Should the customer pay the processing fee?

Every ticketed event pays something to process a payment. The only question is whose line item it appears on.

The two honest positions

Absorb it. The ticket costs Rs 2,000, the attendee pays Rs 2,000, and the processing cost comes out of your margin. The advertised price is the real price.

Pass it on. The ticket costs Rs 2,000, a processing fee is added at checkout, and the attendee pays slightly more. Your margin is protected and the attendee can see exactly what the payment rail cost.

Both are defensible. What is not defensible is a third option: quietly raising the ticket price to cover the fee while describing the increase as something else.

When to absorb it

When the price is a marketing number. "Rs 2,000" is a decision; "Rs 2,058" is an arithmetic problem the attendee has to do at the moment you most want them to click.

When you are competing on price. A visible surcharge on a comparison page loses to a competitor who folded it in, even at an identical total.

When the margin can carry it. For most conference tiers the processing cost is a small fraction, and the mental cost of a surprise at checkout is larger than the cash cost of absorbing it.

When to pass it on

Thin or zero margin. Community events, non-profit registrations, anything run at cost. A surcharge is the difference between breaking even and not.

High-value, low-volume tickets. On an expensive ticket the percentage is a real number, and buyers at that price are used to seeing fees itemised.

When your audience expects it. In some sectors an itemised processing fee reads as normal and its absence reads as a price that has been padded.

The rule that makes it acceptable

If you pass it on, the fee must be visible before payment, and it must be a real number rather than a round-up. An attendee who sees the fee on the checkout and decides to continue has consented to it. One who discovers it on their bank statement has been charged something they did not agree to.

Two things follow:

• Never charge a surcharge on a free ticket. There is nothing to process, and a fee on a zero-value registration is indefensible.
• Derive the rate, never type it in. If somebody can enter the percentage by hand, sooner or later somebody enters a number that is not the cost of processing, and the "processing fee" becomes a margin with a misleading name. On Eventio360 the surcharge is the gateway's share of what the organisation is already charged — the actual processing cost — so there is no field to invent a number in.

What about refunds?

Decide before you sell a ticket, and say so in your terms.

The processing cost is usually not returned to you when you refund, so refunding it means paying it twice. Most organisers refund the ticket and retain the processing fee. That is reasonable — but only if it was written down before the attendee paid, not decided the first time somebody asks.

The short answer

For a paid conference with a normal margin: absorb it, and advertise one number. For a community event run at cost, or an expensive ticket where the percentage is material: pass it on, show it at checkout, and never apply it to a free registration.