Sell More Higher-Priced Tickets With a Deposit and Instalments

Sell Your Biggest Tickets to Fans Who Pay Over Time

Weekend camping passes, VIP upgrades and multi-day festival tickets are where fans hesitate longest. With a payment plan, the buyer chooses to pay over time at checkout, pays the deposit and has their order confirmed straight away. The rest follows from the same card on the schedule you set, so more fans commit during your early on-sale, when you most need the money and the momentum.

The plan belongs to the event, so every ticket type on it can be bought this way. Checkout offers the plan only when an order is big enough to divide into sensible payments, so a single cheap ticket is paid in full as usual. A buyer who uses a discount code can still choose the plan, and the deposit and payments are worked out on the discounted total.

• Pay over time: chosen by the buyer at checkout
• Deposit at checkout: the order is confirmed when the deposit is paid
• The same card: each later payment is taken from it on its date

• How do you set up a payment plan so buyers pay for tickets in instalments?

Set Your Terms Once, Before the On-Sale

The Payment Plans section sits on your event's Payments page, beside the payment processing account the event uses, so the plan and the account that collects it are set up together. You decide the number of payments, weekly or monthly, how many weeks before the event the last one is due, how the deposit is worked out and when an unpaid order is cancelled. Change anything freely until the event makes its first sale. From then on the settings stay as they are, so every buyer pays on the terms they signed up to and nobody is moved onto a schedule they did not agree.

A buy now, pay later lender brings its own sign-up and credit check into your checkout. A Ticket Fairy plan runs on your own event, on the card the buyer pays with at checkout, with the deposit, the schedule and the cancellation date all decided by you. Tell buyers on your event page what the deposit is, how many payments follow and when the last one is due, and they choose the plan with their eyes open.

• Enable payment plan: one switch for the whole event
• Weekly or Monthly: the number of installments you choose
• Terms that hold: every buyer keeps the plan they bought under

• How do you set up a payment plan so buyers pay for tickets in instalments?

Choose the Deposit That Suits Your Buyers

The deposit decides how easy the first step feels and how much of the money you hold early. Evenly distributed installments makes every payment the same, deposit included. Fixed down payment sets a fixed amount, charged once per order or once per ticket. Percentage of order total takes a share of the order before booking fees. The remaining payments are always spread evenly over the rest of the plan.

A fixed amount per ticket suits group orders, because a buyer bringing friends pays a deposit for each of them. When your event sells in more than one currency, Different deposit per currency lets you set a flat deposit that makes sense for buyers paying in another currency, and a blank field uses the main amount.

When you choose a fixed down payment per ticket, each ticket type also offers Payment plan down payment for this ticket type. Give your VIP pass a bigger deposit than general admission, or a camping upgrade a smaller one, and leave the field empty for ticket types that should use the event's amount.

• Evenly distributed installments: every payment the same, deposit included
• Fixed or percentage: per order or per ticket, or a share of the order
• Different deposit per currency: a flat amount that suits buyers paying in another currency
• A deposit per ticket type: a different down payment where a tier needs one

Collect the Rest Before Show Week

A plan that is still running in show week leaves you chasing money while you build the site. Choose how many weeks before the event the last payment is due, and every buyer's plan finishes by then. Each buyer's schedule starts on the day they buy, so a fan who buys late is offered only the payments that still fit before your cutoff, and the plan gets shorter as your event comes closer.

You also choose how many weeks before the event an order that has stopped paying is cancelled. Set it closer to the event than the last payment, so a buyer whose card failed has time to catch up. Ticket Fairy retries a failed payment before your team has to act, and you keep the first instalment on every cancelled plan.

• Last installment: every plan finishes by the cutoff you set
• Failed payments retried: tried again before your team needs to step in
• Order cancellation: unpaid orders cancelled on the date you choose
• First installment kept: on every cancelled plan

See the Plan the Way Your Buyers Will

The Customer preview beside your settings shows what a buyer checking out today would pay now and later. It works from the price of any of your ticket types, or a price and ticket count you enter, and shows the down payment, each installment and the total. Later scenarios show how the plan shortens as the event approaches, so you can check a fan buying next month still gets a plan worth choosing.

Selling VIP tables with an online deposit? The preview works for a table too, showing the table deposit spread over the plan and the balance due at check-in. The preview also marks a scenario where a payment would be too small for a card to be charged, so you can raise the deposit or reduce the number of payments before you save.

• Customer preview: the down payment, each installment and the total
• Your own prices: pick a ticket type or a table to use its price
• Later scenarios: how the plan shortens as the event comes closer

Let Buyers Manage Their Own Payments

Every plan payment your team does not have to chase is time back. The buyer's order shows how many payments they are making, how much each one is, how often it is taken and the date of the final payment, with each payment marked once it is paid. When a card expires, the buyer selects Update Card Details on their order and enters the new card, and nothing is charged until the next payment date.

The order also tells the buyer that their tickets become valid once all payments are made, so only tickets that are paid in full get through your door. If a plan is cancelled before it is paid off, the buyer's order shows the balance left to pay and a button to complete the plan in one payment. Once that payment succeeds, their tickets become valid for the event, so a fan who missed a payment can still come.

• Payment summary: the number, the amount and how often
• Update Card Details: on the buyer's own order
• Complete the plan: the remaining balance paid in one payment

Follow Every Plan From Your Orders Page

The Payment Plan tab on your event's Orders page lists every order being paid over time, beside your paid, guest, refunded and cancelled orders. Look at it a few days after each collection date. An expired card is the usual reason a payment fails, and the buyer almost always still wants to come, so a quick message to update their card saves the sale.

• Payment Plan tab: every order being paid over time
• A quick reminder: contact buyers whose payment failed

• Find the Order, Fix the Problem and Get Buyers Back to Their Day

Let Fai Set Up Your Payment Plan

Tell Fai, the assistant inside your dashboard, the number of payments, weekly or monthly, the last payment date, the cancellation date and the deposit you want, including a different deposit for another currency. She shows you the settings and asks you to approve them before she saves, because they change how your buyers pay. She can turn a plan off for you the same way, and set a ticket type's own deposit when you ask.

• Set up in a sentence: Fai fills in every plan setting from your request
• You approve first: nothing is saved until you say so

• Get Your Ticketing Work Done by Asking Fai