Ticket Site Fees Compared: The Real Math
The short answer: all-in pricing sites almost always win on the final total — TickPick and TheTicketers charge the price they display, while StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats typically add roughly 20–40% at checkout (third-party analyses, July 2026). The one consistent exception: when Ticketmaster still has primary, face-value inventory, buying primary usually beats every resale marketplace. Resale only wins once the primary sale ends or sells out.
Every "X vs Y" ticket-fee article we could find shares the same flaw: no numbers. That's partly because no major marketplace publishes a fee schedule — fees vary by event, seller and demand — but "it varies" is not a useful answer when you're holding two tabs open. So we did the math the way a buyer actually experiences it: the same $100 sticker price walked through eight different checkouts, using the typical fee ranges cited by independent third-party analyses.
One ticket, eight checkouts: the master table
Fees last verified: July 2026
| Site | Typical buyer fee at checkout | All-in display? | Estimated total on a $100 sticker | Currency for Canadians |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ticketmaster (primary) | Typically ~15–25% service + order processing (third-party analyses) | No by default | ≈ $115–125 | CAD on ticketmaster.ca |
| Ticketmaster (resale) | Typically ~10–20% buyer service fee | No by default | ≈ $110–120 | CAD on ticketmaster.ca |
| StubHub | Typically ~25–30% (third-party analyses) | No by default | ≈ $125–130 | USD in practice — stubhub.ca runs a dated legacy template |
| SeatGeek | Typically ~20–40% (third-party analyses) | No by default | ≈ $120–140 | USD — seatgeek.ca is a passive mirror |
| Vivid Seats | Typically ~20–40%, often cited near 31% | No by default | ≈ $120–140 (≈ $131 at the oft-cited rate) | USD — vividseats.ca redirects to the U.S. site |
| TickPick | None — no buyer service fee | Yes — always | $100 (the sticker is the total) | USD only |
| Gametime | Not published; varies by event | Yes — all-in toggle | $100 with the toggle on; unpublished fees added with it off | USD only |
| TheTicketers | Service fee built into the displayed price | Yes | $100 (the displayed price is the charged price) | CAD checkout |
Assumptions: this is an illustrative worked example based on typical mid-range fees cited by independent third-party analyses — last verified July 2026, re-checked monthly. Fees vary by event, seller and demand, and no major marketplace publishes a fixed schedule, so treat the totals as typical rather than guaranteed. Totals exclude taxes and any optional delivery charge, and are in each site's checkout currency. One subtlety the table makes visible: a "$100 sticker" is not the same thing everywhere. On all-in sites it already contains the fee; on drip-pricing sites it's only the starting point. The final order screen is the only number that ever counts.
Ticketmaster vs StubHub
This is really two comparisons wearing one name, because Ticketmaster sells two different things. While the primary sale is live, Ticketmaster sells at face value plus a service and order-processing fee that third-party analyses typically put around 15–25%. A $100 face-value seat lands somewhere near $115–125 — and since StubHub's inventory is resale that usually sits aboveface value before its ~25–30% buyer fee is added, primary Ticketmaster wins this matchup almost every time it's available.
Once the primary sale sells out, it becomes resale versus resale, and the picture tightens. Ticketmaster's Verified Resale charges buyers a service fee that commonly runs ~10–20% — lower than StubHub's typical ~25–30% — but Ticketmaster also takes a commission from the seller on many events, and sellers price that into their listings. StubHub, meanwhile, usually has the deeper pool of listings for the same event, which can push its pricesbelow Ticketmaster's even when its fee is higher. Both platforms drip-price: neither shows you the fee until the final step. We break down exactly how the Ticketmaster side works in Ticketmaster resale, explained.
Verdict: face value available → Ticketmaster, no contest. Sold out → no inherent winner; Ticketmaster typically charges the lower buyer fee on the same sticker, StubHub typically shows more stickers. Open both, compare the final totals.
StubHub vs SeatGeek (and the Canadian angle)
On fees alone this one is genuinely unpredictable. Third-party analyses put StubHub in a fairly tight ~25–30% band, while SeatGeek's cited spread is the widest of any major — anywhere from 20% to 40% depending on the event. That means SeatGeek can beat StubHub by a few dollars on one event and lose by twenty on another. SeatGeek's redeeming feature is Deal Score, a value rating on every listing that's the best tool anywhere for judging whether a seat is fairly priced — but note that both sites add their fees late in checkout by default, so the listing prices you're comparing are both pre-fee numbers.
For Canadian buyers there's a second layer neither site advertises: currency. stubhub.ca runs a dated legacy template and seatgeek.ca passively mirrors the U.S. site, so in practice you're checking out in USD on both. That means the exchange rate plus your card's foreign-transaction fee (typically about 2.5%) land on top of whatever the fee math said. A US$130 SeatGeek total becomes roughly C$178 at a recent exchange rate of around 1.37, then about C$183 after the card fee — a cost no comparison table on either site will ever show you.
Verdict: no consistent winner. Check both, use Deal Score as a sanity check on the seat, and compare final totals converted into CAD — not USD stickers.
Vivid Seats vs StubHub
The closest like-for-like pairing in resale: two huge inventories, two buyer guarantees, two drip-pricing checkouts, USD only for Canadians on both (vividseats.ca simply redirects to the U.S. site). On typical cited fees, Vivid Seats runs slightly worse — often near 31% within a 20–40% spread, against StubHub's ~25–30% — which on our $100 worked example is roughly $131 versus $125–130. That's a coin-flip margin, easily reversed by the two sites listing the same seats at different base prices.
The genuine differentiator is Vivid Seats Rewards, the only loyalty program among the majors: buy ten tickets, get a credit worth roughly the average of them. For a frequent buyer that works out to an effective ~10% back, which more than erases the typical fee gap. Verdict:for a one-off purchase, lean StubHub on the cited fee ranges; if you buy tickets all the time, Vivid's rewards flip the math.
So which site is actually cheapest?
Running the worked example end to end, the ranking comes out in three tiers. First: Ticketmaster primary at face value, whenever it still exists — no resale marketplace reliably beats it. Second: the all-in and no-buyer-fee models — TickPick (no buyer service fee at all, USD), TheTicketers (service fee built into the displayed price, CAD checkout), and Gametime with its all-in toggle on — where the $100 you see is at or near the $100 you pay. Third: the fee-added majors — Ticketmaster resale, StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats — where the same sticker lands anywhere from $110 to $140 and the only way to know is to reach the last checkout screen.
The honest rule, which no single table can replace: open the same seats on two or three sites, click through to the final order screen on each, and compare those totals in the same currency. Fee ranges predict the outcome; they don't decide it. For how each of these marketplaces performs beyond fees — guarantees, delivery, Canadian support — see our full site-by-site comparison.
The fee mechanics: what you're actually paying
Three different charges hide inside "fees," and knowing which is which explains most of the weird totals. The service feeis the marketplace's revenue — it funds payment processing, fraud screening, support and the buyer guarantee, and it's the big percentage this page is about. The delivery or fulfilment fee covers getting the ticket to you — mobile transfer, barcode reissue, instant download — and is usually a smaller flat amount per order. An order-processing fee, most visible on Ticketmaster, is a per-order charge stacked on top of the per-ticket service fee. Our general guide to how ticket fees work covers each in more depth.
The display model matters as much as the amount. Drip pricing shows a fee-free sticker and reveals the charges at the final step — which anchors your comparison shopping to a number nobody will actually charge you. All-in displaybakes the fee into the first number you see. U.S. price-display rules now push some sites to show upfront totals for American visitors, but Canadian sessions don't always get the same treatment.
Put the two together and you get the answer to this page's central puzzle: how the same ticket can differ by $40 across sites. Sellers list the same seats at different base prices on different marketplaces (partly to offset each platform's seller commission), and then the buyer-fee spread — anywhere from 0% to 40% — is applied on top. A $100 sticker can legitimately finish anywhere between $100 and $140 without anyone doing anything unusual.
Notes for Canadian buyers
Currency is the fee nobody itemises. Of the sites in the master table, only Ticketmaster (via ticketmaster.ca) and TheTicketers check out in Canadian dollars — every other checkout runs in USD. On a USD purchase, a Canadian card typically adds about 2.5% in foreign-transaction fees on top of the exchange rate: a US$100 total becomes roughly C$137 at a recent rate of around 1.37, then about C$140 after the card fee. Scale that up to a fee-heavy checkout — the US$130 SeatGeek example above — and the statement reads about C$183 for a ticket whose sticker said $100.
That changes the pairwise verdicts more than any fee range does. A site that loses by 3% on fees but charges in CAD can still win on the card statement, and a "cheaper" USD listing can quietly cost more than a CAD one. When you compare final totals — the habit this whole page recommends — convert everything to CAD first, and check whether a currency selector has defaulted you to USD before you judge any price.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ticketmaster or StubHub cheaper?
It depends on which Ticketmaster you mean. If Ticketmaster still has primary tickets at face value, buying primary almost always beats StubHub — a face-value ticket plus a ~15–25% service fee is usually cheaper than a resale listing plus StubHub's typical ~25–30% buyer fee. Once the primary sale ends, it becomes resale versus resale: Ticketmaster's resale buyer fee typically runs ~10–20% against StubHub's ~25–30%, but list prices for the same seats differ between the two, so the only reliable test is comparing final checkout totals.
Which ticket site has the lowest fees?
TickPick charges no buyer service fee at all — the listed price is the charged price, in USD. TheTicketers builds its service fee into the displayed price and checks out in CAD, and Gametime shows fee-inclusive totals with its all-in toggle on. Among the sites that add fees at checkout, third-party analyses typically cite StubHub around 25–30%, Vivid Seats near 31%, Ticketmaster resale around 10–20%, and SeatGeek anywhere from 20–40% depending on the event.
Why are ticket fees so high?
Marketplace fees fund payment processing, fraud screening, customer support, ticket transfer or barcode reissue, and the buyer guarantee that refunds invalid tickets — and on many platforms they are charged on both sides, with a buyer fee at checkout and a seller commission on the payout. Drip pricing makes them feel worse than they are: because most sites reveal the fee only at the final step, a 25–30% add-on lands as a surprise rather than a priced-in cost. No major marketplace publishes a fixed fee schedule, which keeps the totals opaque.
Do any ticket sites have no fees?
No marketplace is genuinely free — the cost always sits somewhere. "No-fee" sites like TickPick shift the marketplace's cut to the seller side, and sellers price that into their listings; all-in sites like TheTicketers and Gametime build the fee into the number you see rather than adding it later. Face-value exchanges such as Tixel cap resale prices but still charge a small booking fee. The practical takeaway isn't to hunt for a fee-free site — it's to compare final checkout totals, where the all-in and no-buyer-fee models are consistently the most honest.
Disclosure: TheTicketers is our own marketplace, and we earn a service fee on orders placed here — that fee is built into the prices you see, never added afterwards. Read exactly how we make money. Fee figures for other sites come from independent third-party analyses and are re-verified monthly (last check: July 2026); all trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Want to test the math on a real order? Browse resale tickets in CAD — the price you see is the price you pay — or start with the full site-by-site comparison for everything beyond fees.