How Line-Up aligns with CMA guidance on pricing transparency

By Emily Childs, Head of Community

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From today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requires ticket sellers to include all mandatory fees in upfront ticket prices. Line-Up supports compliance by default for UK clients, displaying fee-inclusive pricing throughout the booking journey with clear basket breakdowns.

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We are pleased to confirm that Line-Up supports the display of all fee-inclusive prices by default for UK clients. The changes we have made ensure transparent pricing throughout the buyer's booking journey and a clear breakdown in the basket. Aside from a small edit to pricing setup, the updates will require no action from clients and will ensure CMA compliance for per-ticket or transaction fees across the entire booking flow.

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What’s happening?

For those working in ticketing and marketing, it will have been hard to escape the increased focus on price transparency, particularly around the issue of “drip pricing”. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published their latest guidance in November 2025, with a deadline for compliance of mid-February 2026 for ticket sellers.

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The CMA guidance doesn’t introduce any new concepts so much as reinforce their existing stance - customers should be able to understand the true cost of a ticket, with no hidden or late-added fees, before they commit to buying. In short:

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• Mandatory fees, including transaction and delivery fees, must now be included in upfront ticket prices, whenever prices are shown.
• Drip pricing (adding unavoidable fees late in the journey) is not permitted.
• Customers must see the true total price before committing to buy.
• Pricing must remain clear and consistent throughout the booking journey.

The main difference between this guidance, and existing legislation from 2017 is that transactional and delivery fees are now firmly in scope and must also be included in any upfront display of prices.

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Line-Up now displays inclusive prices upfront by default for all UK clients, with clear breakdowns in the basket for any transaction fees - including support for this via the API.

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Ensuring CMA compliance

The Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) has played a key role in bringing the industry together to feed into the CMA’s guidance and support stakeholders towards compliance. Through my role on the STAR Council, I’ve been closely involved in discussions about how the guidance should be interpreted and applied in practice.

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The prevailing view has been reassuring rather than alarmist - many organisations are already presenting pricing in a CMA-compliant fashion and in other instances, there is a strong willingness to comply. The main challenge has been around implementation, particularly in how delivery and transaction fees are included upfront in the total price. For some organisations, this reflects the technical constraints of how their websites or ticketing systems were originally built.

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As a result, many Line-Up clients were already operating in a way that aligned with CMA expectations. That said, guidance only really works when it’s easy to follow - and much of the feedback from the industry consultation was that these changes could make it more confusing for the consumer - specifically where transaction fees are concerned.

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Rather than asking every UK client to review their configuration, we’ve taken the opportunity to make targeted changes that ensure compliance by default. So whether our clients opt to switch to per ticket fees, or continue with transaction fees, they’ll be covered.

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Transparency is key to increasing conversion

Line-Up was built to support complex ticketing pricing and business models. The presentation of prices has been designed to align with CMA guidance on price transparency, ensuring customers see the full cost of their purchase from the very beginning of their booking journey - avoiding any hesitation to purchase at that crucial moment of conversion.

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Whether that’s ticket-level fees or restoration levies, our system has always had flexible options for the display of fees in our online booking flows to serve the different territories we operate in. Clients could choose when to display fees and either display “ticket price inc. fees”, or “ticket price + fees”.

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From 18th February 2026, the default behaviour across all customer facing booking flows in the UK will be:

• All ticket prices displayed to customers during reserved seating selection will be inclusive of any applicable fees
• All ticket prices displayed to customers during GA ticket selection will be inclusive of any fees, with the included fee stated underneath the total price
• Indication in the basket that fees and taxes are included in the total displayed price

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Why transaction fees need a slightly different approach

Transaction and delivery fees have historically been some of the hardest elements to present clearly upfront, particularly where transaction fees are charged once per order rather than per ticket. What’s On listings and calendars usually display a single ticket price, so including the per-transaction fee at that stage could feel confusing - especially when additional tickets are added to the basket.

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The CMA’s guidance now makes it clear that these fees must be included upfront. Our approach here has been to include transaction fees in the displayed price from the outset -  including on any calendars. Once added, prices will then update to show the price for any subsequent tickets. We provide a clear breakdown in the basket, so customers can see exactly how the total is made up. Therefore avoiding any notion of drip-pricing by the introduction of a transaction fee later on.

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Agents integrations and the Line-Up API

These changes don’t stop at first-party booking journeys. The same transaction fee logic can be applied when tickets are sold via agents/custom checkouts using the Line-Up API, presenting a consistent pricing experience across all sales.

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While we can’t control how individual websites choose to present prices, there’s no reason for web designers who are syncing prices via the API not to surface the same transparent pricing that customers see once they enter the Line-Up purchase path.

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For producers and venues selling across multiple channels, this removes uncertainty and helps ensure pricing remains compliant wherever their tickets are sold.

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What this means for clients

For UK clients, minimal action is required beyond some updates to price tables for events. Please do get in touch if you're not already speaking with our Support team about this.

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Clients outside the UK are unaffected unless they choose to adopt the same approach, or are mandated to by their local consumer protection laws.

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Our aim at Line-Up is to always make regulatory change feel straightforward and low-stress - and to move quickly when needed, so our clients can stay focused on selling tickets, not worrying about technical implementation.

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Further reading

You can read the full CMA guidelines here.

Read our release notes here on the latest changes to support compliance for transaction level fees. More information about per-ticket fees and the display of prices in Line-Up can be found here.

You can find more information about STAR and become a member here.

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