The Best & Cheapest Way to Sell Tickets Online | TickPick (2024)

Suppose you’ve got a concert ticket, sports ticket, or theater ticket to sell, and the deadline to sell is fast approaching. We at TickPick, the original no-fee ticket marketplace that guarantees the best prices on tickets, have been in your shoes. Therefore, check out our official guide to selling your live event tickets online through the secondary market.

Whether you are wondering where to sell concert tickets, where to sell sports tickets, or where to sell theater tickets, we got you covered! However, if you’re a serious ticket broker, check out our article on The Best Ticket Broker Software for tips on ticket brokering and ticket reselling that help you sell your inventory quickly and easily.

In this guide, we will show you how to:

1. Choose where to sell your live event tickets. (We break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the major ticket marketplaces below).
2. Sell your tickets on all the largest marketplaces. (We walk you through the process of reselling tickets on the sites of all the large players – we know it can be a confusing process).
3. Make sure you don’t run into any problems along the way. (Like getting stuck with extra fees or being charged with replacement tickets).

Can I List My Tickets for Sale On Multiple Ticket Sites?

To be clear, when listing tickets for sale, you are absolutelyobligated to deliver these tickets to any ticket marketplace on which they should sell. You may list on multiple marketplaces simultaneously. However, we advise against it. That’s because there’s a risk of the tickets double-selling on multiple ticket sites. This means you’d be unable to fulfill one of those sales. Unfortunately, that makes you liable for charges of up to 200% of the ticket sale price for that site to provide the ticket buyer with suitable replacements.

Ticket resale marketplaces will seek penalties from sellers who don’t follow the rules. Therefore, please monitor your listings very carefully. For instance, let’s say you have your tickets listed on both TickPick and StubHub. If your tickets sell on TickPick, you then must remove your StubHub listing instantly or as quickly as possible. Otherwise, two completely different buyers will end up with the same exact tickets in their possession. This causes a denied entry and results in financial penalties.

Where Should I Sell My Tickets?

This is probably the most important question for you to consider. Where you end up selling your tickets will determine how quickly your tickets sell, as well as how much you will make off your tickets. For all the major players in the secondary ticket industry, we’ve broken down their seller fees (how much commission a ticket seller is charged if their tickets sell), their site traffic (which helps determine how quickly you should expect your tickets to sell), and how to actually list your tickets for sale on their site.

A Breakdown of Selling on Each Different Ticket Site

Now, if you are eager to learn how to sell sports tickets, how to sell concert tickets, or how to sell theater tickets, here is a step-by-step guide to help you get it done. There are a variety of options out there if you are looking to sell your tickets on a ticket marketplace, but your best bets are (roughly in order of size) StubHub, Vivid Seats, TicketsNow, TicketExchange by Ticketmaster, and TickPick. Which one you should choose is based on how much you’re willing to let a company take in fees and how soon you want the tickets to sell.

What this means is that you are currently more likely to sell your tickets through Vivid Seats than any other resale site listed above because of the traffic that Vivid Seats receives. However, for every ticket you list through TickPick, the price will show as roughly 30% cheaper at checkout than other sites due to no service fees, which will make your tickets by far the best prices for buyers on TickPick, while you still get paid out the exact same amount, no matter where you sold them.

Essentially, you could list an extra ticket of yours for sale on all four of the above ticket sites for $100, and the buyer would pay about $115-130 for that ticket on StubHub, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats, but would pay $100 for the same ticket on TickPick, making it a no-brainer purchase for the buyer saving money for the same seats at better prices.

TickPick

Before reading this, it’s possible that you haven’t yet heard of TickPick. We’re still (relative to StubHub) a relatively small ticket vendor, but we’re growing at a tremendous rate (having doubled year over year in volume for eight years running), and the best part about us? Our total fees are much lower than those of our competitors. We don’t charge buyers any service fees whatsoever when they purchase tickets from us. This means that by selling your tickets on TickPick, you can often make 10-15% more on a sale than you would on another marketplace.

Here’s a perfect first-hand example of how you can make 10-15% more by selling tickets through TickPick. I had 4 New York Rangers tickets to sell for a playoff game. Two of them sold were on StubHub to the buyer for $199 per ticket, and I received $155 per ticket after the buyer fee and seller fee were deducted. The other two tickets sold on TickPick for $193 per ticket, and I received $173 per ticket after just a 10% seller fee was charged.

So you can make your price the same on TickPick as on other marketplaces, and put 10-15% more money in your pocket on every sale. That’s a win for the purchaser and a win for the seller, and that’s truly what TickPick is all about.

How to Sell Tickets on TickPick

1.) Go to the TickPick home page, andclick on the green “Sell Tickets” button along the top right corner of the page. This will take you to TickPick’s Listing Agent.

2.) Type in the name of your eventin the search bar along the top of the Listing Agent.

3.) Once you’ve typed in the performer or event, select the correct event date/show for the tickets you have to sell. The example below is the result of searching “Justin Timberlake.”

4) Fill out the ticket details: Quantity, Section, Row, Seat Numbers, Delivery Information (whether they’re electronic tickets that you’d upload as PDFs, Paper tickets that would have to ship via FedEx, or Electronic/Mobile Transfer), as well as any other information or disclosures that the customer may want to know, and then click “continue.”

5.) The last piece of the puzzle is naming your price on tickets. Our listing agent will provide a suggested price depending on your seat quality about other competing listings, but you can list at whichever price you’d like, and it will also let you know what your payout would be per ticket should they sell at that price.

Keep in mind that if you’re listing e-tickets that are available already as PDFs and you’ve marked your tickets as “In Hand” and ready to upload right away, the seller page will prompt you to upload the PDF files and attach them to your listing just after naming your price to complete the listing process.

While it’s not absolutely required, it is highly recommended to attach the files right as you list them, as that will have your listing display as “Instant Download” delivery and may attract buyers who are looking to receive tickets right away whenever possible. It will also simply save you time and effort down the road should your tickets sell, as the buyer would receive them automatically upon their purchase and complete all requirements on your end right from the jump!

StubHub

Like many other resale marketplaces, StubHub lets you list tickets on their site for free; however, their fees are some of the highest in the industry and are often unclear. To learn more check out our article on StubHub’s Fees, but for now, here are the basics:

While StubHub has been playing around with their fee structure, they for the most part charge the seller 15% of the price the seller sets, and then add on an extra 30% to the listed ticket price as a buyer’s fee, pocketing up to 45% from your sale from both the buyer and seller’s end, which is a significant amount.

So, why would you ever choose StubHub over another marketplace that doesn’t charge as much? Well, as much as it kills us to say, if you’re looking to quickly sell your tickets, StubHub is probably your best option. While StubHub doesn’t release any of its data publicly, it’s well known that StubHub controls over 20% of the secondary ticket market. With over 2 million brand name searches on Google every month (a fairly good indication of the level of comparable traffic), StubHub is going to put a lot of eyeballs on your tickets. It’s up to you if that’s worth having to list at a lower price to sell them and account for the extra fees added for the ticket buyer.

Interested in placing your tickets for sale on StubHub? Here’s how you do it:

1.) Search for the event from the StubHub home pageand click on the “Sell Tickets” button on the top right corner.

2.) Once you’ve clicked on the sell tickets button, you’ll be prompted to search for the event for which you’re looking to sell tickets. Simply find the correct event and event date like the example below.

3.) From here, you will be prompted to sign in to StubHub or register an account if you haven’t already. If you’ve ever filled out an online form in your entire life, you know how to do this.

4.) After you’ve signed in/registered, you’ll be prompted tofill in some information including:

• Do you have the tickets currently in your possession?
• Will you deliver your tickets via PDF upload, mobile transfer, or shipping them?
• The Goods: Quantity, Section, and Row, if you’d be willing to split up your tickets (i.e. sell one when you have three in your possession), as well as fill out some other basic information (are the seats behind the stage, obstructed view, aisle seats?), etc.

5.) Set a price for your tickets. StubHub has a feature that helps recommend a price for ticket sellers which is in theory determined by competitors’ listings and their prices. One thing to be aware of is that StubHub very much wantsyour tickets to sell on their site, as that earns them a commission from both the buyer AND seller (up to 45% of the total sale price), and that it stands to reason that “recommended” prices are not necessarily what will help maximize the return on tickets for a seller, but instead gives them the best chance of selling their tickets, even if it’s below to well-below market value:

Unfortunately, not much is known about the algorithms StubHub uses to recommend prices, though one thing you can do to ensure your tickets are priced fairly (at the time, at least) would be to simply go to that event and click on other competing sections that have listings of tickets that are just as good if not a little better or worse than yours. You’ll see how your listing will rate in terms of a deal score (1 to 5 “bars”) and you can price accordingly.

TicketsNow

TicketsNow is the resale branch owned by the largest primary seller of tickets in the industry, TicketMaster, and while not as large as StubHub, it’s definitely up there in the secondary ticket industry rankings. With over 27,000 average monthly brand name searches, you won’t get as many eyeballs on your tickets by placing them on TicketsNow as you would on StubHub, but you’re certainly going to get some.

Unfortunately, TicketsNow’s fees are some of the worst in the industry – 15% for the buyer and a whopping 18.5% for the buyer, creating a combined total difference of 33.5% between what you get paid and the price at which the buyer purchases your tickets. That price gulf is definitely worth thinking about.

The nice thing about TicketsNow is that they have a direct relationship with most of the NBA and NHL teams, which allows them to be integrated with their ticketing departments. So the benefit of this is that if you are holding hard-stock tickets and you find yourself in a position where you need to resell the tickets last minute, you can punch the barcode numbers into TicketsNow and the tickets will be listed for sale as electronic delivery.

This gives sellers the flexibility to leave the tickets up for sale close to game time, rather than having their listing disappear on StubHub a few days before the game because there isn’t enough time to ship them.

Also, be sure to choose the “Fixed Price” option to sell your tickets.

How to Sell Tickets on TicketsNow

1.) Go to TicketsNow’s Home Page, and search for the event you have tickets for.

2.) Find the specific event you have tickets for and click on the “Sell Tickets” on the right of the listing.

3.) From here, you will be prompted to sign in or register an account if you haven’t already.

4.) Next, fill out the seat details. Let TicketsNow know the quantity, the section and row of your tickets, and any other information that may be helpful to the buyer (like if they are behind the stage, standing room only, etc.)

5.) TicketsNow offers three different ways for you to price your tickets.

A.) Fixed Price. This is probably what you were expecting. Set one fixed price for your tickets and TicketsNow will take its fees out of that price.

B.) Decrease the price daily. Set your starting price and your minimum price, and TicketsNow will increment the price every day until either the event passes or your tickets sell.

C.) Market Price. This one gives TicketsNow the most power, but could potentially be the most useful. Set a starting price, but then every day, let TicketsNow readjust your price to the average of all the tickets in your section.

6.) Finally, fill out your credit card info, you will be asked to confirm your listing one last time, and you’re ready to sell your tickets on TicketsNow:

TicketExchange by TicketMaster

Like TicketsNow, TicketExchange by TicketMaster is a subsidiary of (you guessed it) TicketMaster. To read more, check out our post on the NFL Ticket Exchange, but for now, suffice to say that TicketMaster’s reseller fees are still pretty high: 15% for the buyer and 10% to 15% for the seller (10% for season ticket holders, 15% for regular ticket holders). Brand name search for TicketExchange by TicketMaster is about the same as TicketsNow (~27,100), so if you were thinking about selling your tickets on TicketsNow, but were put off by their even higher ticket fees, TicketExchange may be an alternative worth trying.

The thing is, TicketExchange by TicketMaster only sells tickets for certain teams and leagues that they have partnered with, including the NFL, NHL, and a few colleges and MLB teams. Check out the list below to see if you can sell your tickets on TicketExchange:

All NFL Teams

All NBA Teams

All NHL Teams

Certain college football games:

– The College Football Playoff National Championship

– TheAutozone Liberty Bowl

– The Citrus Bowl

– The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl

– TheChick-fil-A Peach Bowl

– TheGoodyear Cotton Bowl

– TheHyundai Sun Bowl

– TheMusic City Bowl

– The Holiday Bowl

– TheCamping World Bowl

– TheSugar Bowl

– The TaxSlayer Bowl

Just like TicketsNow, the TicketExchange has a direct relationship with the NFL, NBA, and NHL, which allows them to be integrated with the team’s ticketing departments. So the benefit of this is that if you are holding hard-stock tickets and you find yourself in a position where you need to sell the tickets last minute, you can punch the barcode numbers into TicketExchange and the tickets will be listed for sale as electronic delivery. This gives sellers the flexibility to leave their resale tickets up for sale close to game time, rather than having their listing disappear on StubHub a few days before the game because there isn’t enough time to ship them.

How to Sell Tickets On Ticket Exchange by Ticketmaster

1.) Go to the TicketMaster Ticket Exchange home page and click on the team/event you’re interested in selling tickets for.

2.) Find the event you have tickets for, and click the “Sell Tickets” link.

3.) Choose whether you are a season ticket holder or an individual game ticket holder.

4.) From there, you will be prompted to log in or create an account if you haven’t already.

5.) For individual tickets, you will be asked for the barcodes of each ticket:

6.) From there you will be able to set a price and payment method just like TicketsNow (see above).

Vivid Seats

In terms of traffic, Vivid Seats is currently at the top of any ticket resale site. They get over 40,000 brand name searches every month, which while still well below StubHub’s 2 million. The one thing about Vivid Seats is their fees. To learn more, check out this article on Vivid Seats’ Fee Structure. But for now, it suffices to say that their fees range somewhere between 18% and 30%. No matter what event you sell tickets for, 20% is a pretty penny.

How to Sell Tickets on Vivid Seats

1.) Go to the Vivid Seats home page, and click on the small “Sell” link in the upper-right corner.

2.) Scroll down and click the big “Sell Your Tickets” button.

3.) Search for the name of the event that you’re looking to sell tickets for, click on the checkbox next to that event, then scroll down and click “Continue.”

4.) From there, you will be prompted to log in or register an account if you haven’t already done so.

5.) After that, you’ll be asked to fill out all the basics – the section and row, the number of tickets, as well as include any additional notes, such as if the tickets are obstructed view, etc.

6.) Select the amount you want to sell your tickets for, when the tickets can be delivered to the buyer, whether they will be delivered electronically or via FedEx, and your PayPal address so you can be paid for your tickets.