How to sell event tickets online in Ghana: setup, fees, and payouts

Selling tickets by hand still works for a small church programme or a family event, but the moment you are expecting guests you do not know personally, a numbered booklet and a MoMo number stop scaling. Online ticketing gives every buyer a receipt, gives you a live count, and means nobody carries a bag of cash home at midnight. This guide covers how ticket sales work on Edwadzi end to end: setup, tiers, what buyers pay, when you get paid, and the door on the day.

Before you sell: payout setup

Creating an event is free and takes a few minutes. Before you can publish a paid ticket tier, though, you have to complete payout setup: a Paystack subaccount linked to your bank or mobile money account. The platform enforces this deliberately. Without it, ticket money would have nowhere to go, so checkout for paid tiers is blocked until the subaccount is verified. Do this first, on the day you create the event, so it is not the thing that delays your launch.

Designing your ticket tiers

A tier is a named ticket type with its own price and rules. The options that matter:

• Price. Set to zero for a free tier. Free tiers carry no fees and still give you a headcount and check-in codes.
• Quantity. Cap a tier or leave it unlimited. Cap VIP and any tier tied to a fixed number of seats or plates.
• Sale window. Each tier can have a start and end time, which is how you run an early-bird: one tier that closes on a date, and a regular tier that opens the same moment.
• Per-order limit. Five per order by default, to slow down resellers. Raise it for family bundles if you need to.

Keep the tier list short. Two or three tiers cover almost every Ghanaian event; more than that slows both buyers and ushers. For guidance on pricing church programmes specifically, see the church event ticketing guide.

What buyers pay, and what you receive

On a paid ticket the buyer sees three lines at checkout: the ticket price, a small Edwadzi service fee, and the payment processing fee (currently 1.95% of the order, capped at GHS 30). Both fees are added on top of the ticket price rather than taken out of it, so the amount you set as the price is the amount that reaches you. If you would rather absorb the fees into a round number, price the tier slightly higher and say so on the flyer.

Payment runs through Paystack and accepts cards as well as MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, and AT Money. For Ghanaian audiences, mobile money will be most of your volume.

When the money reaches you

Every sale is split at the moment the buyer pays: the ticket price goes to your Paystack subaccount and the fees go to Edwadzi. There is no holding period on the platform side, and no manual payout request. Paystack then settles your subaccount to your bank on its standard schedule for Ghanaian merchants, typically within a business day or two. Your organizer dashboard shows tickets sold and revenue per tier as sales come in.

Reaching buyers who do not have data

A meaningful share of any Ghanaian audience is on a basic phone or is careful with data. Edwadzi supports full ticket purchase over USSD at *928*24#: the buyer dials in, enters your event code, picks a tier, and approves a mobile money prompt. Tickets arrive by SMS. This is a Pro-tier feature; once it is switched on for the event you get a short numeric code to print on posters. The USSD buying guide is written for your attendees, so share that link directly.

Promo codes, comps, and transfers

Three tools cover the requests every organizer gets. Promo codes give a percentage or fixed discount to whoever enters them, useful for early supporters or partner organisations. Complimentary tickets let you issue a ticket to a sponsor, speaker, or elder without a payment, and it shows up in your counts like any other ticket. And buyers can transfer a ticket to someone else by email, so a guest who cannot attend does not have to ask you for a refund.

On the day

Every ticket has a unique code and a QR. Station one or two ushers at the entrance with a phone open on the event's check-in view: they scan the QR, or look the guest up by name or phone number for USSD buyers who only have an SMS. Each ticket is marked used the moment it is scanned, so a screenshot forwarded to three friends only gets one person in. The check-in view also shows you a live attendance count, which is the number your caterer will ask for.

Common questions

Does it cost anything to create an event or sell free tickets? No. Creating an event is free, and free tickets carry no fees at all. Fees only apply when a paid ticket is sold.

Who pays the fees on a paid ticket? The buyer. At checkout the ticket price, a small service fee, and the payment processing fee are itemised separately, and the organizer receives the full face value of the ticket.

When do I get paid?Each sale is split at the moment of payment: your share goes straight to your Paystack subaccount and settles to your bank on Paystack's standard schedule. Edwadzi does not hold ticket money.

Do buyers need an Edwadzi account? No. Guests can check out with a name and email address, plus a phone number if they want an SMS copy. USSD buyers get their tickets by SMS alone.