Solving event ticketing problems
How do you set up a payment plan so buyers pay for tickets in instalments?
Festival promoters selling higher-priced weekend tickets want fans who cannot pay the whole price up front to buy anyway. A payment plan takes a deposit at checkout and the rest in instalments on the schedule you set, with a cancellation date for orders that stop paying, and brings those fans in.
Turn on a payment plan so buyers pay a deposit at checkout and the rest in weekly or monthly instalments that finish before the event.
- For
- Selling higher-priced festival or multi-day tickets
- Takes
- 6 minutes
A payment plan lowers the amount due at checkout by taking a deposit and collecting the balance over time. This can make a higher-priced ticket affordable earlier in the on-sale.
A payment plan takes a deposit at the checkout and collects the rest automatically from the same card. You choose weekly or monthly payments, the most instalments a buyer can choose, how long before the event the final payment is due, when an unfinished order is cancelled, and how the deposit is calculated. A buyer buying late gets fewer payments, because only whole intervals that finish before your cutoff are offered.
The schedule runs from the purchase. Each buyer pays at the weekly or monthly spacing you set, so two buyers who bought in different months are on different dates. The final-payment cutoff and cancellation cutoff are both counted back from the event, which is what stops an unfinished plan carrying on into show week.
How Ticket Fairy helps
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A deposit that reserves the ticket
The deposit confirms the order, and the remaining balance follows the schedule shown at checkout.
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One event at a time
A plan belongs to the event you turn it on for, so a festival can offer one while the club night beside it sells the way it always did.
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Scheduled card payments
Each payment is taken from the card the buyer used at the checkout, and Ticket Fairy retries a failed payment before your team has to look at it. You are not sending payment reminders by hand.
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Existing orders keep their original terms
An order keeps the plan it was bought under. Change the deposit or the schedule later and the change applies to new orders, so nobody who already bought finds their payments rearranged.
Set it up
Before you start
- You're an owner or an admin on the event.
- Your event uses the card payment method that supports plans. A plan cannot be saved on any other payment method.
- Choose a final-payment cutoff that leaves enough time for failed-payment retries before the event.
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Turn a payment plan on for the event
Open your event's payment settings and switch Payment Plan on. The plan applies only to this event, not the whole brand.
Payment Plans, enabled with the deposit and collection schedule filled in. -
Choose what the deposit is
Choose whether First installment is a percentage, a fixed amount or the same amount as later payments. For a fixed amount, also choose whether it applies once per order or once per ticket.
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Set the payments, cadence and deadline
Choose the Number of installments, whether the payments are weekly or monthly, and how many weeks before the event the final instalment must be charged. Monthly charges every 30 days rather than on the same date each month, and each buyer's payment dates count back from the event date and start when they purchase.
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Set when an unfinished order is cancelled
Set how many weeks before the event an unfinished order is cancelled. This number must be smaller than the final-payment cutoff, because it gives the buyer time after the last instalment date to catch up.
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Explain the schedule on your event page
Tell buyers the deposit, number and frequency of payments, and how far before the event final payment and cancellation occur.
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Watch the plans as they collect
Review payment-plan orders after each collection date so you can contact buyers whose payment failed. After plan orders exist, some settings can no longer be changed.
Try these steps on your own event
Create a free account, build your event and follow the steps above in your own dashboard. It takes a few minutes and you do not need to book a sales call.
No setup fees. No required monthly ticketing fee. No credit card required.
Or have it done for you
Fai can set up or turn off an event payment plan and asks you to approve the settings before saving because they change how buyers pay. If the tool is unavailable, ask Ticket Fairy to enable payment-plan setup for your brand.
In your dashboard, with Fai
Set up a payment plan on this event with 4 monthly instalments, the final payment 2 weeks before the event, unfinished orders cancelled 1 week before the event, and a fixed £50 deposit per order; show me the settings before you save
Let Fai do it for you
Fai works inside your Ticket Fairy dashboard. Create your account, open Fai and paste the prompt above.
No setup fees. No required monthly ticketing fee. No credit card required.
Questions you might have
- Which ticketing platforms let buyers pay in instalments?
- Ticket Fairy lets you offer a payment plan for each event. You choose the deposit, the number of payments, the weekly or monthly cadence, the final-payment cutoff, and when an unfinished order is cancelled.
- When exactly is each payment taken?
- Each buyer pays at the weekly or monthly spacing you set, counted from the day they bought, where monthly means every 30 days rather than the same date each month. The final-payment cutoff decides how close to the event a new plan can still fit.
- Can I run a plan on some tickets and not others?
- No. The payment plan applies to the event, not selected ticket types. Checkout hides the plan when an order is too small to divide into payments above the minimum card charge.
- Does a discount code work with a plan?
- It applies, and it can also take the order below what a plan needs. A deposit that would meet or exceed the discounted total, or payments that would fall below the smallest amount a card can be charged, removes the plan option at the checkout.
- What happens if a payment fails?
- Ticket Fairy retries the payment automatically before your team has to act. Check your plan orders a few days after each collection date, because an expired card is the usual cause and the buyer normally still wants to come.
- If I change the plan later, what happens to people who already bought?
- An order keeps the terms it was bought under, so a change applies to new orders only. Where plan orders already exist, Ticket Fairy refuses the edit rather than move live buyers onto different terms.
Still have a question?
Book a demo and we will answer it on a call, on your kind of event. Or create your account and see it for yourself.
No setup fees. No required monthly ticketing fee. No credit card required.
Related guides
Do this on your own event
Create your account, build your event and follow the steps in your own dashboard. You do not need to book a sales call.