Booking Modes: Pay Now vs Request & Approve

Booking Mode controls whether attendees pay immediately at checkout, or submit a request that is approved first. It is set per event, in Manage → Details & dates → Information, under the Advanced section.

Pay Now

The default for every new event. An attendee picks tickets, pays immediately, and is confirmed on the spot.

1. The attendee adds tickets to their cart (held for 15 minutes).
2. They check out and enter payment details.
3. Payment is processed immediately through Stripe.
4. The booking is confirmed and ticket/QR emails go out right away.

• Tickets only count as sold once payment succeeds — there is no reservation without payment, so two attendees racing for the last ticket resolve on whoever pays first.
• An abandoned Pay Now checkout (cart created, never paid) is automatically cleaned up about an hour later.

Request & Approve

The attendee asks for a place and you decide. By default their card is held, not charged, so the money is there the moment you say yes.

1. The attendee picks tickets and enters their card as usual. The amount is authorized — reserved on their card, not taken. Their bank may show it as pending.
2. The request appears in your Orders and approvals queue, and the seats come off public sale immediately.
3. The organizer approves or rejects it:
   • Approve (paid event) — the held amount is taken there and then, the order is confirmed and tickets go out. No payment link, no waiting for the attendee to act.
   • Approve (free event) — the order is confirmed immediately.
   • Reject — the hold is released, the order is cancelled and the attendee is told; a reason (up to 500 characters) can be added and is included in their email.
4. If you leave a request too long the authorization lapses on the bank’s side, the order expires and the seats go back on sale. Decide promptly.

• Nobody is charged before you have reviewed the request — the hold is not a payment, and rejecting releases it.
• An approval request reserves the seats while it waits. Without that, a hundred people could request all hundred tickets and the event would still advertise them as available.
• Holding a card narrows which payment methods the buyer is offered, because not every method can be authorized now and taken later. That is Stripe’s rule, not a setting here.

Settings explained

• Booking Mode — Pay Now or Request & Approve, per event.
• Hold payment on request — on by default. The card is authorized at checkout and taken when you approve. Switch it off and no card is collected up front: you approve first, and the attendee is then emailed a payment link with a countdown. That is the older behaviour, and it is worth keeping if you want the widest choice of payment methods, at the cost of approvals that are never paid for.
• Payment Window After Approval — only used when the hold is off. How long an approved attendee has to pay, from 0.5 to 72 hours.

How to switch modes

1. Open the event's Manage page, then Details & dates → Information.
2. Scroll to the Advanced section and pick Pay Now or Request & Approve.
3. If Request & Approve is chosen, set the payment window.
4. Save. This only affects new bookings from this point on — anything already confirmed, pending, or approved keeps working under the rules it started with.

Good to know

• Both modes apply to free events too — the payment step just disappears: Pay Now confirms the booking instantly on request, and Request & Approve confirms it the moment it is approved (no payment link is sent for a $0 total).
• Switching mode mid-event never retroactively changes bookings already in flight.

Troubleshooting

• An attendee says their approved booking “disappeared” — with the hold off, they missed the payment window and it expired. They need to request again.
• An attendee says they were charged before you approved — they were not. The hold reserves the amount on their card and many banks show that as a pending line; it clears on its own if you reject.
• A buyer sees fewer payment methods than on your other events — expected while the hold is on. Only methods that can be authorized now and taken later are offered.
• Cannot find the Booking Mode setting — it is under Details & dates → Information → Advanced. The event wizard also sets it when you first create an event.

Related

• Orders
• Ticket Types
• Setting Up Stripe Connect