Eventbrite charges 2.7% plus $0.79 per ticket, on every ticket, forever. Sell 500 tickets at $20 and that's roughly $665 in fees for one event. Eventcraft is $39 once — after your first event it's already the cheapest ticketing stack you'll ever run, and it never touches the funds or takes a cut.
If you've searched for a Eventbrite alternative, Eventcraft is the pay-once option worth putting at the top of the list: Eventcraft is $39, one time, and covers the same core job Eventbrite charges 2.7% + $0.79/ticket for.
What makes Eventcraft the pick for 2026
- Event pages — Title, rich description, date and time, venue or virtual link, cover image and a shareable clean URL.
- Ticket tiers — Free or paid, quantity limits and early-bird pricing windows, with all money handled as integer cents to avoid rounding bugs.
- BYO Stripe Payment Link — Paste your own Payment Link per tier; attendees pay Stripe's standard rate and only Stripe's rate, with zero API calls to any payment provider.
- QR-code tickets — Generated server-side, emailed on confirmation via optional SMTP, and always viewable at a private ticket URL.
- Door check-in mode — An in-browser webcam scanner with duplicate-scan detection, a live checked-in counter and a manual code fallback.
Eventcraft vs Eventbrite, at a glance
| Eventcraft | Eventbrite | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once | 2.7% + $0.79/ticket |
| 500 x $20 tickets | $39 total, ever | ~$665 in fees |
| Payment processing | Your Stripe link | Their cut |
| Attendee data | Your SQLite file | Their platform |
| QR check-in | Yes, offline-capable | Yes, their app |
| Waitlist auto-promotion | Yes | Plan-gated |
| Custom questions | Yes, unlimited | Yes |
| Source code | MIT, yours | Proprietary |
One 500-ticket event on Eventbrite costs around $665 in fees; Eventcraft is $39, and the next event is free.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Eventcraft is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/event-registration-mvp. The $39 buys the packaged installer and 1-click setup; building from source is free.
Where does my attendee data live?
In one SQLite file on your own server or machine. Zero telemetry, and Eventcraft makes zero API calls to any payment provider.
Do you take a per-ticket cut?
No. Attendees pay your own Stripe Payment Link at Stripe's standard rate; Eventcraft takes nothing. It's $39 once, no renewal.
The bottom line
Eventcraft won't out-feature Eventbrite on every axis — no subscription tool with a bigger team and a bigger roadmap loses on everything. But for the core job, $39 once against 2.7% + $0.79/ticket forever is a trade most people should at least look at. Eventcraft is part of OneTimeSuite, a catalog of pay-once apps that replace subscription SaaS.
Try Eventcraft — $39, once
Self-hosted ticketing with tiers, QR tickets, webcam door check-in and auto-promoting waitlists; money runs through your own Stripe link.