How to price event tickets.Without guessing, and without apologizing.

Work out the lowest price that covers your costs and pays you for every hour the workshop takes, at the number of people you realistically expect. Then look at what a comparable class near you costs, and charge the higher of the two.

An example, for a three-hour pottery workshop with ten places. The studio costs $150 and clay and firing cost $15 a person. You teach for three hours, but prep, setup, cleanup and answering messages take five more, so the workshop is eight hours of your time; at $50 an hour that is $400. If eight people come, not ten, the total is $150 + $120 + $400 = $670, or about $84 each. Round to $85, and add what your ticketing and card fees take if you don’t pass them to the buyer. That is your floor. If comparable classes near you charge more, price with them: the floor tells you where you lose money, not what the class is worth.

A few things are specific to workshops:

• Price what they leave with. A class where people make something or learn a skill they can use tomorrow competes with a course, not with a night out. Say the result on the page, and the price reads as fair.
• Put materials in the price. One number for the whole class. A materials fee added at checkout feels like a surprise, however reasonable it is.
• Set the smallest group you will run for. If the class doesn’t pay at four people, say on the page that it runs with five or more, and what happens to payments if it doesn’t.
• Name a first-run price. If you have never taught this class, a lower price for the first group is fair, if you say so and the next date costs more. Ask that group for a line you can quote.
• Sell a series as one thing. For a multi-week course, price the whole course below the sum of single sessions, and only sell single sessions if each one stands on its own.

The tier ladder below works for workshops too: a standard place, a supporter place that includes something extra, and a lower price for returning students. On SocialLoop, each ticket tier has its own capacity, so a ten-place class stops selling at ten, and a pay-what-you-want tier can have a minimum and suggested amounts.

Add the night’s costs and an hourly rate for your own time, divide by the turnout you reliably get rather than a sell-out, add the per-ticket fees and round up; then charge the higher of that floor and what a comparable night out costs. Illustrative: $600 of venue, food and supplies plus 8 hours at $30 is $840, which at a reliable 35 guests is $24 a ticket before fees.

To see what each platform’s per-ticket fees add at your price, use the ticket fee calculator.

The wrong way to price: add up venue + food + av, divide by expected heads, add a margin. That produces a number about your costs. Guests don’t buy your costs — they buy what the night is worth to them.

Start from the guest’s side: what do they already pay for a comparable experience? A curated dinner competes with a nice restaurant. A hands-on workshop competes with a course. A show competes with a concert ticket. Price near that anchor.

Then run the cost check the honest way: the math has to work at realistic attendance, not a sellout. If you only break even when every seat fills, you haven’t priced an event — you’ve bought a lottery ticket. Fix it by raising the price, shrinking the room, or adding a sponsor.

One price forces one decision: yes or no. A small ladder lets each guest choose their own level of commitment — and raises your average without raising the door price:

• Standard — the anchor. The real experience at the honest price. Most tickets sell here.
• Supporter / Premium — 1.5–2× standard for something genuinely better: closer seats, early entry, a gift, dinner with the speaker. Some of your audience wants to pay more; give them a worthy way.
• Member / Community — below standard, for the regulars who come every time. For a recurring series this tier is the engine: it rewards loyalty, stabilizes attendance, and makes raising the standard price painless because regulars are protected.

Keep it to three visible tiers. Five prices is a spreadsheet; three is a choice.

Early-bird pricing works for one reason: it gives your most enthusiastic people a reason to commit now, which gives you early cash flow and a visible “people are going” signal that sells the rest of the room.

The rule that keeps it working: the deadline must be real. A real discount, a stated end date, and a price that actually goes up. The first time you quietly extend the “last chance” window, your regulars learn the urgency is theater — and urgency never works on them again. For a recurring series that trust compounds, in either direction.

Free has real uses: opening the top of the funnel for a new series, sponsor-funded rooms, community events where a price would exclude exactly the people you’re gathering. But free RSVPs carry a known cost — high no-show rates. If you go free, borrow commitment from elsewhere: a refundable deposit, pay-what-you-want with a suggested amount, or an application step. Free should be a strategy, not a default you picked to avoid the pricing conversation.

Selling out early, repeatedly, is not a victory lap — it’s information. It means the price is below what the room is worth, and the gap is coming out of the budget that could make the event better.

Raise in honest, visible steps. Protect regulars with the member tier. And narrate the why: a better venue, better food, a stronger lineup. Guests accept a price that funds an experience they can feel; they resent one that just appeared.