in 2025 to 10 Million in 2030.
TicketSignup is Less Expensive to Support
In Q4 we had an average of 1.82 support interactions per 1,000 registrations and only 0.50 support interactions per 1,000 tickets sold. Our support costs represent about 20% of our company costs, so this is material. In addition, there are just fewer features needed for ticket events than endurance events. This means fewer support articles to write, fewer how to videos to record, and a smaller support team with less management overhead, etc.
TicketSignup is Less Expensive to Develop
Simply put, we have fewer developers working on TicketSignup features than we do on RunSignup features. Ticketed events have fewer needs: no bibs, no times, no results, no real time tracking, much simpler participant management and, and no teams, corporate teams or peer-to-peer fundraising. We are fortunate to have a single shared infrastructure, and the same code runs for both tickets and registration like Email V2 and Website V2 to use all of our products to pay for common tools, which makes us very efficient.
RunSignup Timer Partners
A very large share of our endurance business is enabled by our Timer Partners. They are the professionals in the endurance community, having expertise to make race day a true event for participants. They bring new customers to us and provide support to those customers, which lowers our costs. Because of that, our Partner program shares 20% of our processing fee revenue, so for a majority of our business our registration pricing is around $0.80 per transaction plus 4.8%. The ticketing market does not have a similar equivalent, so we are working directly with events more.
RunSignup is Very Price Competitive, TicketSignup is Not Price Competitive with other Ticket Only Platforms
Race Roster is generally considered the second largest registration company in the US, and RunSignup has very competitive pricing in comparison. Race Roster charges $1.99 per Participant (we charge $1.00 per Transaction making multi-person signups a lot less expensive) plus 6.99% vs our standard 6%. Haku is generally regarded as the third largest and while they do not share standard pricing, they are generally more expensive and offer more custom solutions. And in the endurance market most vendors have a “Call us” for pricing. Most ticketing vendors are very public with their pricing.
In the ticket market Eventbrite and Fare Harbor are very costly (they are both trying to maximize the revenue from a large installed base). However all of the vendors looking to grow offer far lower pricing. This makes sense as the ticket market requires fewer features and services than the endurance (registration) market. The products are not the same: using TicketSignup for a race (instead of RunSignup), would make for a frustrating and manual process for an endurance event.
Ticket Market has Different Pricing
While the endurance market typically has all inclusive credit card processing pricing, the ticket market typically has a per ticket fee plus standard credit card rates (a lot of BYO Stripe). As an example, TicketSpice shows:
In the ticket market, because it is simpler and more self-serve oriented, most vendors have public pricing on their websites. Many event directors make decisions on publicly available pricing.
Payment Processing Efficiency Advantage
We have developed a very advanced and efficient platform for processing credit cards. This means we have lower costs than the standard $0.30 + 2.9% and can earn margin based on our volume and efficiency.
Potential Changes
We are likely to introduce new pricing in mid-March for tickets only, as we finalize our evaluation and plans.
This would include these two changes:
- Base credit card processing fee of $0.30 + 2.9%
- Plus our Fee. It will likely be per ticket.
Implications
This will bring a number of changes. There are a couple that will stand out.
- Existing ticket customers will see a drop in pricing as soon as we roll out the software change.
- Pricing for registration will remain the same as our registration pricing is already a good value for the more comprehensive technology and services we deliver, especially in comparison to other registration platforms.
- Partners will need to set up new Ticket pricing if they want to make any extra margin above our new standard pricing (there is no 20% revenue share for high volume customers).
Summary
As a company, we are excited to be gaining traction in a new market. It allows us to grow and continue to invest in our platform to provide the next technology for all of our event customers.