pretix vs Checkout Page for conference ticketing (2026 fees)
Hosted pretix charges 2.5% of net ticket price, capped at €15, while its self-hosted Community edition has no license fee. On 300 tickets at $299 before VAT adjustment, the $7.48 rounded product fee totals $2,244. Checkout Page totals $717 only if sales land evenly across three billing periods.
By Checkout Page · Updated September 5, 2026 · 8 min read
Published by Checkout Page, one of the platforms compared. This comparison uses public pricing and documentation, not a hands-on test of both products. Sources and editorial approach.
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The short version
pretix is open-source ticketing built for European conferences that need invoicing, VAT handling and the option to self-host. Checkout Page is hosted checkout software with no per-ticket fee. On 300 tickets at $299, hosted pretix costs $2,244 in rounded product fees against $717 for Checkout Page's Scale plan across a three-month campaign.
These two products answer different questions. pretix asks how much control you want over your ticketing stack, and gives a serious answer: run it yourself for free, or use the hosted service at pretix.eu and pay 2.5% per ticket. Checkout Page asks how quickly you can start selling and how little you want to pay per ticket.
pretix prices its cap in euros while this site models USD examples. The calculator uses an illustrative $16.50 equivalent for the €15 cap, not a live exchange rate. The cap does not affect the $299 example, because 2.5% remains below either amount.
The figures below exclude payment processing. Both products can use Stripe, but rates vary by merchant country, card and payment method; pretix also supports other providers and bank transfer. A fixed processing charge applies per payment, not necessarily per ticket.
Fees compared
Hosted pretix charges 2.5% of the net ticket price, never more than €15 per product. At $299, before any VAT adjustment, the fee rounds from $7.475 to $7.48 per product, so 300 tickets total $2,244. Checkout Page costs $717 only under the stated assumption that sales land evenly across three billing periods.
| Platform | Fee per ticket | Total for 300 tickets | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkout Page | $0.00 | $717 | No per-ticket fee. Scale plan at $239/month × 3 months. Even monthly sales; plan selected by included volume, without paid overages or feature upgrades. Pricing source · Checked 2026-09-04. |
| pretix | $7.48 | $2,244 | 2.5% of the net ticket price, capped by the vendor at €15; this USD calculator uses an illustrative $16.50 cap (€1 = $1.10), plus payment provider fees; €0.50 per free ticket after the first 500 a year. The self-hosted community edition is free. The vendor cap is €15; the calculator fixes that at $16.50 for illustration rather than using a live exchange rate. Hosted service is for business customers. Pricing source · Checked 2026-09-05. |
Two details in that number. The percentage applies to the net price, so if your ticket includes VAT, the fee is calculated on the amount excluding it, which makes pretix slightly cheaper than the headline rate suggests in VAT territories. The cap is reached at about a 600 euro net ticket, roughly $660, so an expensive training pass pays about $16.50 rather than 2.5%.
Checkout Page's Scale price steps up with billing-period sales volume. The $717 total assumes those $89,700 of sales land evenly across three billing periods, about $29,900 in each. A different sales curve can select different tiers and change the total.
For a 120-person workshop at $75, pretix rounds the $1.875 product fee to $1.88, so 120 tickets total $225.60. Checkout Page's Free plan covers up to $3,000 a month in sales, so an even two-month split costs $198. The difference is $27.60 before processing.
Free tickets differ too. pretix gives you the first 500 free tickets a year at no cost and charges 0.50 euros each after that, which matters for a large conference with hundreds of comped speaker, volunteer and sponsor passes. Checkout Page charges nothing for free tickets on any plan.
Where the money goes and when
Both platforms route payments through providers selected by the organizer. pretix supports options including Stripe, PayPal and bank transfer; Checkout Page connects to Stripe. Neither holds a ticket balance for a post-event payout, but settlement and bank timing remain subject to the provider, verification and reserves.
Bank transfer is the difference worth naming. European conferences frequently sell tickets to institutions that will not pay by card, and pretix handles bank transfer orders as a first-class payment method with the reconciliation that implies. Checkout Page's Scale plan lets an organizer record a payment taken outside card checkout, but that manual record is not the same as an integrated invoicing and bank-reconciliation workflow. Invoice and bank-transfer payment are listed on Checkout Page's Unlimited plan.
Both approaches keep you as the merchant of record, so refunds, chargebacks and attendee data stay with you rather than with a marketplace. Payment-provider settlement, verification and reserves still affect bank timing. Do not generalize that distinction to every competitor: Luma also routes ticket payments to a connected Stripe account, and Humanitix offers both its default gateway and a connected-Stripe option.
Conference features side by side
pretix wins on invoicing, VAT, self-hosting, seating plans and offline scanning. Checkout Page wins on setup speed, per-ticket cost and selling add-ons and merch in the same checkout. Cells we cannot verify say check with vendor, since pretix ships a large plugin ecosystem that varies by installation.
| Feature | pretix | Checkout Page |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket tiers with sales windows | Yes, products with quotas and availability dates | Yes, start and end dates per ticket type |
| Group tickets | Check with vendor | Ticket groups, per-order minimums and maximums, bulk discounts on paid plans |
| Registration questions with conditional logic | Yes, per-product questions; conditional rules check with vendor | Yes, custom fields with conditional logic and multi-step forms |
| Check-in app and multiple staff | Yes, scanning apps with offline mode; check with vendor for your setup | Yes, any phone or laptop; invited check-in staff require Launch or above; internet required |
| Embed on your website | Yes, embeddable widget | Yes, popup or inline on WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Squarespace and Wix |
| Marketplace and discovery | No | No |
| Invoicing and VAT | Yes, invoices and VAT handling, a genuine strength | Stripe Tax can calculate tax for configured registrations and transaction data; customer-portal receipts are not a substitute for every invoice requirement |
| Self-hosting and open source | Yes, free community edition | No, hosted only |
| Seat maps | Seating plans available; check with vendor | No |
| Badge printing | Badge plugin available; check with vendor | No, export CSV or connect a badge tool via Zapier |
| Attendee app | Check with vendor | No |
| Merch and add-ons at checkout | Check with vendor | Yes, order bumps on every plan, merch with sizes and colors |
Two rows deserve emphasis because they are the honest reasons to pick pretix over Checkout Page regardless of price: invoicing and offline check-in. If your attendees' finance departments require a compliant invoice, or your venue has no reliable connectivity at the registration desk, Checkout Page will make your life harder. Its scanner needs an internet connection, and there is no seat map or native badge printing either.
Who should choose pretix
Choose pretix if you need invoicing, self-hosting or data control. European conferences, university events and trade exhibitions with institutional buyers get requirements from finance and legal that pretix was designed around. If you have a technical team, the free community edition removes the platform fee entirely.
pretix exposes a broad plugin ecosystem for badges, seating, campaigns and integrations, and its community edition is open source. That makes it a strong candidate when self-hosting or source access is a documented requirement, but it also creates setup and maintenance work that should be costed.
It is also the right answer when the ticket is a legal document. Reverse charge VAT, invoice numbering, and correct handling of net prices are not things you want to approximate with a receipt.
Who should choose Checkout Page
Choose Checkout Page if you want a conference selling tickets this afternoon with no server to run and no fee per ticket. Ticket tiers, conditional registration questions, add-ons, merch and QR check-in are set up in the dashboard, payments go to your own Stripe account, and the plan is a flat monthly cost.
The comparison is clearest for a US conference with card-paying attendees and no invoicing requirement. In that case pretix's strongest features go unused and you are paying 2.5% for capability you do not need, or maintaining a server for the same reason.
Checkout Page is also easier to hand over. Rebuilding next year's conference is a dashboard job that a program manager can do, rather than a deployment.
Switching from pretix
Export orders and answers, rebuild products as ticket types, and keep the old shop reachable. pretix exports cleanly, which makes this one of the simpler migrations. Recreate your questions as custom fields, connect Stripe, swap the widget on your website, and close the pretix shop rather than deleting it until the event is over.
- Export orders, attendees and question answers from pretix. Keep the file as your badge source and offline check-in fallback.
- Rebuild each product as a Checkout Page ticket type, matching prices, quotas and the dates each tier opens and closes.
- Recreate per-product questions as custom fields, using conditional logic so questions appear only for the tickets they apply to.
- Decide how you will meet invoice, tax-registration and bank-transfer requirements before announcing the change. Stripe Tax and a manually recorded payment do not by themselves reproduce pretix's invoicing workflow.
- Connect Stripe, buy a real test ticket and refund it, so you see the QR ticket email an attendee receives.
- Replace the pretix widget on your website, then set the pretix shop to closed with a pointer to the new page rather than taking it offline.
If you self-host, keep the instance running until after the event so existing order links and check-in data remain available. Free migration is included on the Unlimited plan for larger conferences.
From our publisher · Checkout Page
Put your ticket plan into practice
Set up ticket types and registration questions on Checkout Page. Free up to $3,000 in monthly sales; Stripe processing fees apply.
Bottom line
Hosted pretix costs $2,244 on the stated 300-ticket, $299 example after rounding the per-product fee. The self-hosted Community edition has no license fee but still requires hosting, maintenance and operational ownership. Checkout Page costs $717 only under the three-period sales assumption. Invoicing, offline scanning, self-hosting and implementation effort should decide the fit.
Check the arithmetic for your own ticket prices with the ticketing fee calculator, and read the guide to conference ticketing fees for how caps, net pricing and processing interact. For other options without a marketplace, see Tito and Ticket Tailor.
Fees on this page were verified on 2026-09-05 against pretix's pricing page and Checkout Page pricing.
Frequently asked questions
- Is pretix or Checkout Page cheaper for a conference?
- Hosted pretix charges 2.5% per product and rounds the fee to currency precision, so a $299 ticket costs $7.48 and 300 tickets total $2,244, against $717 for Checkout Page's Scale plan across a three-month campaign. Self-hosted pretix has no license fee but still carries hosting and operational costs.
- Can I switch from pretix to Checkout Page before my event?
- Yes. pretix exports orders, attendees and answers cleanly, so rebuild your products as ticket types in Checkout Page, recreate the questions, connect Stripe, and swap the widget on your site. Keep the pretix shop live in a closed state until the event so existing order links still resolve.
- Does Checkout Page do invoicing like pretix?
- No, not in the same way. pretix generates invoices with VAT handling. Checkout Page can use Stripe Tax to calculate tax for registrations and transaction data you configure, gives buyers receipts in the customer portal, and supports recording manual payments on Scale. A receipt is not necessarily a compliant tax invoice, and the organizer remains responsible for tax registrations and setup.
- When does the pretix 15 euro cap apply?
- The cap is reached at about a 600 euro net ticket, roughly $660, since 2.5% of that is 15 euros. Below it you pay the full 2.5%, so a $299 ticket costs about $7.48. Most conference tiers sit well under the cap, and exhibition or training passes may not.
- Is self-hosted pretix really free?
- The community edition is open source with no license or per-ticket fee. You still pay for server hosting, upgrades, backups, payment-provider setup and the person responsible for the installation. Those are operating costs rather than a pretix license invoice.
Published by
Checkout Page builds checkout and event ticketing software. This site covers conference registration through product documentation, fee calculations and practical planning examples.
Published by Checkout Page, one of the platforms covered. Comparisons use public pricing and documentation. Our editorial approach.
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From our publisher · Checkout Page
Sell conference tickets on your own website with Checkout Page
Create ticket types, collect registration details and check attendees in with QR tickets. Checkout Page connects to your Stripe account and charges no per-ticket platform fee. Free up to $3,000 in monthly sales; paid plans add features and higher sales allowances.
No card required for the free plan. Stripe processing fees apply. Staff accounts and bulk discounts require a paid plan. About the publisher.