Certain Event Automation Software vs. Eventbrite vs. Xola

Certain is great for easy-to-use registration sites. It collects all information and user can upload reports easily. It's great to copy the event if you are doing an annual one where the information doesn't drastically change. I love being able to create the link in under an hour and send it out to all attendees. I can also send one large email out to all participants

Incentivized

This software is very well suited for a variety of larger events, like lectures and performances. I have appreciated setting it up and allowing it to run around the clock for our participants, which ultimately provides a smoother experience. However, I probably wouldn't recommend it for events where you're expecting a smaller audience. It can take a while to set up exactly as you'd like, and it may not be worth the time if you're expecting 30 people or less (depending on how much info you're trying to gather, of course).

Incentivized

Xola is suited for small, medium, and large businesses that handle internet bookings, direct telephone bookings, and concierge/affiliate bookings. It tracks scheduling, payments, affiliate billing, can message customers through SMS or email, can hold notes on clients as any good CRM should, can be automated to do many features through the integration of apps.

Incentivized

• Easy to use and create
• Easy to pull reports once event has been sent to attendees
• Great way to gather a lot of information

Incentivized

• Eventbrite is a well-known and trusted place for purchasing tickets. That trust helps us sell tickets. It also eliminates the need for integrating some other payment system into a webpage, which would be the alternative.
• Eventbrite makes sending invitations easy. Upload contacts and using contacts from a previous event is very straight-forward. Building emails is simple, since there are a couple of prebuilt templates.
• Discount codes and strategic pricing structures are a significant part of our marketing for events. Eventbrite makes it easy to offer discount codes. We also create several ticket types that include multi-ticket discounts, early-bird type specials and more. Each of which help us reach our audience at the right time with the right price.

Incentivized

• CRM data base.
• Automated texts and emails for reviews.
• Tracks billing.
• Keeps schedule.
• Tracks guides and their availability to be scheduled.
• Quickly adjusts seating and pricing.

Incentivized

• Dashboards: It's quite important for leadership to get a visual of what their event registrants look like (with graphs, for example). Now, Certain does not present a feature to create dashboards, so we have to export their reports and create our dashboards ourselves.
• UX when setting up an event: Now this can be quite complex, as it's not as easy to use or intuitive. Many different tabs with many different sub-items can present a confusing experience for newcomers when building an event.

Incentivized

• While integration with Facebook is fairly seamless, once you have uploaded the event description to Facebook, any additional revisions must be made on both Eventbrite and Facebook individually. It's not a live integration.
• My initial on boarding was extended by needing to seek information through various blogs, outside users and exploration through the site. More comprehensive training for first timers to the site would be welcome.
• Integration with the manager calendar would help the marketing timeline. It's helpful to get email reminders, but would be fabulous if milestones could be dropped in my calendar.

Incentivized

• Integrating the Viator / Trip Advisor API so that the encrypted customer emails can show up in Xola and the client may be emailed from inside Xola. Viator says that other platforms allow this but Xola is still lagging on this one.
• Some minor tweaks allow the integrated tipping app to append a more customized message.
• Really trying hard to find something else to say because Xola does everything really well.

Incentivized

Excellent platform and easy to use to create events. Eventbrite sets the standard for simple, effective and safe ticketing platforms. Our customers trust Eventbrite and we've always done well when we use this platform for ticketing. They have recently updated some of the virtual connectivity tools which make it even easier to set up and promote virtual events.

Incentivized

Great platform with so many incredible features. It streamlines workflow, communication, messaging, and analyzing data. I know of no other platform that can do what Eventbrite can do for the price or user-friendliness. They also offer great support for new users and integrate well with other platforms (i.e., social media and Sched).

Incentivized

Always willing to help out and they have a ton of information handy on their website for self-service. If you can't find what you're looking for, their support team is quick to help out and provide any assistance you may need.

Incentivized

Just jump in, don't over thinking it, doing it will net the very few basic questions you'll have. There's not much complexity so one doesn't need to plan as if moving a canal. It's as simple as can be.

Incentivized

Sympla or Eventbrite are great for smaller events that don't require a lot of information from your audience or extensive communication from your event owner. They are better suited for those events, since they are easy and quick to set up. Certain comes in for your tradeshows or recurring events, since it presents a calendar view of your field marketing events, as well as full form customization, automation of email sequences, reporting, etc. It's more complex to use, so you might as well hand it over to people who are well used to setting up events.

Incentivized

My "go to" for event registration has always been Constant Contact because they don't charge additional processing fees above the standard transaction. If it's a more basic event where I just need to capture name, email, and payment, I'll continue to use Constant Contact over Eventbrite. However, if it's more complex and requires marketing, I would choose Eventbrite.

Incentivized

Xola has many similar features but in the end, the friendly fast 24/7 free always on and always ready to help customer support blows everyone else away. Many times I have found Xola to be able to expedite a customer issue or confusion with software integration or support for their software in a way that saves $$$ because my reservationists can resolve the issue or their confusion and quickly get back to work.

Incentivized

• Certain helps to deliver a great customer experience, since it facilitates automatic email delivery and your company can keep them connected well before or well after an event.
• Certain presents a wide variety of reports, which perfectly addresses any request for visibility coming from your organization.
• Certain's configuration settings are quite complex, so our newcomers are not comfortable using the software at first.
• In case you need a more visual representation of your audience, Certain, unfortunately, does not generate dashboards.

Incentivized

• We have greater flexibility using Eventbrite than with our previous system. Previously, we could not schedule events or invites to occur at a specific time. If we wanted to promote our event 1-week in advance, our invite would go out based on the date/time of the event.
• Generally, about half the number of people who register for our events actually attend. But there are occasions when we need to limit registrations, something we couldn't do with our previous system.
• Eventbrite allows us to email our registered attendees ahead of an event with further details, or to follow-up with things discussed during our event. It provides yet another way of promoting our next event.

Incentivized

• Increased ROI because of increased efficiencies.
• Increased ROI because helpful and quick 24/7 support via phone or chat when new hires forget their training.
• Increased ROI because billing can be cross checked.

Incentivized