Same market.
Different philosophy.
SimpleTix is genuinely the right choice for some venues.
If you run an attraction, farm, brewery tour, museum, or any operation built around timed-entry slots — and you already live in the Square ecosystem — SimpleTix is a strong fit. You’ll be well served.
If your average ticket is under $25, their pricing math beats ours. Honestly.
If you don’t need a built-in email marketing engine, donor cultivation tools, deep season pass combinations, or an API — SimpleTix keeps things simple, and there’s real virtue in that.
This page is for the other venue. The performing arts center. The community theater. The music venue with subscribers. The dance company with members and donors and an annual fund. Where the ticket sale is the beginning of the patron relationship, not the end of it.
Curtain at 7:30.
Will-call jam at 7:15.
Performing arts doesn’t happen during business hours.
Curtains rise at 7:30 on a Saturday. The will-call printer jams at 7:15. The new front-of-house manager can’t figure out why a comp ticket isn’t scanning. The fire marshal wants the manifest, now.
This is not a 9-to-5 problem.
- × SimpleTix support: Monday–Friday, 9 to 5.
- ✓ ThunderTix support: every single day, including the holidays.
Plus our AI assistant Bolt is on duty 24/7 with secure access to your real account data — answering questions, pulling reports, walking new staff through tasks at 9pm on a Sunday when the show is starting.
What SimpleTix users say they wish it did.
Three things their reviewers ask for. Three things ThunderTix already does. All quotes from public G2 reviews.
“I would like to offer subscription packages that combine general admission tickets with reserved seating. Would also like to have a donation option on reserved-seat ticket events.”
Every season pass combination imaginable. Any ticket type, any day of the week, opening night versus First Friday, any performance, any combination of events. All-in-one pricing or per-event pricing. Donations are available on every event — reserved-seat or general admission.
“We wanted to give our guests the option of paying the fees for credit card ticket purchases. The program does not easily allow this to be optional… We had to choose either to absorb the cost for all or pass the cost on to our guests for all.”
Fee absorption is a per-event setting, and you can let the patron choose at checkout. Some buyers cover the fees gladly; others want them absorbed. You don’t have to pick one and live with it forever.
“We wish we had the ability to require guests to leave an email OR phone number. Instead we had to choose which to require.”
Email and phone are independently configurable. Require one, require both, make either optional. You design the checkout. Not the platform.
Built for performing arts.
Not bolted on.
A season pass is more than a discount on five tickets.
It’s first-pick seating before single tickets go on sale. It’s the loyalty contract between the venue and the patron. It’s the renewal moment every September. It’s the operational reality of who-gets-what-seat when a subscriber wants to swap dates.
ThunderTix supports every season pass combination imaginable.
The plumbing that matters.
A full, documented API. For custom donor systems, website automation, your own custom reports, integrations with whatever already lives in your stack.
Native email marketing, drip campaigns, behavioral triggers. Not a Mailchimp connector. Your emails live where your patrons do.
Stripe, Square, Authorize.net, Beanstream, Moneris, Elavon. Process through the gateway you already have. Money goes directly to your bank, daily.
A glance at the chart
should tell you everything.
Performing arts venues hold seats for a hundred different reasons. Cast and crew comps. The set design eats row C. The fire marshal needs aisles. The artistic director’s house seats. Press night.
ThunderTix color-codes every hold type, right on the seating chart. SimpleTix doesn’t do this.
And when fraud knocks on Friday night.
Chargeback fraud is up sharply across ticketing in 2025–2026, and the burden falls on the venue. ThunderTix lets you block bad actors by IP address and device fingerprint — not just by name.
A patron who chargebacks, behaves disruptively, or commits fraud gets added to your block list. The system stops them at checkout. Subsequent attempts with a different name or email are still caught by device and IP signature.
You own your block lists. The reasons are yours to define: chargebacks, fraud, disruption, anything that affects the enjoyment of patrons around them.
× Not a SimpleTix feature.
Memberships are a feature.
Relationships are a system.
SimpleTix has memberships — tiered, recurring, member-only pricing. So do we. That’s table stakes.
The difference is everything that wraps the membership.
ThunderTix knows who your new patrons are, who’s returning, who’s lapsed, who’s at risk, and who’s your top 5% by lifetime value. We score patrons by recency, frequency, and monetary value — the RFM model used by every serious arts marketing program.
We surface LYBUNT and SYBUNT reports for your development team. We blend membership dues with annual fund giving so the donor sees one ask, one experience, one tax letter.
Memberships are a feature. Patron relationships are a system.
We don’t win on price
for every venue.
If your average ticket is under $25, SimpleTix is cheaper. We’re going to be honest about that.
Above $25, the math flips fast.
| Avg ticket | SimpleTix fees | ThunderTix fees | Your savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $11,900 | $12,800 | −$900 |
| $30 | $13,900 | $12,800 | +$1,100 |
| $50 | $17,900 | $12,800 | +$5,100 |
| $75 | $22,900 | $12,800 | +$10,100 |
| $100 | $27,900 | $12,800 | +$15,100 |
Why the curve flips: SimpleTix charges $0.79 + 2% of the ticket price. The 2% scales with your ticket price. ThunderTix charges a flat $1.25 per ticket — it doesn’t matter if your ticket is $30 or $150. At higher price points, their percentage takes a bigger bite while ours stays flat.
Plus: free events are truly free at ThunderTix. Comps issued by the box office cost you nothing. Your Stripe processing relationship stays yours, with daily payouts to your own account.
Ask the system anything.
In plain language.
Bolt is ThunderTix’s AI assistant. Secure access to your real account data — patrons, seats, events, sales, members, donations. Plain language in. Plain language out.
Sarah Patel · Member since 2019, Silver tier
- Last 6 performances: aisle seats, orchestra left, rows F–H
- 2025 season pass holder · not yet renewed for 2026
- Lifetime value: $8,940
- Donations: $2,400 total ($600 most recent, March 2026)
- Comp policy: extends to son (attended Romeo & Juliet, Nov 2025)
Want me to draft a renewal email in her usual tone?
Ready to see it?
Start a free trial. No credit card. Talk to a human first if you’d rather — we have those, too.