Marathon Registration Platform Fees in India, Compared
Once you get past the event page builder and the registration form, most marathon and road race registration platforms in India look fairly similar. The real difference between them is the fee, and it's usually not visible until an organizer is deep in setup or a runner is already at checkout. Here's what three real platforms actually charge, using each one's own published fee schedule.
What three real platforms charge on a ₹1,000 ticket
Combined platform and payment gateway fee, per ₹1,000 in ticket sales
Source: Townscript Support Center and Explara, Townscript fee schedule and Explara pricing page (2026)
Townscript's own support documentation lays out a 1.99% platform fee plus a flat ₹10, plus a separate 1.99% payment gateway fee, with 18% GST charged on top of both combined, 58.76 on a ₹1,000 ticket once all three pieces are added up. Explara's pricing page lists a flat 4% transaction fee on ticket value through its own gateway. Find Your Finish charges a single flat 2%, with no separate payment gateway line and no GST added on top of it.
Where the difference actually comes from
Townscript and Explara both let an organizer choose who bears the fee, the runner, the organizer, or a split, but the fee itself doesn't shrink depending on who's asked to pay it. It's also structured as multiple line items (platform fee, gateway fee, then GST on the combined total), which is why a runner checking out on those platforms sees a short itemized breakdown rather than one number.
Find Your Finish's flat 2% is the only fee a runner ever sees at checkout. The platform's own commission, 1.5% by default, plus 18% GST on that commission, is deducted from the organizer's payout after the event, not charged to the runner and not itemized as a separate line at checkout at all. It's a smaller total cut across both sides combined, and it's a single number instead of a stacked calculation.
What actually matters beyond the fee percentage
- How fast payouts land, and whether the payout math is visible to you before the money moves, not just after.
- What happens when a runner asks for a refund your event's own policy doesn't automatically cover, whether that's tracked with a deadline or left as an email thread you have to remember to chase.
- Whether discount codes and category-based pricing are built in, or something you're managing in a spreadsheet on the side.
- Whether you can see where people actually drop off between viewing your event and completing a purchase, not just a final registration count.
Fee percentage is the easiest thing to compare because it's a single number, which is exactly why it gets compared first. It's worth comparing, the difference above is real money on every single registration, but it's not the only line item that determines what a platform actually costs you once a race is live and runners start asking questions.
List your event and check the exact runner cost and payout for your own category pricing, before you commit to anything.
List your eventI'll say the obvious caveat first: we're a smaller platform than Townscript, which has been doing this for longer and at a bigger scale across categories well beyond running events. If an organizer's biggest concern is a large support team or a very large existing audience already using one platform, that's a real factor and it isn't a fee-percentage question. But the fee comparison above isn't a rounding difference, it's roughly three times the total cost on the exact same ticket, and it compounds across every single registration for the life of an event. For a 2,000-runner race, that's the difference between a few thousand rupees in combined fees and closer to twenty thousand, money that comes either out of a runner's pocket or an organizer's payout depending on how the toggle is set, but comes out regardless. We built our fee flat and one-sided on purpose, a runner only ever sees one number, because the itemized version is the part of registration platforms that quietly erodes trust the most, and it's the exact thing we heard about most from runners abandoning checkout before we simplified it ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage do marathon registration platforms in India charge?
It varies by platform and isn't a single industry number. Based on each platform's own published fee schedule, Townscript's combined platform and payment gateway fee comes to about 5.88% on a ₹1,000 ticket once its 18% GST is included, Explara publishes a flat 4% transaction fee, and Find Your Finish charges a flat 2% with no GST added on top.
Does Find Your Finish charge a separate payment gateway fee?
No. The 2% checkout fee is the only fee a runner sees. Find Your Finish's own commission (1.5% by default, plus GST on that commission) is deducted from the organizer's payout after the event, not charged to the runner or itemized separately at checkout.
Who pays the registration platform fee, the organizer or the runner?
It depends on the platform. Townscript and Explara both let the organizer choose whether the runner, the organizer, or a split of the two bears the fee. Find Your Finish's flat 2% checkout fee is always runner-side, while its separate organizer commission is always deducted from payout, so neither side needs to configure anything.
Is GST charged on top of the registration fee?
On Townscript, yes, 18% GST is charged on top of its combined platform and payment gateway fee, per its own published fee schedule. Find Your Finish doesn't add GST to the runner-facing 2% checkout fee; GST only applies to the platform's own commission, which is deducted from the organizer's payout, not charged to the runner.
Sources & further reading
- How much are Townscript charges? · Townscript Support Center, 2026
- Explara pricing · Explara, 2026