Stumbled across an interesting possible alternative to EventBrite. It’s called “Event Expresso“, and it looks like it can be a completely self-hosted equivalent to EventBrite. In some ways, it may be more trouble than it is worth, but if you run a number of paid events through EventBrite, it will definitely be cheaper to buy and host your own version of Event Expresso, rather than paying EventBrite’s transaction fees.
A real plus of Event Expresso? It looks like you can charge customers credit cards using your own Authorize.net account (among other payment processors).
My biggest frustration with EventBrite is that you either have to use their credit card processing services or PayPal. If you use EventBrite, you have to wait 5 days until your event is over to see your money. If you run your event like many organizations, the money brought in is needed for preparing the even in the first place.
If you want your money from EventBrite immediately, the only option is to let PayPal handle your processing. Regardless of whether you love or hate PayPal, that just adds an extra step to the checkout process — And I’m still amazed in this day and age how many people seize up thinking that they must have a paypal account to pay somebody through PayPal.
Has anybody used Event Expresso? It certainly seems like a very thorough solution that you’d have complete control over, as opposed to playing by EventBrite’s rules. What did you find to be the break even point for moving from EventBrite to Event Expresso?
