How to Properly Price Raffle Tickets
A serial entrepreneur, Neal Zeavy serves as the president of Zeavy Development, a commercial restate estate investment and development company based in Seattle, Washington. In addition to that, Neal Zeavy serves as the president of Raffle Administration and NZ Consulting and has been raffle director for several companies and nonprofits.
Companies and nonprofits must determine an appropriate raffle ticket price if they want their event to be successful. When the ticket price is too low, the event may not meet its fundraising goal. Conversely, a ticket price that is too high may discourage guests from buying tickets, thus again preventing an event from reaching its goal.
When determining ticket price, coordinators must think about the number of tickets they plan on selling. Cheaper tickets are often preferable when events want to sell a large amount of tickets. When tickets cost around $1, each person at the raffle buys an average of two to five tickets, thus increasing the total number of ticket sales. On average, guests only purchase one or two tickets when tickets are priced around $5 or $10.
The prizes also determine the price of raffle tickets. Prizes that are relatively low in value are best suited for tickets that are more affordably-priced. Meanwhile, coordinators can set higher ticket prices when prizes are more expensive. For example, $1,000 prizes often have tickets priced between $2 and $5, while $3,000 prizes have ticket prices of up to $10. This matters because guests will be less likely to purchase raffle tickets if they don’t think the potential prize is worth the ticket price.
Finally, coordinators must consider the anticipated cost of the raffle. This includes the cost of printing the tickets, advertising the event, and paying for ticket distribution services. Once this cost is figured out, coordinators can add it to the fundraising goal to figure out how much money the event must generate. Tickets should be priced based on this total amount and the total amount of expected ticket sales.
