Absorb fees, or pass them on?

Most platforms let you choose: add fees on top at checkout, or absorb them into the face value. It looks like an accounting preference. It's actually a pricing decision with measurable conversion consequences — and, since 2025, a legal dimension.

The two options, honestly stated

The revenue-neutral move is to absorb and reprice: £22 all-in beats £20 + £1.98 in trust and usually in conversion, while your net is nearly identical.

What the evidence says

Drip pricing works on captive audiences — that's why airlines invented it — but ticketing fans aren't captive; they compare your total against the pub, the cinema and doing nothing. Late-revealed fees are consistently among the highest-cited reasons for checkout abandonment in UK ecommerce studies, and the CMA's own research put the consumer harm from drip pricing in the billions per year, which is why the DMCC Act now requires mandatory fees in the headline price.

When passing on still makes sense

• Marketplace listings where every rival's price displays the same way — face value + fees is the category convention on Skiddle and fans expect it.
• Price-anchored scenes (student nights at '£5') where the face value is the marketing.
• Charity events, where fans knowingly accept fees so donations stay intact.

The third option the question hides

'Absorb or pass on' assumes fees exist. On zero-fee (Tickts) or near-zero flat-fee (Ticket Tailor credits at 22p + VAT) platforms, the dilemma mostly disappears: face value, total price and payout converge. The cleanest answer to a presentation problem is to shrink the thing being presented.