In trying to help out my friends that were promoting some events (with 300-1,000 attendees and tickets ranging from $15 to $25), I did some research to compare the various online ticket service alternatives.

Of course all these services provide you with the basic ticketing process, email collection, and credit card processing through internal or external integrates merchant accounts from PayPal or Google Checkout. And then most of them also have the “cool” features social networking integration (like links to help promote your event on Facebook).

Eventbrite seems to be the most popular service right now, but maybe it’s just because their custom subdomain URLs like ‘[yourevent].eventbrite.com’ are just so noticeable when people promote them. They do have a lot of features, if you really need them all.

But in the end, it comes down to total commission rates and/or fees, and when you are doing a few hundred tickets that might be $500 in extra savings or profit to you or your attendees.

So here’s a quick summary of the pricing schemes of March 2010 (in many cases, doing the simple math on the number of attendees you have and your ticket price will make one of these choices stand out as a superior choice for your event).

• Eventbrite – 2.5% of ticket face value plus $0.99 per ticket. An additional 3% if using Eventbrite credit card processing or regular merchant fees if using Paypal or Google Checkout.
• Brown Paper Tickets – $0.99 fee for tix under $9.99 and $1.99 fee per ticket for tickets above $10. That’s it! No credit card processing fees after that. Plus you can get a batch of hard tickets printed to sell in person for $0.10 each plus minimum $6 shipping.
• Eventbee – $1 flat fee per ticket plus external credit processing fee % (like Paypal or Google Checkout).
• Ettend – Interesting pricing model here: $24/month for two active event listings, no per ticket cost, and then just the external credit card processing fee % (like Paypal or Google Checkout). Pricing details here.
• Eventat – No per-ticket fee while in beta plus external credit processing fee % (like Paypal or Google Checkout).
• Guestlist – No per-ticket fee while in beta plus external credit processing fee % (like Paypal or Google Checkout).

The above are great for simple events like concerts, shows or raves, and not necessarily something like a trade show, conference or seminar (where you might be collecting more user information, have many tiers of pricing or be sending out regular communications; for that there are better alternatives like RegOnline).