GUIDE · WHAT IT COSTS
What festival accreditation software actually costs.
Almost nobody in this category publishes a price, which is why you are reading this. Here is what is published, what it means as you grow, and what ours is. We have put our own numbers in the same table as everyone else's.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Published prices in this category run from free to about 9,500 pounds a year, and the number matters far less than the basis. Per event pricing multiplies across a season, per seat pricing multiplies across a team, and per badge pricing multiplies every time somebody loses a laminate. Bloop charges £1,450 to £9,500 a year on unique accredited people, free to 100.
THE FIVE WAYS VENDORS CHARGE
The basis matters more than the number.
Two quotes that look similar in year one can differ by a factor of five by year three, entirely because of how they count. Work out which of these you are being sold before you compare any figures.
Per event
You pay a licence for each event, usually annually, sometimes with a pass ceiling on top.
WORKS WHEN One large annual festival, where the licence is simply a line in that event budget.
WATCH FOR A season. Five events on a per-event licence is five licences, and the number that looked reasonable in isolation stops being reasonable when you multiply it.
Per seat
You pay per user who needs access to the system, with tiers stepping up the seat count.
WORKS WHEN A small core team where one or two people run accreditation start to finish.
WATCH FOR Growth sideways rather than upwards. The moment production, security, catering and the bar all want to see the list, you are either upgrading or sharing a login, and sharing a login destroys your audit trail.
Per badge or per credential
A platform fee plus a unit price for each badge printed or issued.
WORKS WHEN Predictable, high-margin events where the badge cost is passed through.
WATCH FOR Reissues. Every lost pass, every name change and every crew swap is another unit, and crew churn on a build week is not an edge case.
Per unique person, per year
You pay for each distinct human accredited across a rolling period, counted once however many of your events they work.
WORKS WHEN A season, a tour or a venue programme where the same crew recur across shows.
WATCH FOR A single event with a very large one-off workforce, where you are paying an annual meter for a week of work. This is our model, and we tell people when it is the wrong one.
Percentage of transactions
A subscription plus a percentage of money moving through the system, typically ticketing or vendor invoicing.
WORKS WHEN Small operations that want ticketing and accreditation in one place and have low transaction volume.
WATCH FOR Scale. A percentage is invisible at 10,000 pounds of throughput and material at 500,000, and it is charged on top of the payment processor.
OURS, IN FULL
What Bloop costs, and what it counts.
We count each person once across every event you run in a rolling twelve months. The same rigger working five of your shows is one person, not five.
GATE
Free
FOREVER
up to 100 people
CREW
£1,450
PER YEAR
up to 500 people
SITE
£3,900
PER YEAR
up to 2,000 people
CIRCUIT
£9,500
PER YEAR
up to 10,000 people
The compliance layer is a further £2,900 a year, flat at any tier, and it is not available yet: it carries an availability date of 1 October 2026 and a waitlist rather than a buy button. We would rather tell you that here than have you find it out after a purchase order.
BEFORE YOU SIGN
Six questions worth asking any vendor.
- 01What exactly is metered, and what happens the first time I exceed it mid-season? A meter with no published overage is a renegotiation waiting for the week of your show.
- 02Is the price per event or per year, and what does a second event cost? Ask for the number for your actual calendar, not for one event.
- 03How many people can log in, and what does the next one cost? Seat limits are where cheap tiers become expensive ones.
- 04What is charged per unit: badges, scans, devices, reprints, integrations, SMS? Add up the units for a real crew list before comparing subscriptions.
- 05What does onboarding cost, and is support included or tiered? An hourly onboarding rate on the entry tier is a real cost, not a footnote.
- 06If I leave, what do I get back and in what format? Your accreditation history is your evidence. Find out whether you can export it before you need it, not after.