Ticket Tailor Review 2026: Is This Independent Ticketing Platform Right for You?

Ticket Tailor has built a loyal following among event organizers who want to escape the high fees and corporate constraints of major ticketing platforms. With its flat-fee pricing, direct payouts, and customization capabilities, it offers a straightforward way to sell tickets while maintaining control over your brand and customer data.

To write this Ticket Tailor review, I've analyzed the platform extensively. I believe it's the ideal choice if:

• You want low, predictable ticketing costs with flat per-ticket fees
• You prioritize branding customization and owning your customer data
• You value ethical business practices and B Corp certification
• You already have established marketing channels to drive ticket sales
• You need 24/7 human support with fast response times

However, Ticket Tailor might not be the best choice if:

• You want a higher level of personalized 24/7 customer service for you and attendees
• You're looking for a discovery marketplace to help drive traffic to your events
• You need robust marketing tools like ambassador programs or viral contests
• You want native live streaming capabilities for virtual or hybrid events
• You want a branded mobile app for your event or venue

In this case, you should consider PromoTix: a ticketing platform built by event creators who understood that selling tickets requires more than just a checkout page. With integrated Ambassador programs, patented viral contest tools, secure live streaming, and branded mobile apps, PromoTix focuses on helping organizers actually sell out their events, not just process transactions. PromoTix is the most cost-effective solution when you factor in the marketing tools that would cost thousands separately elsewhere.

If you're looking for ticketing that comes with built-in marketing firepower, you can create your event for free on PromoTix.

Table of contents:

• What is Ticket Tailor?
• Ticket Tailor Pros & Cons
• Ticket Tailor Review: How it Works & Key Features
• Where Ticket Tailor Falls Short
• Top Ticket Tailor Alternative: PromoTix
• Ticket Tailor or PromoTix: Comparison Summary
• Final Verdict

What is Ticket Tailor?

Ticket Tailor is a cloud-based ticketing platform founded in 2010 by Jonny White, a software engineer who was running a local events listing website in Birmingham, UK. Frustrated by the expensive ticketing solutions available at the time, he built Ticket Tailor to provide a simple, low-cost alternative that put control back in the hands of event organizers.

The company was briefly acquired by Time Out in 2012 but was bought back by White in 2014 to preserve its independence. Today, Ticket Tailor operates as a bootstrapped company with approximately 30-40 employees.

Ticket Tailor positions itself as a SaaS tool rather than a marketplace. Unlike platforms that take a cut of your revenue and control the customer relationship, Ticket Tailor charges a flat fee per ticket and lets organizers keep their data. The company is a certified B Corporation with an "Outstanding" score, donating 1p for every ticket sold to climate causes.

The platform serves independent venues, festivals, charities (who receive a 50% discount), tour operators, and any event creator who values control, low costs, and ethical business practices. It's used by organizers who want their ticketing to be invisible infrastructure rather than a branded third-party experience.

Ticket Tailor Pros & Cons

Ticket Tailor Review: How it Works & Key Features

Box Office & Event Management

The "Box Office" serves as Ticket Tailor's central hub for both backend management and public-facing sales. Organizers create events, configure ticket types, and manage inventory from a clean dashboard designed for non-technical users. The public Box Office page (e.g., tickettailor.com/events/yourname) displays all active events and can be customized with brand colors, fonts, and header images.

Source: Ticket Tailor

Event creation supports both one-time and recurring events with time slot management. Organizers can set up access-code-protected tickets for VIP pre-sales, hidden ticket types accessible only via access codes, and tiered pricing structures. Quantity-based tier transitions happen automatically (for example, revealing Standard tickets when Early Bird inventory runs out), while date-based visibility changes can be configured through hide/reveal settings.

The system uses "Ticket Groups" for shared inventory management. If a venue has 500 total capacity, organizers can create Adult, Student, and Senior tickets that all draw from the same pool, preventing overselling regardless of ticket type mix.

Source: Ticket Tailor

Checkout & Payment Processing

Ticket Tailor's checkout supports "guest checkout" without requiring buyers to create accounts, which reduces friction. Organizers can add custom questions at either the order level (asked once per purchase) or ticket level (asked for each attendee).

Payment processing connects directly to Stripe, PayPal, or Square. Funds go straight to the organizer's payment account rather than being held by Ticket Tailor, which improves cash flow. For UK charities, the checkout includes a built-in Gift Aid declaration feature that collects the required information from donors (though organizers should consult HMRC guidance for claiming).

The checkout can be embedded directly into existing websites via iframe or JavaScript widget, appearing as an overlay that keeps customers on the organizer's URL throughout the purchase. For an additional monthly fee, Ticket Tailor branding can be removed and custom domains can be used.

Source: Ticket Tailor

Seating Charts

For reserved seating events, Ticket Tailor includes a drag-and-drop seating chart designer. Organizers can upload venue floor plans as background images and trace seats directly over them. The tool supports theatre-style rows, tables, and booths.

Seats are grouped into categories (e.g., "Orchestra," "Balcony") with different pricing. A notable capability is that multiple ticket types can be assigned to a single seat category, so the same physical seat could be sold as either a full-price ticket or a discounted concession ticket.

Reserved seating costs double the standard credit rate (2 credits per paid seated ticket versus 1 credit for general admission). This means a paid seated ticket effectively costs $1.30 at the pay-as-you-go rate, which is a detail worth noting for venues with reserved seating. Organizers can hold specific seats for VIPs or press by marking them as unavailable to the public.

Source: Ticket Tailor

Check-in App & On-site Operations

The free Ticket Tailor Check-in app (available on iOS and Android) transforms smartphones into ticket scanners. The app validates QR codes instantly, displaying green for valid tickets and red for duplicates or invalid codes.

For on-site sales, the app functions as a point-of-sale system. Staff can sell tickets and accept cash or card payments via an external Stripe Reader or BBPOS terminal. The system can connect to Boca Ticket Printers for issuing physical tickets with unique QR codes.

Guest list management allows organizers to add complimentary tickets and hold tickets at will-call. Staff can search by name or email to check in attendees who lost their digital tickets.

Broadcasting & Attendee Communication

The "Broadcast" feature enables email communication with ticket buyers. Organizers can send updates, reminders, and post-event content to all buyers or to holders of specific ticket types. Emails can be scheduled relative to the event (e.g., "24 hours before start") or at specific dates.

For virtual events, Ticket Tailor uses a "Holding Page" system. Rather than sending raw streaming links that could be shared, the system sends attendees to a branded countdown page that only redirects to the actual stream at the scheduled time. This reduces the likelihood of premature link sharing.

Email broadcasts are free to send through the platform.

Source: Ticket Tailor

Where Ticket Tailor Falls Short

While Ticket Tailor handles basic ticketing processing effectively, several limitations become apparent for organizers who need more than a transaction platform.

Marketing Remains Your Responsibility: Ticket Tailor deliberately focuses on processing transactions rather than driving them. 

While the platform offers basic promotional features (referral and affiliate link tracking, CRM integrations with tools like Mailchimp and HubSpot, and social pixels for Meta and TikTok), there's no discovery marketplace where potential attendees browse events.

There are no Ambassador program tools to turn fans into promoters, and no viral contest features to build email lists before sales begin. There’s also no branded attendee facing mobile app where attendees can see lineups, build event schedules, and where Organizers can send push notification communications. Organizers who need robust help selling tickets, not just processing purchases, must build much of their promotional operation separately, and those additional marketing tools often cost thousands of dollars annually.

Virtual Events Get Basic Treatment: The platform handles virtual event ticketing, but there's no integrated live streaming infrastructure. Organizers must use third-party services like Zoom and rely on Ticket Tailor's holding page for basic access control. For hybrid events or serious virtual productions, this approach requires additional setup and leaves streaming links vulnerable to sharing.

Mobile App Limitations: The Ticket Tailor app is purely operational: scanning tickets and selling at the door. There's no ability to create branded mobile apps for attendees, no push notifications to drive engagement, and no in-app ticket sales experience. For festivals or venues wanting a dedicated app presence, this requires an entirely separate solution.

Communication Stays Basic: While the broadcast feature handles email, there's no SMS marketing and no push notifications. Organizers looking to run sophisticated campaigns must export their data and manage communications through other tools.

Hidden Costs Add Up: While Ticket Tailor's base pricing is attractive, additional features come with extra costs. Removing Ticket Tailor branding and using custom domains requires additional monthly fees quickly increasing overall cost. Reserved seating doubles the per-ticket fee. These incremental costs can accumulate for organizers needing the full feature set, become confusing, and end up much higher than advertised. As Steve Seibel says in his rating on Ticket Tailor, “Your fees could be explained better or more accurately.”

Source: Trustpilot

These limitations are not failures because they are the natural result of Ticket Tailor’s deliberate optimization for simplicity and low costs. But they create a clear gap for organizers who view ticket sales as a marketing challenge rather than just a checkout problem.

Top Ticket Tailor Alternative: PromoTix

PromoTix addresses the marketing gap that basic ticketing platforms leave open. Founded in 2016 by Will Royall, who was involved with a major music festival with a 16-year history and owned an advertising agency, PromoTix was built from firsthand frustration. Royall found that ticketing platforms charged fees to process tickets like Ticket Tailor, but provided few tools to actually help sell tickets and make the event successful.

The platform started as marketing software first, originally called PromoJuice and operating as an Eventbrite Spectrum partner, and later evolved into a complete ticketing platform. This origin validates PromoTix's marketing-first approach: the tools were built by someone who used other platforms and knew exactly what was missing.

The company's philosophy is straightforward: ticketing and marketing shouldn't be separate problems. Event creators who use PromoTix's marketing tools can sell up to 22% more tickets, and case studies show upwards of 18% growth specifically from using the Ambassador feature.

Patented Viral Contest Registration Pages

Before tickets even go on sale, PromoTix lets organizers build buzz and capture leads through patented gamified contest pages. Participants earn points by following social profiles, sharing the contest, and referring friends. A leaderboard tracks not just points but the actual ticket revenue generated by each participant's referrals.

This is a patented feature not available on any other platform. The pre-sale activity builds a marketing database of interested prospects with names, emails, phone numbers, social media follows, and even Spotify listening data. When tickets launch, an automatic email blast goes to all registrants. The platform tracks ROI directly, showing how many ticket purchases came from contest participants.

Ambassador Program Management

PromoTix includes the most advanced system on the market for recruiting and managing promoters, with access to a network of 6,500+ existing Ambassadors. Organizers define tasks (both online and offline), set commission structures for ticket sales, and track everything automatically.

The system verifies promotional activities in multiple ways. For online tasks, it monitors social media posts. For physical promotions like postering, Ambassadors upload photos, and GPS tracking confirms where materials were distributed. This data appears on a map in the organizer's dashboard, revealing both where promotion happened and which areas were missed.

Ambassadors have their own mobile app with a built-in point-of-sale system. They can sell tickets directly in face-to-face interactions, accepting both cash and card payments. Commissions are tracked automatically and paid via direct deposit.

Secure Live Streaming (PromoTix Streaming)

PromoTix includes integrated, secure live streaming built directly into the platform. Unlike basic link sharing or third-party integrations, this system creates a "virtual front gate" where each ticket generates a unique, one-session-viewable URL.

If someone tries to share their streaming link, the new viewer is blocked with a message saying the ticket is already in use and is prompted to buy their own ticket, while the original purchaser continues watching uninterrupted. This solves a critical revenue problem: many event creators using platforms with third-party streaming integrations have watched their virtual events see thousands of viewers when they only sold hundreds of tickets.

The platform supports standard definition through 4K quality with ultra-low latency (around one second). Organizers can broadcast using a simple webcam from the dashboard or connect professional equipment via RTMP integration with software like OBS. The stream includes integrated live chat for audience interaction.

For hybrid events, PromoTix holds a patent covering systems for live event management and remote integration. As a result, it can sell both in-person and virtual tickets within the same checkout flow, which is particularly popular for multi-day events where attendees can access both live and streamed content with a single ticket purchase.

Branded Mobile Apps

PromoTix lets organizers create custom-branded iOS and Android apps for their events or venues without any development experience. The app includes the event schedule, performer information, venue maps, in-app ticket purchasing, and push notifications.

Push notifications cost just one cent per send, making it a cost-effective channel compared to SMS. Organizers can schedule notifications for key moments and use the app to re-engage past attendees about upcoming events. The app also supports custom forms for VIP reservations.

Spotify Artist Insights

For music events, PromoTix includes a Spotify insights module that analyzes what your attendees and potential attendees are listening to. This helps organizers make data-driven artist booking decisions by identifying which artists are guaranteed to draw crowds and spotting deals on booking fees from agents who may be underpricing artists your audience already loves.

Additional Features

PromoTix also offers several capabilities that set it apart from basic ticketing platforms:

• Resale Marketplace: A secondary ticket marketplace with 1M+ users where organizers can control resale, validate ticket authenticity, and optionally earn revenue shares on resale fees
• RFID Technology: Available for events of 3,000+ attendees, enabling access control, cashless payments, and sponsor activation capabilities
• Daily Payouts: Funds available daily through Stripe, PayPal, or your own merchant account at no additional cost
• Pixel Tracking: Built-in tracking for all online ads including remarketing to Meta, Google, TikTok, and more

These are not third-party add-ons; they are native features included in the platform, built by event creators who understood what organizers actually need.

Pricing Structure

PromoTix offers two pricing models. The standard "Ticketing + Marketing" plan is free for organizers; attendees pay 3% + $1.49 per ticket. This includes all marketing tools, streaming access (with per-viewer data fees starting at $0.75), and the core platform.

For larger operations, the "Professional Enterprise" plan offers a customized annual subscription with 0% ticketing fees, a dedicated Client Success Manager, an Ambassador Program Manager who helps consult on strategy, build, recruit, and run your program, lower streaming costs, and additional features like RFID integration and season tickets.

Support: Attendees receive 24/7 phone and chat support with a maximum 4-hour email response time. Professional Enterprise clients get direct access to named contacts via phone and email.

Ticket Tailor or PromoTix: Comparison Summary

Final Verdict

The choice between Ticket Tailor and PromoTix ultimately depends on where you need help most.

Choose Ticket Tailor if:

• Your marketing strategy is already in place and you just need reliable, affordable ticketing infrastructure.
• You want basic ticketing that keeps costs low.
• You value B Corp certification, direct payouts to your payment processor, and responsive 24/7 support.
• You’re a values-driven organizer who has already figured out how to fill seats.
• You need a low-friction checkout experience without unnecessary complexity.
• You’re aware that additional feat

Start selling tickets effortlessly with Ticket Tailor.

Choose PromoTix if:

• You view ticketing and marketing as two sides of the same challenge.
• You want agency level strategic marketing consulting and partnership to drive sales.
• You want a platform built by event creators who understand both sales and promotion.
• You need patented Ambassador programs that turn fans into active salespeople.
• You want viral contests that grow contact lists before ticket sales even start.
• You plan to engage virtual audiences with integrated streaming.
• You want branded mobile apps to keep attendees engaged.
• You treat ticket sales as an active marketing process rather than a passive transaction.

PromoTix is particularly strong for sports events of all ages (including youth sports where family members want to watch remotely), music events and festivals, venues and theaters, religious events, and competitions where engagement drives revenue. If you want tools that help you actually sell out your event, rather than just process the sales you generate elsewhere, there is no comparison in the marketing value you’ll get compared to basic ticketing platforms.

Create your event for free on PromoTix.