When you buy tickets to an event, there’s nothing worse than going online and discovering that there’s an extra charge on top of the price of the event just for the tickets to be issued. Now a Canadian startup is hoping to eliminate that experience for many ticket buyers.
Vancouver-based Picatic changed its pricing this week to a freemium model. That means the service at its base level is completely free to the event managers that use it, and as a result no ticketing service fees are passed on to the consumer. Previously Picatic had a pay-what-you-want business model, Picatic is now opting to instead offer a free version and a Pro version that does require payment.
“We want to be an advocate for the ticket buy and the event planner. We want to empower buyers, empower organizers and bring people together,” says Jayesh Parmar, CEO of Picatic, in a company press release. “Our solution is simple to use for both parties so the focus can be on delivering an event that creates memories and inspires culture.”
Last we heard from Picatic, it was graduating from Toronto startup accelerator Extreme Startups in 2012. Parmar explained then that the concept of Picatic was to protect event planners from risk. The platform can automatically refund all ticket buyers in the case of an event being cancelled, meaning the organizer doesn’t feel pressured to hold an event that’s not going to be well attended.
Today, Picatic says it has been used by more than 8,000 events.