Best 9 Sites Like StubHub for Cheap Concert and Sports Tickets

Tired of StubHub‘s high prices and lack of ticket verification? These 9 alternatives offer concert tickets, sports tickets, or admission to your other favorite events, with better customer service, cheaper tickets, or better ways to verify the sale.

StubHub.com is one of the world’s largest secondary ticket marketplaces. For buyers, it’s an easy and convenient way to get tickets without making a trip to a physical box office, and it’s great for getting tickets to events that may be sold out anyway. All tickets are backed by guarantees, too. For sellers, it’s an easy and fast way to get a bit of money out of tickets that they can’t (or don’t want to) use anymore. They can choose a convenient method of getting paid for their unwanted tickets, or even donate their proceeds to charity!

The main issues with it are that anyone can become a seller, so they can list tickets for pretty much any price that they want, and some tickets have to be delivered by email or courier service, possibly because the seller doesn’t even have them yet; this cuts down on StubHub’s reliability a bit, despite their guarantees to protect you.

If you’re looking for sports tickets or concert ticket marketplace sites like StubHub that emphasize low prices (or at least value for money), try VividSeats.com, SeatGeek.com, or TicketLiquidator.com. If your top concern is the validity and reliability of your tickets, try TicketsNow.com, Razorgator.com, or TicketNetwork.com. If you need a bit more information to help you decide, we can teach you about the following things:

9 alternatives to StubHub for cheap tickets
Competitor comparison table: best feature, verified sales, and more
How do I tell if I’m getting ripped off?
What’s the difference between P2P resale, scalpers, and secondary ticket websites?
Other FAQs about ticket reselling
Other great articles about tickets and watching sporting events

If you’re ready, here are the 9 best sites like StubHub that might cater to whatever your priorities are when buying live concert tickets, sport tickets, or other tickets for your event.

9 alternatives to StubHub for cheap tickets

1. SeatGeek

SeatGeek.com is one of the more interesting StubHub alternatives in that the tickets and prices that it lists are mainly from other online ticket vendors (like the ones in this list), as it acts like a ticket search engine for you. Its “DealScore” algorithm gives each ticket listing a rating based on its price versus its popularity and seat quality. This helps you to make sure that you’re getting value for your money when you buy your tickets. SeatGeek has also introduced a system that lets users re-sell their tickets on the website.

2. eBay

eBay.com actually owns StubHub, but it can be used as an alternative to StubHub anyway, since it allows for the buying and selling of tickets (among other things). One of the main reasons that you might want to use eBay for buying tickets is that you can bid on items in auctions, or submit price offers for them. This means that you are able to get your tickets at discounted prices, instead of having to pay the face value. However, you may not be able to get tickets electronically as frequently; this may mean that you have to wait for a seller to email them to you or send them to you by courier, which may be less reliable.

For a tour of how to use eBay to buy, bid for, or haggle over tickets and more, visit our eBay course!

3. Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster.com is one of the largest event ticket distributors in North America (if not the world), and is such one of the biggest StubHub competitors. It sells tickets made available directly by event venues, and so it avoids artificial mark-up from people looking to re-sell tickets to popular events (like they may do on StubHub). However, Ticketmaster has been criticized for adding its own large mark-ups to ticket prices through numerous selling fees.

4. TicketNetwork

TicketNetwork.com is the parent company of Ticket Liquidator, so it operates in a similar manner as a StubHub competitor. However, only qualified and vetted sellers (from the U.S.) can operate on TicketNetwork, but that means that you’ll usually get tickets reliably and at a good price. Like Ticket Liquidator, TicketNetwork is so confident that you’ll have the right tickets at the right time that they’ll refund you if something doesn’t go right with your purchase.

5. Ticket Liquidator

TicketLiquidator.com is a StubHub alternative that runs on a bit of a unique setup. As opposed to other similar websites, Ticket Liquidator doesn’t operate as a broker between you and ticket sellers. Instead, it provides ticket sellers with all of the tools necessary to directly connect with you and negotiate a ticket sale.

One of the downsides of this system is that it’s tough to become a seller on Ticket Liquidator, as it comes with a stringent set of checks and balances. On the upside, though, as a buyer, Ticket Liquidator can often get you cheaper prices, and is fairly reliable. In fact, it’s so confident that your tickets will be on time, valid, and correct that it will give you a 100% refund (or more) if something’s not right!

6. Razorgator

Another ticket resale website like StubHub, Razorgator.com has a similar selling guarantee. Your tickets bought on Razorgator will always be on time, get you entry into the event, and will be the same or better as they were listed, or your money back. Razorgator takes your security very seriously, and is very upfront about how its website – and the secondary ticket market in general – works. This has earned it an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, as well as many news outlets.

7. Seatwave

Seatwave.com is a TicketMaster subsidiary and one of the most popular secondary ticket marketplaces in Europe. It’s fairly reliable to buy from due to guarantees similar to those on StubHub and other websites like it. That is, your tickets will be on time for an event, valid for the event, and the same as (or better than) what you ordered, or else you will get replacement tickets or a refund. This guarantee also applies if your event is cancelled and not rescheduled.

8. TicketsNow

TicketsNow.com, another Ticketmaster sub-site, this alternative to StubHub relies on Ticketmaster’s patented verification technology to make sure that your tickets are genuine. When you buy certain tickets from TicketsNow, they will verify the existing bar code for the ticket, and then replace it with a new bar code that is also valid. This system allows you to be absolutely sure that your tickets are legitimate. And, like other websites like StubHub, they will refund your money if your tickets are late, invalid, or significantly different than listed, or if the event that they are for is cancelled and not rescheduled.

9. Vivid Seats

VividSeats.com is another online secondary ticket marketplace that is similar to StubHub. Like Razorgator, it has a very good reputation with both the ticket sale industry and buyers who have needed help from their customer service department. A recent study put it head-to-head with StubHub, and while Vivid Seats isn’t quite as easy-to-use as StubHub, it has comparable buyer protection, and its prices tend to be a bit cheaper.

Competitor comparison table: best feature, verified sales, and more

Website	Best feature	Verified?	Cheap?	Customer service
Read More	Gets you the lowest price with a search engine	No	Yes	POOR
Read More	Allows bidding on tickets to pay what you want	No	Yes	POOR
Read More	Licensed tickets - no fraud possible	Yes	No	GOOD
Read More	Accepts multiple forms of payment for tickets	No	Yes	GOOD
Read More	Website is easy to use and forward with added fees	No	Yes	POOR
Read More	Is known for listing "hard-to-get" tickets	No	Yes	GREAT
Read More	Verified by Ticketmaster so fraud is impossible	Yes	No	GOOD
Read More	Verified by Ticketmaster so fraud is impossible	Yes	No	GREAT
Read More	100% Buyer Guarantee	No	Yes	GOOD

*Verified means the tickets are verified using a barcode – some websites do this while others simply guarantee you a refund if your tickets are not legitimate and on time. Most websites that don’t verify still offer a money-back guarantee, including all listed in this article.

How do I tell if I’m getting ripped off?

With ticket sale and resale sites, you need to determine how the website verifies its sellers, and how they gain access to real, legitimate tickets. If you’re using a website with unverified users as sellers, you need to see an image of the tickets to ensure they are the real deal.

Some of the best tips you can use to make sure you don’t get ripped off with ticket sale sites are:

Look for the guarantees – Use sites that offer guarantees for your money. If they don’t, choose another site that has verification methods for its tickets and sellers.
Check for a better price – Make sure you look at a few other websites selling tickets in the same seating area for the same event; that way you can tell if the person is trying to rip you off – even at the last minute.
Look for a photo of the tickets – If you’re buying from an unlicensed seller, make sure you see proof of what you’re buying – otherwise you might be paying for nothing.
Don’t wait until the last minute – You are far more likely to have to pay astronomical prices if you wait until hours before the event – the sellers know you are desperate, so it’s a sellers’ market.

If you want to learn more about determining if your tickets are legitimate, check out this helpful guide from SeatGeek.

What’s the difference between P2P resale, scalpers, and secondary ticket websites?

Websites that sell tickets vary in their format, but typically fall into four categories: licensed sale on websites (or in box office), P2P (person-to-person), secondary tickets resale websites and aggregators, and scalpers. Each method has it merits, but here is the gist about each:

1. Licensed sale on websites

These websites are licensed and approved by the venues promoting the event, and sell tickets directly from the venue to the person making the purchase.

Pros: The tickets are always guaranteed and verified.
Cons: They are usually far more expensive than any other method of buying tickets.
Example sites: Ticketmaster, SeatGeek

2. P2P sales

“Person-to-person,” meaning one person who already bought the ticket in a legitimate way, is selling it to someone else, typically because they can no longer attend the event themselves.

Pros: Prices are typically fair, as the person is looking to get back the amount they paid in the first place.
Cons: The person may not have ever actually possessed a legitimate ticket, so their listing for a sale could be fraudulent.
Example sites: eBay, TicketLiquidator, TicketNetwork, SeatGeek

3. Secondary ticket resale websites

Ticket resale sites don’t purchase tickets directly from the venue, but instead, facilitate the re-sale of tickets acquired in various ways, by its users – usually with an emphasis on sold-out events, or to facilitate incredible deals.

Pros: Prices are cheaper while safety is somewhat regulated by the website.
Cons: Listings for sales can be fraudulent, and typically slightly more expensive than standard P2P sales.
Example sites: StubHub, RazorGator, TicketsNow, VividSeats, SeatWave, SeatGeek

4. Scalpers

“Scalpers” are an alternative to online ticket shopping, where people offer last-minute tickets to events while physically standing outside or near the venue, only hours before the event begins.

Pros: If you wait long enough, you can get very low prices for the tickets.
Cons: You have absolutely no control over the set price, not quantity of available seats, or seating together – you simply get to choose from what is available.

Other important FAQs about ticket resale marketplaces

Which sites are best for concert tickets?

SeatGeek
Ticketmaster
TicketLiquidator
Razorgator
Seatwave
eBay

Which sites are best for sporting event tickets?

SeatGeek
VividSeats
TicketsNow
TicketNetwork
eBay

Are ticket resale sites ever safe to use?

Ticket resale sites are safe to use if you practice basic diligence against common scams. Don’t ever release payment for something when there is no proof that it exists, and it’s always safer to work with a website that guarantees your tickets, and refunds you if you fall victim to fraud on their site.