CrabGate
Create your conference event
Set the date, venue, capacity, ticket prices, and sales windows. Share your hosted shop link with your audience.
Sell conference tickets. Run registration.
For independent technical and community conferences.
Set early bird and standard sales windows, collect attendee details, email buyers, and check people in from a phone. Hosted ticketing for $99 USD a year, plus Stripe’s card fee; we never take a cut.
A free 45-minute setup call with Paul, until 20 December. No card to sign up. You pay when your event goes on sale, and you have 30 days to change your mind. Prefer no call? Sign up and set it up yourself.
Prepare your conference and run the registration desk
Tickets that go on sale in steps
Early bird ends on the date you set, and standard takes over. Give sponsors and community groups a discount code, and give speakers complimentary tickets.
You know who's coming
Ask each attendee what you need to know, like food and access needs. One person can buy for a whole team and fill in the names later.
Send joining instructions to buyers
Preview your event message and recipient count. Email each eligible buyer once, including free and complimentary orders. Buyers forward instructions to the rest of their team.
A registration desk that moves
Check people in from any phone's browser, with nothing to install. Scan the ticket, or find the name. Give each helper their own Door Link.
Export your conference records
Download orders, tickets, attendee answers, and check-ins as CSV.
Product demo: the ticket shop and check-in
Actual CrabGate screens with fictitious event and attendee data. These examples are not customer endorsements.
A fee on every ticket sounds small until you do the sum
Take 500 people at $300 a ticket. Eventbrite's published US service fee is 3.7% plus $1.79 a paid ticket. That's $12.89 on each one.
500 tickets is about $6,400 in service fees. Every year.
Either your attendees pay that on top of the ticket, or it comes out of the money for speakers and the venue. Over five conferences it's about $32,200. And the bill grows every time you sell more seats or raise the price, which are the two things you're working hardest to do.
With CrabGate, that line is $99 a year, whether 200 people come or 800. Grow the conference, and the growth is yours.
These are estimates for an example conference. The rate and source are further down.
The offer: I'll get your next event on sale with you, free
I'm Paul Bădărău, and I build CrabGate. Until 20 December, I'm setting up every new shop myself. Pick your next real event, and we'll get it on sale together in one 45-minute call.
The call is free. You pay $99 for the year when you put the event on sale. If you don't, you owe nothing.
This offer closes on 20 December. That's 45 days from today. After that, you set up your shop on your own.
And if it doesn't work out? If your first event on CrabGate doesn't go well, email me within 30 days of paying and I'll refund the $99. No form, no argument.
By the end of the call, you'll have
- Your shop, at an address you choose.
- Your Stripe account connected, so ticket money goes straight to you.
- Your next event built, with its ticket types and prices.
- A test order in your inbox, so you've seen what your buyers get.
- A Door Link for whoever checks people in.
Set up your next event
It takes a minute and no card. I get an email the moment you sign up, and I reply within one working day. Your other events stay right where they are.
Running events for a charity, nonprofit, or community organisation? CrabGate is free for you. Email hello@crabgate.com to get access.
More about me: LinkedIn, GitHub, badarau.net, AL+, my agency.
Eventbrite's published US fee against $99 a year
Eventbrite lists a US service fee of 3.7% plus $1.79 a paid ticket. Its 2.9% payment processing comes on top and is not counted here. Source: Eventbrite help, read 2026-10-14.
| Example conference | Eventbrite service fee | CrabGate |
|---|---|---|
| 300 tickets at $150 | $2,202 | $99 |
| 500 tickets at $300 | $6,445 | $99 |
| 800 tickets at $400 | $13,272 | $99 |
CrabGate charges no percentage of ticket sales. Stripe's card fee still applies.
Competitor figures are estimates in US dollars for the example ticket volumes above. Tax is excluded.
What's coming next
On our list
- A seating map. You can sell numbered seats from a list today. A map of the room that buyers pick from comes next.
- Your own domain, logo, and colours. Your shop lives at yourname.crabgate.com today.
- A one-click payment connection. Today we connect your account together on the setup call.
Not yet: badges, invoices for buyers, and a schedule or call for papers. If you need those for this year's conference, tell us. It shapes what we build next.
Need something that isn't here? Tell us at hello@crabgate.com. It shapes what we build next.
Questions from conference organisers
- What if CrabGate goes away?
- If we stop offering CrabGate, we'll give you at least 90 days' notice. You can export your data while live hosted data is available. Export it before we delete your live hosted data, 90 days after your subscription lapses.
- What does it cost besides $99?
- Only your card processor's fee. Today that's Stripe, and we add nothing to it.
- Can one person buy tickets for a team?
- Yes. A buyer can put several tickets in one order and change the attendee names on the order page until the conference starts.
- Do we have to move our old data?
- No. Start with your next conference. Last year's orders can stay where they are.
- What if it isn't for me?
- The setup call is free, and you pay only when your event goes on sale. If that first event doesn't go well, email Paul within 30 days of paying and he'll refund the $99.
Run a small room with its own list? Read CrabGate for rooms with an audience. Run the same workshop again and again? Read CrabGate for repeating workshops. The price is on the pricing page.
Put your next conference on sale.
A free 45-minute setup call with Paul, until 20 December. No card to sign up. You pay when your event goes on sale, and you have 30 days to change your mind. Prefer no call? Sign up and set it up yourself.