StubHub · CHI Company Investigation · Ticketing
Conclusion: Supports on the buyer side · Partially supports on the seller side · No score assigned
StubHub tested what happened when fees were hidden until checkout. Customers spent more.
A randomized experiment found back-end fees increased spending by about 21%. StubHub then used that model across the US marketplace for roughly a decade. During COVID, it also changed cash-refund guarantees for customers who had already purchased.
The 21% and 14% figures come from a peer-reviewed field experiment on StubHub, co-authored by StubHub’s head of data science. The $20M+ figure is from the California Attorney General’s 2024 settlement, entered without admission.1,10
From January 2014 to August 2015 StubHub showed all-in prices, with mandatory fees included from the first screen. In a large randomized field experiment, users were split between all-in prices and the same prices with fees shown only at checkout. The final price was the same in both. Only the moment of disclosure changed.1
Customers spent about one-fifth more when fees were revealed later. The paper attributes part of the increase to customers choosing more expensive tickets, and reports that obscuring a fee of about 15% raised revenue by about 21%. Shortly after the experiment, StubHub moved the whole US site to back-end fees.1,28
How to read this. The experiment measures how purchasing changed with the timing of fee disclosure. It does not by itself establish what any individual customer understood or intended. It was co-authored by StubHub’s head of data science and published in Marketing Science.1
Historical US checkout flow — ended May 2025. Reconstructed from the DC Attorney General’s complaint (2024 flow) and screenshots in the FTC complaint (14 May 2025). The fee-exclusive price drove the first screens; mandatory fees appeared at the end.2,7
Per-ticket price without mandatory fees; sorting used that price.
The pop-up repeated the fee-exclusive price.
A 10-minute timer; per DC, no price shown again until the end.
“Over a dozen” screens, per DC; contact details required first.
Mandatory “Fulfillment and Service Fees” appear.
Each example stands alone. They come from different complaints and transactions and are not a general fee rate. StubHub publishes no fee schedule: its support page says there is “no set percentage” and fees adjust with ticket price, time to event and supply and demand.2,7,8,16
Moving to back-end fees in 2015 was a design choice, not a breach of any US federal rule then in force. The federal all-in requirement took effect in May 2025. StubHub publicly supported an industry-wide mandate and argued that showing all-in prices alone was a competitive disadvantage; the FTC complaint corroborates both points.2
Mandatory fees included in the first price shown, January 2014 to August 2015.
Company researchRandomized test on the StubHub site.
Company researchFees shown at checkout across the site.
Company researchCompetition Bureau consent agreement: all mandatory fees in Canadian prices; C$1.3M penalty.
FindingFTC Fees Rule in effect 12 May 2025; StubHub display fixed by about 15 May.
Rule · court orderStipulated order entered 10 April 2026.
SettledUnder the FanProtect Guarantee, a cancelled event meant a full cash refund, including fees. On 25 March 2020 StubHub replaced that with a 120% credit by default and denied cash refunds except where the law required them. The change applied to customers who had bought under the earlier terms.10,11
The guarantee promised a full refund if an event was cancelled.
Credit by default; cash only where legally required. Applied to earlier purchases.
Cash refund or keep the credit, for tickets bought before 25 March 2020, after state investigations opened.
Context. StubHub’s stated reason was a near-total loss of revenue and an inability to recoup money from sellers it had already paid. It began cash refunds in May 2021, before the consent judgments were entered. The settlements require StubHub not to change refund terms for purchased tickets without consent, and were entered without admission. Minnesota’s share was $1.87M to 5,500 consumers.11,12,13,29
No settlement below contains an admission. Canada’s Competition Bureau reached a conclusion; the FTC and state cases were resolved without adjudication or remain allegations.3,9
Complaint filed 9 April 2026. The FTC alleged StubHub phased in Fees Rule compliance after the rule took effect, leaving some high-traffic ticket categories until later.
The injunction is permanent and broader than the three-day conduct window.2,3,4
The Bureau concluded StubHub advertised ticket prices consumers could not pay, because mandatory fees were added later. An optional fee filter did not cure the impression. StubHub agreed to include all mandatory fees in Canadian prices.9
Refunds for purchases before 25 March 2020; refund-policy changes must be disclosed before purchase; civil penalties suspended on compliance in the 2021 judgments; $295,000 penalty in California.10,11
Both cases remain allegations. Neither court has decided whether StubHub broke the law. A separate California class action on drip pricing, Wang v. StubHub, settled in 2021 without injunctive relief.14
Sellers are generally paid 5–8 business days after the event, not after the sale. Until March 2020 StubHub typically paid sellers within about a week of the sale. The change moved event-cancellation risk onto sellers, and sellers reported in 2020 that it applied to sales already made.17,30,31
The figures show the scale of proceeds StubHub holds between sale and payout. StubHub reported $22.8M of interest income in the first half of 2026, but the filing does not attribute that income to seller proceeds, and CHI does not either. Refunds payable to buyers for already-cancelled events stood at $102.4M on the same date.14
Other payout conditions. From 1 January 2025 US sellers must provide a taxpayer ID to be paid, and proof of transfer may be required. Both are disclosed; CHI gives them little weight.17
StubHub’s current support text says a seller who does not fulfil an order is charged whichever is greater: 100% of the price of the tickets sold, or the full amount StubHub incurs to remedy the issue for the buyer, which may include comparable replacement tickets, vouchers and shipping.16
Whichever is greater. The charge is at least the full ticket price even where StubHub’s remedy costs less, has no stated cap where it costs more, and can exceed what the seller would have received. StubHub chooses the remedy, so it also sets the cost.
The choice of replacement, its price, and collection: the card on file is charged. Press cases show deductions from unrelated payouts, reversed after media contact; the US set-off wording itself was not retrieved.16
The charge serves a real reliability function: StubHub says sellers are paid “only if a buyer gets in the door”, and the charge funds buyer replacements. An earlier FanProtect text paid sellers where a delivery problem was not their fault. No regulator has established systematic abuse.
StubHub does not issue most tickets or run the events. Once a buyer has paid and a seller has sold, neither can easily route around it.
The current cancellation terms are disclosed; how the guarantee performs under stress is now being tested.14,18
When a seller fails, StubHub may supply comparable tickets, a refund or a credit. Litigation coverage reports that the terms leave comparability to StubHub’s discretion; CHI did not retrieve the current legal text, so this page does not quote it.27
Reported via litigation coverageWhat CHI is watching. FIFA’s transfer failures are not StubHub conduct. The control points that are StubHub’s alone: accepting the listings, marketing them as guaranteed, replacement decisions, refund handling and customer recovery after failure.
CHI’s institutional signal taxonomy, applied without forcing a fit. The related-party seller, seller financing and the World Cup investigations are deliberately not mapped.
The retroactive COVID refund change, a post-sale seller charge of at least 100% of the ticket price, and pay-after-event applied to existing sales in 2020. Late-fee pricing also fits, with a caveat: it is best described as price-presentation deception unless CHI treats commitment built inside one checkout as a switching cost.
An automatic cash refund on cancellation was replaced by a credit-first default, with cash still available on request.
The fee-label allegations do not show a previously included entitlement being unbundled and resold.
No regulatory-recovery or pass-through fee identified.
Listed so the evidence can be weighed, not to soften the finding. Hostile structure is not the same as proven misconduct.
None of the pending matters establishes misconduct. CHI did not inspect the live StubHub site for this investigation.
Final CHI assessment · Supports / Partially supports
StubHub’s own experiment found that revealing mandatory fees at checkout raised spending by about 21%, and the US marketplace used back-end pricing from 2015 until the federal rule in 2025. In March 2020 it changed refund economics for customers who had already paid; state regulators forced the correction.
Today StubHub holds more than $1.2 billion of seller proceeds until after events, charges sellers at least 100% of the ticket price when an order fails, and controls the buyer’s remedy. Those terms are disclosed and have a reliability rationale. World Cup guarantee performance is under investigation, not established misconduct.
Ticketmaster’s leverage is access to the event. StubHub’s is custody of the transaction — the display, the cash, and the guarantee. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned.
StubHub tested what happened when fees were hidden until checkout.
Customers spent more.
Sources
Every statement on this page comes from the StubHub CHI research memo (final, 12 October 2026) and traces to a source below. Primary sources lead. Secondary marks reporting used only where primary evidence does not reach.
Limits carried onto this page. The DC and Pennsylvania cases, the World Cup matters and the related-party allegations are unproven. The current US Seller Policies and the December 2025 Global User Agreement could not be retrieved; seller terms here come from StubHub’s support pages and filings. The replacement-discretion wording is sourced from litigation coverage, not the legal text. A 2026 UK fine for drip pricing concerned StubHub UK, a separate company since 2021, and is not attributed to StubHub here. CHI did not inspect the live StubHub site.
Status. Research frozen 12 October 2026. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned; scoring is reserved for a later calibration stage.
Reading this beside the rest of the index
StubHub is assessed as an intermediary between ticket buyers and sellers. Ticketmaster shows the primary-market side of the same industry; Hopper shows fees at checkout in travel. Read the methodology for why no score is assigned yet.