Ticket Types and Payments

How Ticket Tiers Work

A ticket tier is a registration type with its own name, price, capacity, and visibility settings. An event can have one tier or many. Common setups include a single free tier, a single paid tier, or multiple tiers like “Early Bird”, “General Admission”, and “VIP”.

Each registrant selects exactly one tier during registration. If you want some registrants to attend multiple days at different prices, create a separate tier per day (or a “Full Conference” tier at a bundled price).

Creating a Ticket Tier

1. Open your event and go to Launch → Ticket Types.
2. Find the Add Tier form.
3. Fill in:
   • Name — e.g., “General Admission”, “Early Bird”, “Student”.
   • Price — enter 0 for a free tier. Enter the full amount (for example, 25 or 25.50, not cents) for a paid tier.
   • Capacity — maximum number of registrations for this tier. Leave blank for unlimited. When capacity is reached, the tier shows as sold out and the waitlist is offered (if enabled).
   • Description — optional. A short description of what is included. Shown on the registration page below the tier name.
   • Show starting — optional date and time. The tier stays hidden until then. There is no automatic sale end date — to end an early bird tier, hide it or set its capacity.
4. Click Add tier.

Tiers can be reordered by dragging — the order here matches the display order on the registration page.

Member Pricing

If your organization offers member and non-member pricing, CompleteEvent has a wizard to set this up without manually configuring each tier. On the Ticket Types page, click Set up member pricing to open the wizard.

The wizard creates two parallel tiers — one for members and one for non-members — with the names, prices, and descriptions you specify. You can then adjust each tier individually (capacity, sale dates, etc.) after the wizard completes.

The tiers created by the wizard are standard ticket tiers, and attendees self-select their tier at registration. On the Growth plan and above, you can mark a tier Members only: registrants confirm a member email by code before they can pick it. Your member list comes from a CSV upload on the Members page.

Connecting Stripe for Paid Tickets

Paid ticket tiers require a connected Stripe account. CompleteEvent uses Stripe Connect so that payments go directly to your Stripe account — CompleteEvent does not hold funds.

1. Go to Organization Settings → Payments.
2. Click Connect Stripe account. You will be redirected to Stripe's onboarding flow.
3. Complete Stripe's identity verification and bank account setup. This usually takes 5 to 10 minutes.
4. After completing Stripe onboarding, you will be redirected back to CompleteEvent. Your Stripe account status will show as “Connected”.

Note: Stripe requires identity verification for all accounts that accept payments. Have your business details and bank account information ready before starting the Stripe onboarding. Each payment has two fees deducted before it reaches your Stripe balance: your plan's platform fee and Stripe's processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction in the US, more for international cards).

How Stripe Checkout Works

When an attendee selects a paid tier, they are redirected to a Stripe-hosted checkout page. After successful payment, they are redirected back to CompleteEvent and their registration is created automatically. A confirmation email with their QR code is sent immediately.

If a payment fails or is abandoned, no registration is created. The ticket capacity is not consumed by abandoned checkouts.

Promo and Discount Codes

Promo codes let you offer discounts to specific groups — speakers, sponsors, early supporters, or staff.

1. Open your event and go to Launch → Promo Codes.
2. Enter a code (e.g., SPEAKER2026), a discount type (percentage or fixed amount), and a discount value.
3. Optionally set:
   • Max uses — limits how many times the code can be used in total.
   • Valid from and expiry date — the window when the code works.
   • Applicable tiers — restrict the code to specific ticket tiers (e.g., only on General Admission, not on the free Student tier).
4. Click Create Code.

During registration, attendees enter the promo code on the ticket selection step. If the code is valid, the price updates immediately before they proceed to payment.

You can view how many times each code has been used from the Promo Codes tab at any time.

Refunds

Refunds are managed directly in CompleteEvent. When an attendee requests a refund, you review and approve or deny the request from your dashboard, and CompleteEvent issues the refund to the attendee's original payment method via Stripe. You do not need to log in to Stripe to process refunds.

How attendees request a refund

Attendees can submit a refund request from their registration confirmation page. They can optionally include a reason. Once submitted, you receive an email notification and the request appears in your dashboard under Register → Refund Requests.

How to process a refund request

1. Open your event dashboard and go to Register → Refund Requests.
2. Find the pending request and click Full, or click Partial, enter an amount, and click Apply. CompleteEvent will immediately submit the refund to Stripe and send the attendee a confirmation email.

If you want to deny a request, click Deny instead. The request will be marked as denied. Note that the attendee is not automatically notified of a denial — you may want to contact them directly to explain.

Issuing a refund without a request

You can also initiate a refund proactively from Register → List. Find the attendee, click the refund icon next to their registration, and enter the amount. This works the same way as processing a request and supports full or partial refunds.

What happens after a refund

• Attendees typically see the funds returned within 5–10 business days, depending on their bank.
• The refunded amount comes out of your Stripe balance. Your Stripe Dashboard shows it under the original payment.
• The platform fee and Stripe's processing fee on the original payment are not returned.
• If the waitlist is enabled and a cancellation frees up capacity, the next person on the waitlist automatically receives an invitation to register.

Note: If you issue a refund directly through your Stripe Dashboard instead of through CompleteEvent, the registration record in CompleteEvent will not be updated automatically. Use the in-app refund tools to keep your registration data accurate.

Chargebacks

If an attendee disputes a payment with their bank, Stripe takes the disputed amount plus a dispute fee ($15 in the US). CompleteEvent recovers both from your Stripe balance. If the dispute is decided in your favor, any amount Stripe returns goes back to your Stripe balance. Stripe does not return the dispute fee.

Payouts

Stripe deposits ticket revenue directly into your connected bank account on Stripe's standard payout schedule (typically 2 business days in the US, varies by country). New organizations have a 14-day payout delay, which is relaxed after 90 days with no disputes. You can view payout details, balance, and transaction history directly in your Stripe Dashboard.

Free Plan and Paid Tickets

You can sell paid tickets on the Free plan at a 3% platform fee, plus Stripe's processing fee. The Free plan's real limits are 100 attendees per event, one active event at a time, and one team member. Upgrading raises those limits and lowers the platform fee (1% on Starter, 0.75% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro and Enterprise).

See Billing and Plans for a full comparison of plan features and limits.