Sway vs Eventim: which ticketing platform for your event?

Eventim is a large European and US ticket marketplace used by venues, tours and festivals. A separate self-serve product, EVENTIM.Light, publishes its own shop rates. Sway is an app and a ticketing platform built for electronic music: line-ups, set times, door check-in, and organiser tools in one place.

Both can sell a paid ticket. The difference sits in what is published about the fee, when the money reaches you, and whether you want a venue box office, a large marketplace, or a scene app with line-ups and discovery.

The notes below match what is public in November 2026. On the main Eventim marketplace, fees are not published as a single public rate; ask them for a quote. EVENTIM.Light, a separate self-serve shop, publishes these gross rates (VAT and payment processing included): 3.5% + €0.49 per ticket when the base price is up to €6.99, or 3.5% + €0.99 from €7.00. You choose whether you or the buyer pays. Selling also through the Eventim network adds a published 10% advance-booking fee on the base price. After you mark an EVENTIM.Light event as completed, settlement is within five working days — after the event, not before. If your contract says something else, your contract wins.

A €20 ticket

On Sway, the buyer fee is published and the same on every standard plan: 3% + €0.30 per paid ticket, VAT included. On a €20 ticket the buyer pays €0.90 and you receive €20.00 on a standard card.

On EVENTIM.Light's published shop rate for a €20 base price, 3.5% × €20 + €0.99 = €1.69 (VAT and payment included). If that sale also goes through the Eventim network, the published extra 10% on the base price is €2.00, on top of the shop fee. The main Eventim marketplace does not publish a comparable public total; ask them for a quote.

In the US, the price a buyer sees on Sway is all-in: the event page shows the price with fees included. In US dollars the service fee is 4.5% + $0.35 per paid ticket.

Tools, discovery and the scene

Sway puts together what an electronic-music team needs: tickets (early bird, promo codes, pay-in-instalments), order control (resend, refund), door check-in and offline scanners, guest list, line-up and set times, sales insights, photo galleries, ambassadors, and Swapy to ask how a night is selling or to draft a campaign. Creating a page and an event is free. Email campaigns, custom push notifications and discovery boosts are growth tools on paid plans. Swapy is free on every plan, Basic included.

Eventim is built as a large public marketplace and box-office network: inventory for concerts, sports and tours, plus EVENTIM.Light shops and door sales. It is not a discovery app organised around electronic-music line-ups the way Sway is.

When to choose Sway, and when to stay on Eventim

Sway makes sense if you want a published buyer fee, the full ticket price in your account within a week — including before the event — and ticketing, check-in, line-up, galleries, ambassadors and an assistant in one place, on an app ravers use to find electronic events.

Eventim can be the better fit if you need that marketplace's reach, box-office partners, or a tour and venue network your buyers already use.

Both can be the right fit. It depends on your contract, where people already buy, and what you want to keep: the ticket price, the cash-flow calendar, or a particular discovery network.

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See also what Sway does for promoters, for an event and pricing. Nearby comparisons: Sway vs Shotgun, Sway vs DICE, Sway vs Eventbrite, Sway vs Ticketmaster, Sway vs AXS.