Best Easol Alternative: TicketingHub

Don't want to rebuild your website just to take bookings?

Easol asks for something bigger than a booking system: it wants your whole storefront — website, checkout, domain — living on its platform, at a price you only learn after a demo. TicketingHub asks for one line of code. Your site, your SEO and your brand stay exactly where they are; you add a fast checkout and pay 3% per online booking, published for everyone, with no setup fee and no monthly fee. You pay as you earn — and it's rated 5.0 on Capterra.

Easol is a well-funded, well-built platform, genuinely strong for the businesses it targets. Here's what you'd be signing up for, honestly compared.

What is Easol?

Easol is a London-based experience commerce platform founded in 2017 by Ben Simpson and Lisa Simpson. It gives operators a hosted website builder, checkout, payments, marketing and CRM tools in one system, aimed at festivals, retreats, adventure travel and event brands. It has raised roughly $59.5 million across several rounds, including a $30 million Series A in 2024 led by Tiger Global, and opened a New York office that year.

Its client roster leans toward large, established event and festival brands: names publicly associated with Easol include Coachella, Live Nation, Afro Nation, Defected, Swingers and Rapha — sizeable, marketing-led businesses more than small or mid-size tour operators running day-to-day bookings. Its features page lists a website builder, checkout, on-site POS, marketing and CRM automation, and AI agents for support and sales — broad and ambitious, but most of it only works if your whole storefront lives on Easol's platform.

What Easol's pricing means for your bottom line

Easol publishes two plan names, Stride and Pro, but not fixed prices. Stride starts from $250 a month plus a transaction fee starting from 2% of revenue, plus standard payment processing on top. Pro is entirely custom, agreed during a demo. No setup fee on either plan; billing is monthly or annual, with the full fee schedule agreed individually when you onboard.

Only Stride's starting figures give a fair worked example, since Pro is fully custom. Say your business takes 10,000 pounds in online bookings this month. TicketingHub's fee is 3%: 300 pounds — and nothing if you sell nothing. Easol's Stride plan, at published starting rates, works out to roughly 195 pounds subscription plus roughly 200 pounds in transaction fees (2% of 10,000) — about 395 pounds before payment processing. That difference, month after month, is a seasonal guide's wages. And since Stride's fee is 'starting from' 2% and Pro isn't published, your real number could run higher after the demo. Do the maths for your own volume — with TicketingHub you actually can, because the rate is public today. Easol's isn't.

Easol vs TicketingHub at a glance

• Pricing — Easol: Stride from $250/month plus transaction fees from 2% of revenue; Pro fully custom, agreed after a demo. TicketingHub: 3% per online booking, published, no demo needed.
• Monthly fee — Easol: yes, Stride from $250/month; Pro not disclosed. TicketingHub: none.
• Setup — Easol: no setup fees on any plan. TicketingHub: none.
• Contract — Easol: monthly or annual billing; exact terms agreed individually, not fully published. TicketingHub: no lock-in.
• Booking widget — Easol: hosted website builder; your storefront lives on Easol's platform and domain. TicketingHub: one line of code embeds a brand-matched widget into the site you already have, multi-language and multi-currency.
• OTA channel manager — Easol: no evidence found of Viator or GetYourGuide-style reseller sync. TicketingHub: real-time sync with Viator, GetYourGuide and other resellers; OTA sales +401% 2022–2025.
• Magic Link — Easol: an AI support agent can update bookings on request, not a documented self-serve link. TicketingHub: Magic Link lets customers reschedule, cancel or convert to a voucher themselves.
• Email validator — Easol: not published. TicketingHub: validates emails at checkout so confirmations don't bounce.
• Point of sale — Easol: on-site POS and payments confirmed as a feature. TicketingHub: iOS and Android POS, works offline, with printers, cash registers and PDQ machines.
• Waivers — Easol: not published or found in research. TicketingHub: digital waivers via Smartwaiver.
• Support — Easol: Capterra reviewers call support fast and 'phenomenal', though from a small sample. TicketingHub: 24/7 chat and email, plus free migration help.
• Reviews — Easol: about 4.9 out of 5 on Capterra, from around 12 reviews. TicketingHub: 5.0 on Capterra.

Why operators switch to TicketingHub

Your website stays the star

Moving your storefront onto Easol means rebuilding your site on its platform and handing your checkout, SEO and design decisions to that system — years of rankings and brand equity, renegotiated. TicketingHub's widget embeds with one line of code on the site you already run. The checkout matches your brand, loads fast, speaks your customer's language and takes their currency — so more visitors finish booking instead of drifting off, and everything you've built keeps working for you.

Fill the slots you can't sell yourself

Easol's client list runs toward large festival and event brands with marketing teams behind them. If you run scheduled tours and timed tickets, your growth lever is distribution: TicketingHub's channel manager syncs availability with Viator, GetYourGuide and other resellers in real time, with a reseller portal for local agents — midweek slots fill from demand you didn't have to generate, with no double-bookings to apologise for. Operators' OTA sales through TicketingHub grew 401% between 2022 and 2025.

Get your evenings back

As booking volume grows, so does the pile of reschedule emails. Magic Link lets customers reschedule, cancel or convert their own booking to a voucher without messaging you — you keep the sale as a new date or a voucher instead of a refund. The email validator stops typo'd addresses at checkout, so confirmations actually arrive and no-shows fall. Abandoned-cart emails quietly win back the customers who almost booked: Shannon R., a small business owner, says on Capterra they "have noticeably reduced the number of people that don't book."

What reviewers say about Easol

Easol's Capterra reviews are positive but limited: about 4.9 out of 5 from roughly 12 reviews. Reviewers praise the drag-and-drop site builder, fast support, and having website, ticketing and payments in one system. Recurring criticisms centre on reporting — several want deeper custom-export reports, and a few mention manual workarounds. With only a dozen reviews, treat the rating as an early signal, not a large-sample verdict. Thin reporting has a real cost: if you can't export the numbers, you're making pricing and staffing calls on instinct.

Who is Easol right for?

• Festival, event and experience brands happy to run their entire website and checkout on Easol's platform.
• Larger, marketing-led businesses that want a single system for site, CRM and campaigns, and can absorb a custom quote.
• Teams comfortable agreeing pricing individually rather than working from a published rate card.

Who is TicketingHub right for?

• ✅ You want to keep the website you already built and just add bookings to it.
• ✅ You want to know the exact fee before you talk to anyone: 3% per booking, published.
• ✅ You want Viator, GetYourGuide and reseller demand flowing in with availability synced automatically.
• ✅ You want walk-up sales and online bookings in one system, via a POS that works offline.
• ✅ You want customers rescheduling themselves instead of filling your support inbox.
• ✅ You'd rather start free today than book a demo to learn the price.

Proof it works

Egypt's Sound and Light Shows grew ticket sales over 500% with TicketingHub, and City Tours Belfast grew ticket sales 400% after switching booking systems. Secret Food Tours has run on TicketingHub across 120 cities for over ten years — proof it scales, and that operators stay.

FAQs about switching from Easol

Do I have to rebuild my website to move from Easol to TicketingHub?

No — that's the point. TicketingHub embeds into the website you already have with one line of code. If you're moving away from Easol's hosted storefront, you keep or rebuild your site independently and simply add TicketingHub's widget for bookings — no platform migration for your whole web presence.

How does TicketingHub's cost compare to Easol's?

At 10,000 pounds a month in bookings, TicketingHub charges 3%, or 300 pounds — and nothing in a month you sell nothing. Easol's published Stride starting rates work out to roughly 395 pounds before payment processing, and Pro pricing isn't public at all. With TicketingHub, 3% is the number for every operator, no demo required.

Can I try TicketingHub before fully committing away from Easol?

Yes, and it costs you nothing to find out. No setup fee, no monthly fee: set up a single product, see it live in minutes, and move the rest only when you're convinced.

Know your price before you book anyone's demo

At published starting rates, a 10,000-pound month costs roughly 95 pounds more on Easol's Stride than on TicketingHub — before payment processing, and before whatever the demo adds. TicketingHub is free to start, our team helps you migrate, and your first product can be live in minutes. Start free, keep your website, and pay 3% only as you earn.