Could Pembee be the Eventbrite alternative you have been looking for?

Pembee and Eventbrite Comparison

Pembee vs. Eventbrite Comparison
Feature by FeaturesPembeeEventbrite
Pricing
Monthly feeStarts at $15/monthN/A
Credit card transaction feesFrom 0.59% + Stripe fees6.6%+$1.79*
Payment Options
Credit/debit cardIncludedIncluded
Cash/Bank TransferIncludedIncluded
Activity Settings
Custom categories and filters for eventsIncludedPre-set categories.
Sell add-on itemsIncludedIncluded
Multiple ticket optionsSingle session or all-sessions ticket.Single session only.
Activity pictures and attachmentsIncludedIncluded
Marketing options
Session passesIncludedNot included
Abandoned cart recovery emailsIncludedNot included
Discount options
Multi attendee discountsIncludedNot included
Multi purchase discountsIncludedNot included
Discount codesIncludedIncluded
Bookings
Customisable questionnaireIncludedIncluded
Terms and Conditions agreementIncludedIncluded

* Based on fees published on this link as of February 2023.

Introduction

Welcome to our comprehensive comparison of two leading event management platforms: Pembee and Eventbrite. This comparison is designed for organizations that offer recurring classes and events: Whether you're running afterschool clubs, hosting yoga sessions, planning summer camps, or offering cooking classes, understanding the right tools to manage and scale your operations is crucial. Here, we delve into the features, benefits, and business models of Pembee and Eventbrite to help you make an informed decision that best suits your business needs.

Pembee vs. Eventbrite: Business Models and Target Audiences

Pembee is designed from ground-up as a specialized activity or event management software for businesses that offer recurring events, activities and classes. It streamlines the management of these activities, be that in person events, hybrid events, or virtual events, and focuses on making event registration easy for event organizers. Unlike Eventbrite, which serves a wide array of event organizers including one-off events through a consumer-facing marketplace, Pembee is tailored for businesses that have established customer acquisition channels and require a more robust, customizable, recurring activity and event management system.

While Eventbrite provides a broad platform that allows consumers to discover a variety of events, Pembee distinguishes itself by offering tools that enhance business-to-consumer interactions without the need for a customer event discovery feature. This fundamental difference in business models indicates that Pembee is ideal for businesses seeking to foster long-term customer relationships through a series of events or classes, rather than relying on a one-time event exposure that platforms like Eventbrite facilitate. This also explains why Pembee can offer the lowest pricing plans as it does not need to spend marketing budget to drive new customers to its site for discovery. In this way, businesses have complete ownership over their marketing budget and how they want to spend it, rather than relying on platforms such as Eventbrite to do the customer acquisition for them.

In the next section, we'll explore the key features of Pembee and how they compare to Eventbrite's offerings, highlighting the unique advantages that Pembee brings to businesses focused on building and managing a recurring event schedule.

“Using Pembee for my event bookings and registration has cut down my admin time immeasurably. I had got to a point where I felt swamped by the volume of paperwork created by my small but busy business and Pembee has saved the day!”

Claire Hughes Woodland Nurture

Feature Deep-Dive: Tailored Tools for Activities, Classes and Events

Pembee offers a range of features to address the nuances of managing recurring activities, classes and events. These extensive features are designed to reduce administrative workload, enhance customer engagement, and provide powerful insights into business operations. Let's delve into the specifics:

Transparent and Competitive Pricing

Cost-Effective Monthly Plans: Pembee stands out with its transparent and competitive pricing tiers, starting at a low monthly fee. This approach makes it accessible for small to medium-sized businesses that regularly host events, ensuring that the platform's advanced features are within reach without a significant financial commitment.

Lower Transaction Fees: Unlike Eventbrite, which includes a much higher payment processing fee, Pembee offers a much more affordable price with payment processing fees starting from just 0.59%* plus Stripe fees. This pricing model can lead to significant savings for businesses, especially as they scale up their operations and handle a larger volume of transactions.

No Hidden Costs Pembee's straightforward pricing structure means there are no surprises. Every cost from monthly subscriptions to payment processing fees is made clear from the outset, allowing businesses to plan their finances with certainty.

Admin and Automation Benefits

Automated Session Register: Pembee simplifies administration with an easy to use session register that comes with additional features such as paperless attendee check-in and check-outs to streamline the attendance tracking and reporting process. This allows for quick updates to attendee responses and records, logging cash payments, and easy access to print registers for staff use, all of which streamline the on-the-ground management of classes and events.

Automatic Email Confirmations: Each booking on Pembee triggers an automatic email confirmation, sending all essential details to customers. This keeps attendees well-informed and reduces the need for manual follow-ups, ensuring a seamless communication flow.

Clone Existing Activities: The ability to replicate successful events is a boon for businesses. With Pembee, you can clone an existing activity, automatically populating all details, which is a significant time-saver for recurring event management.

Customization and Personalization

Custom Booking Form: Pembee recognizes that every business has unique needs when it comes to attendee engagement and attendee management. Its custom event registration form allows you to collect specific attendee information during the online registration process, from medical conditions to past experience, ensuring that you have all the necessary details for each participant.

Flexible Activity Page: Pembee provides the flexibility to beautify your activity page with images, separate descriptions into distinct sections, create tabs for listing, and upload additional information through attachments, offering a comprehensive and engaging overview of your events.

Custom Event Ticketing Features: Pembee supports multiple ticket types, including single session tickets, bulk purchase tickets or monthly subscription tickets. There are also advanced ticketing features such as booking opening and closing time, individual ticket place limits, to make the ticketing process much smoother.

Personalized Customer Interactions: Customization extends to customer communications as well. Pembee lets you personalize system emails, set your branding with logos, and define your social media profiles, facilitating brand consistency across all attendee engagement touchpoints.

Payment and Financial Management

Competitive Pricing and Payment Options: Pembee's competitive pricing structure is designed for businesses of all sizes. With a low monthly subscription fee and competitive online payment processing fees that scale with your business, Pembee offers a cost-effective solution. Additionally, the integration with Stripe for secure online payments, the ability to process refunds with one click, and the option to track offline payments (such as cash payments) exemplify the platform's flexibility when it comes to manage payments.

Balance Reminder and Financial Tracking: Managing finances is streamlined with features like balance reminders and the ability to track outstanding balances. This ensures that businesses can stay on top of their finances without the need for constant chasing.

Customer and Attendee Engagement

Session Passes: Pembee acknowledges the importance of rewarding loyalty. With session passes, businesses can offer discounted access to a series of classes, encouraging repeat attendance. This feature not only fosters loyalty but also simplifies the purchase process and booking experience for attendees.

Configurable Filters for Easy Navigation: For both customers and administrators, Pembee provides configurable filters to easily locate the desired activities. This user-friendly approach ensures that customers can find and book the classes they’re interested in, while admins can manage events with greater efficiency.

Flexible Add-on Items: Pembee allows selling add-on items during the booking process, enabling businesses to offer a more tailored experience and additional value to their customers. This could range from special equipment rentals to additional learning materials, enhancing the overall service offering.

Discount Rules and Codes: Attracting new customers and incentivizing repeat business is made easier with Pembee's discount rules and codes for more custom pricing options. Whether offering multi-session discounts, sibling discounts, or promotional codes, these tools help businesses tailor their pricing strategies to different customer segments.

Integrated Marketing Tools: With tools like automatic abandoned cart recovery emails, Pembee helps you reconnect with customers who didn't complete the booking process.

Business Insights and Analytics

Intuitive Dashboard: Pembee’s dashboard offers a clear view of your business's performance at a glance. By understanding historical trends, businesses can make informed decisions to improve and grow.

Comprehensive Business Reports: With reports such as activity sales reports, monthly revenue reports, businesses can benefit from real-time sales tracking and reporting.

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Platform for Your Business

When it comes to selecting a platform for managing recurring classes and events, the decision should align with your business's specific needs and goals. Pembee stands out as a specialized tool for businesses that require a robust, yet cost-effective solution for recurring event management, without the need for a consumer-facing discovery platform. Its competitive pricing model, coupled with a comprehensive suite of tools designed to reduce administrative burdens, enhance customer engagement, and provide valuable business insights, makes it a compelling alternative to Eventbrite.

The key differences in pricing, particularly the competitive payment processing fees, position Pembee as a compelling alternative for businesses that are scaling up. Pembee's focus on providing a personalized and customizable experience ensures that businesses can maintain their brand identity and foster long-term customer relationships. By choosing Pembee, businesses can invest more in what truly matters—delivering quality experiences to their customers.

As you consider the future of your event management, weigh the comprehensive benefits that Pembee offers against the broader, marketplace-oriented approach of Eventbrite. If your priority is to manage, grow, and streamline recurring events with a comprehensive event management platform, Pembee might just be the perfect fit for your business.

We are confident that you and your customers will enjoy using Pembee. You can try Pembee for free for 30 days bysigning up here.

*VAT Applies to UK Customers from 1 January 2024

Testimonials

Trusted to handle thousands of bookings each month

“Using Pembee for my event bookings and registration has cut down my admin time immeasurably. I had got to a point where I felt swamped by the volume of paperwork created by my small but busy business and Pembee has saved the day!”

Claire Hughes
Woodland Nurture

“Fantastic. Easy to use, support is incredible and we have much happier users.”

Image of Joanna Watt
Tom King
Starlings Appleton Thorn

“I am blown away by the level of support and service from Pembee, the team have helped me set up the app and tweak it to get it working exactly as I want it. I can't fault any step of the process.”

Image of Joanna Watt
Louise Regan
Dorset Wild One

“So easy to use, great for customers and staff. Clean and crisp front end for parents - easily operated back end for staff. We tried 2 others before this and both were heavily flawed with by support or quality - this system has both.”

Colin Heath
Allstars Sports Group

“Just absolutely fantastic. I am super impressed with their system and also their customer support.”

Image of Joanna Watt
James Boit
Crazy Camps

“Such an amazing piece of software after trialling a few, Pembee is very easy to use and has solved a problem that we encountered!”

Image of Joanna Watt
Jade Keevins
Kangaroo Kids

“Amazing app for my business. Helpful and easy to use, plus the online support is amazing from the team.”

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Katie Taylor
Inspire Sports Academy

“Amazing. Not only a great and easy to use platform but brilliant customer service. Pembee has been a game changer for me. From using a previous booking system, my workload has been cut in half - more than half! Cannot recommend enough.”

Image of Joanna Watt
Charlotte Carrington
Multisports For Schools

“Our previous booking system was going offline and we needed a replacement, Pembee worked with us to ensure their system could offer everything we needed to continue the smooth running of our business. Pembee customer support is second to none. Setting up the system was straightforward and there was always someone on hand to help with any queries we had.”

Nancy O’Brien
Jason's Totally Tennis
Bookings processed
300K
Transactions processed
$15M
Total Users
100,000+
Sessions listed
200,000+
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