Editorial Team @ Vihaya Events
Student committees run on borrowed budgets, so "free" is the first filter. But free means different things — free to use, free for free events, or free until you sell a ticket — and the difference decides whether you finish the year in surplus. Here is what is genuinely available to Indian student organisers, and how to tell the three apart.
On pricing: platform pricing changes and several Indian platforms do not publish it. We name a competitor's rate only where there is a source; otherwise we tell you what to ask. Last reviewed August 2026.
The three kinds of "free"
| Type | What it means | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Free tool | No cost, but no ticketing or payments | No capacity control, no QR entry |
| Free for free events | Full ticketing at zero cost while you charge nothing | Confirm there is no per-registration charge |
| Free tier | Limited version of a paid product | Attendee caps and paywalled check-in |
The trap is the third one. A "free tier" often caps attendees or puts QR check-in behind the paid plan — and you discover that the week of the fest, which is the worst possible moment to migrate.
What to check before you commit
- Is there a per-registration charge on a free event? The single biggest cost difference for student organisers, and rarely on the pricing page.
- Is QR check-in included at your price point? Or is it a paid feature?
- Is there an attendee cap? Some free tiers stop at 50 or 100.
- Can you export your data? You need a CSV for the venue, catering and your report.
- Does the checkout work on a phone? Nearly all your traffic is mobile on campus data.
The options
Vihaya Events
Free events carry no platform fee — no per-ticket charge, no attendee cap, no subscription — and that includes the full stack: QR tickets, scanning, capacity enforcement, waitlist and self-serve certificates. Paid tickets are 1.75–4.5% banded by expected event size, published in full. Built around multi-track fests, team registration and campus logistics. Best for: college fests, hackathons, workshops.
Google Forms
Free and everyone knows it. Collects responses and nothing else — no ticket, no capacity enforcement, no check-in, no payment verification. Genuinely fine for a 30-person internal session; the wrong tool the moment there is a price or a hard capacity.
Townscript
Established Indian platform, broad event coverage, commission on paid tickets. Reasonable general-purpose option; lighter on fest-specific features like per-track gates. Ask about free-event handling.
KonfHub
Free tier aimed at tech conferences and developer meetups, with speaker and session tooling. Strong in that niche, less suited to cultural or sports events.
Explara
Broad event management feature set, with much of it on paid plans. Worth a look if you have budget; check what falls inside the free tier before planning around it.
Meraevents
Indian ticketing platform with a public discovery marketplace, which can help if you want attendees from outside your campus. Commission-based on paid sales.
Instamojo
Primarily a payments product rather than an events one. You can take money for a registration, but you are assembling ticketing yourself — no check-in, no capacity, no attendee management. Check their current transaction pricing directly.
A realistic recommendation
If your event is free and small and you do not need to know who arrived, use a form. If your event is free and has a hard capacity, or you are handing out anything per head, you need real tickets — and you should not be paying for them. If you are selling tickets, stop comparing headline percentages and compare all-in cost: platform fee, GST on that fee, and the gateway charge together.
Running something free this term? See what a free event includes on Vihaya — the whole ticketing stack, at no cost.
Common questions
- Is any platform completely free for paid events?
- No, and be suspicious of anything claiming otherwise. Payment gateways charge a real cost that no platform absorbs indefinitely. The honest question is how much is added on top of the gateway.
- Can we avoid fees by collecting UPI directly?
- Some committees collect to a personal or club UPI ID and track it manually. It works at small scale and breaks quickly: no automatic reconciliation, no ticket issued, and someone spends the fest matching screenshots to names. It also puts event money through a personal account, which is a bad idea for a handover.
- What if we outgrow the free option mid-fest?
- This is why the attendee-cap question matters up front. Migrating registrations mid-event means reissuing tickets to everyone who already registered. Pick something with no cap even if you expect a small event.