Built for museums operators

Museums ticketing that doesn't charge $0.30 per admission.

Timed-entry general admission, special-exhibit tickets, annual memberships with renewal, school-group invoicing, and donation upsell — core ticketing free forever on the Starter plan, designed for small-to-mid museums that don't need Tessitura.

We've been there

What museums operators keep telling us.

The three Monday-morning headaches we optimize away. If you run a museums business, you've probably had all three this quarter.

Per-ticket fees are a staff salary

$0.30 × 180k tickets = $54k/year. TripStub charges no per-ticket fee on any plan, and the Starter plan is $0 outright. For most regional museums that's a substitute-teacher program or an exhibit conservation budget line.

Timed entry without overbooking

Special exhibits need gentle pacing — not a hard 'slot sold out' cap. TripStub's soft-capacity timed-entry lets you release tickets per 15-minute window and throttle when you see a queue building.

School groups are a different checkout

Schools pay by purchase order on net-30 terms, not credit card. Your current ticketing platform makes your education coordinator call the school every time. TripStub's school-group flow is quote → accept → invoice.

"ACME at $0.30/ticket × 180,000 tickets/year is a full-time staff salary. What we actually need is timed-entry, memberships, school groups, and gate check-in that works. Not a hardware partnership. Not a Salesforce integration. Just the core ticketing."

Composite museum director, Recurring theme from our regional-museum conversations

What you'll actually use

The museums operator's toolbox.

The core toolbox is free for everyone on the Starter plan. Where a feature belongs to Growth or Scale, we say so below — and it's always a flat monthly rate, never a per-booking fee, never a commission.

Timed-entry admission (soft-capacity)

Release X tickets per 15-minute window. Soft-cap means the system warns, doesn't hard-stop, so your ops team can manage the actual throughput.

Annual memberships (rolling out, Growth plan)

Renewal automation, tier gating (student / individual / family / patron), blackout dates for special exhibits, gift memberships with a custom message at activation. Shipping this quarter.

School-group invoicing (rolling out, Growth plan)

Quote with custom per-student pricing, chaperone comps, and bus drop-off window. Accept → auto-invoice with net-30 terms. Tracked per school district.

Donation upsell at checkout

'Add a $5 contribution' optional line at checkout. Tracked separately from ticket revenue for your accounting team. Tax-deductible receipt auto-emailed if you're a 501(c)(3).

Gate check-in + member lookup

Scan QR at the gate, or type the member's name to look up their annual pass. Works offline — no WiFi required at a lobby desk.

Exhibit ticketing + member pre-sale

Special exhibit ticketed separately with member-first pre-sale windows. Members see availability two weeks before the public does.

Distribution

The channels museums operators actually book on.

Push inventory once. Let availability fan out to the channel managers and OTAs your travelers already use. Channel-manager distribution is a flat-rate Growth module — no plan takes a per-booking cut.

Museum association directories

Own-site ticketing

Google Things to Do

TripAdvisor Attractions

Local tourism boards

Reciprocal-network directories (coming)

The first 100 museums get migration help

If you're running on ACME, Blackbaud Altru, or a homegrown system and want to switch, email [email protected]. For the first 100 museums migrating, Boris personally oversees the CSV import, membership migration, and cutover. The migration help is free — no catch; we want a reputation with regional museums.

The math

What museums operators save.

Run the numbers on your actual volume. Most operators we talk to save $8k–$35k/year just by skipping the per-booking fee.

Here's the honest math for a small operator running 100 bookings / month at $80 avg.

TripStub Starter

You

Monthly

$0 / mo

Per booking

$0

Est. annual

$0

  • The whole core platform
  • Unlimited bookings & team
  • Full API access
  • Flat-rate upgrades — $0 per booking on every plan

Typical SaaS

Monthly

$99 – $499 / mo

Per booking

0 – 2%

Est. annual

~$2,400 – $8,000

  • Core features
  • Limited integrations
  • Custom channels (paid add-on)
  • Advanced reporting (top tier)

OTA commission model

Monthly

$0 / mo

Per booking

15 – 30%

Est. annual

~$14,400 – $28,800

  • Marketplace traffic
  • You own the customer? No.
  • You set the price? Not really.

Ready to run your museums business without the tax?

60-second signup. No credit card. Starter is free forever — and no plan charges per booking.