It comes up in every committee meeting where a bazaar is being planned, and it comes up late, when everyone is already tired: so what do we actually charge?
Then someone says “it was 15 per cent last year”, someone else says “the next parish takes three euros plus ten per cent”, and because nobody has the figures behind any of it, last year wins. That is how fee schedules come about: by carrying forward.
For the record, so you know where this comes from: I don’t organise bazaars. I build the software they are organised with, which means I see a lot of fee models side by side. What strikes me is that almost every discussion turns on one number — the commission percentage. And on its own that number says remarkably little.
There are four levers, not one
Four models turn up in practice. They don’t exclude one another, they can be combined, and most bazaars do exactly that.
The entry fee. A fixed amount per seller, due on registration — a few euros is common. It is the only income that is certain: it does not depend on anything selling on the day. That is worth a lot when budgeting, because the hall and the label printing have to be paid for however the day goes.
The commission. A percentage of the proceeds. The fairest model in the sense that those who earn are those who pay — and the riskiest, because on a rainy Saturday both sides come up short at the same time.
The per-article fee. An amount per submitted article, whether or not it sells. The side effect is the actual purpose: someone paying for every item thinks twice about whether the worn-out leggings really need to come along. Where tables overflow and sorting drags on, this is the most effective brake.
The tiered fee. An amount per started batch of articles — say five euros per twenty-five items. It works much like the per-article fee but is easier to explain and collect at the registration desk, because the amounts are round.
Two numbers that move in opposite directions
Now the part that is missing from those discussions.
Take a mid-sized bazaar: 120 sellers, each submitting 30 items, half of which sell, at an average of €3.50. That is 3,600 articles submitted, 1,800 sold and €6,300 of revenue, most of which belongs to the sellers.
Three models on top of that:
| Model A | Model B | Model C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry fee | €3.00 | — | €5.00 |
| Commission | 15 % | 20 % | 10 % |
| Income | €1,305 | €1,260 | €1,230 |
| Share of proceeds | 21 % | 20 % | 20 % |
And here is the thing that would end the meeting in five minutes if it were on the table: the three models are €75 apart. The question of whether it should be 10, 15 or 20 per cent still gets half an hour.
What does differ sharply is something else. Model B takes nothing from anyone who sells nothing. Model C asks five euros from the grandmother who brings four babygrows and sells one of them — she ends up paying more in fees than she took in. Both models bring the organisation almost the same amount. For the people in the hall they are two completely different bazaars.
The number nobody works out
Which is why I think a second figure matters more than the percentage:
What share of the total proceeds ends up with the organisation?
All fees together, divided by revenue. For Model A above that is 21 per cent — even though the label says “15 per cent commission”. The entry fee is not in the percentage, but it very much is in how the sellers experience it.
That number is uncomfortable, and that is exactly what makes it useful. It is what gets discussed over the garden fence on the Monday after. And it is the only figure that compares honestly between two bazaars — percentages attached to models with different fixed fees cannot.
A good decision needs both numbers side by side: what comes in, and what you take for it. Optimise only the first and you inevitably land on the most expensive model.
What the software costs — even when that is awkward
The sum is only complete with the costs. With MukiBasar that is either €0.06 per sold article, or €199 per year for unlimited articles and events. For the bazaar above: €108 on usage, or — with two bazaars a year — just under €100 apportioned. From 3,317 articles sold per year the annual price is cheaper.
And because this would otherwise read as advertising: there are providers charging a flat fee per event, and for one single large bazaar they are cheaper than we are. If you sell 4,000 articles once a year and nothing else, a flat fee serves you better. If you run something twice a year, plus a small summer bazaar, and want registrations, labels and settlement in one place all year, we serve you better. That is not modesty, it is just the arithmetic — and you should do it with your figures, not mine.
Work it out once and the discussion is over
That is exactly why there is now a fee calculator. You enter your seller count, the articles per person, the estimated sell-through rate and the average price, and put up to three fee models side by side. For each one it shows the income and the share of the sellers’ proceeds, plus the software cost and, if you want, what another provider would cost with your figures.
The calculator is free to use, nothing is stored, and your entries never leave your browser.
If you want to take it into the next meeting, you can additionally unlock a decision sheet: one printable page with your assumptions, all models side by side, the provider comparison and a line for the date and a signature. For that you sign up to our newsletter — tips on running a bazaar, unsubscribable with one click in any email. Please note that the newsletter is written in German.
And if you end up at “same as last year” after all: at least it will be because you worked it out.