PassMarket Is Shutting Down — How to Choose Your Next Platform and Migrate
Hello, this is Ando from TIMEWELL.
On December 17, 2025, LY Corporation (formerly LINE Yahoo) announced that PassMarket, its digital ticketing service operated under the Yahoo! JAPAN brand, would shut down on June 30, 2026. At 3.564% (tax included), PassMarket had one of the lowest transaction fees in the industry. It was used by everyone from small workshop organizers to large-scale festival promoters, and frankly, nothing else came close at that price point.
That June 30 date has already passed. (This article was updated on July 30, 2026 to reflect the current situation.) You can no longer create events or sell tickets. But one job is still open, and it has a deadline: getting your attendee records and revenue records out while the ticket management tool is still available, until August 31, 2026. Miss that and, from September 1, even the purchase history is gone.
Whether you have not chosen a new platform yet or chose one and stalled, the safe order is to clear this time-bound task first. Below: rescuing your data, choosing where to go, and the actual steps to make the switch.
Migration & data-rescue checklist (fill-in, 8 pages): What to rescue before August 31 — attendee records, survey responses, revenue and payout records, event page copy, ticket configuration — as a list you tick off as you secure each one. It also includes an inventory of the channels through which you can still reach attendees, a formula and worksheet for calculating the real cost of a new platform yourself, and the steps to launch your first event on it. Anything the official notice does not state is marked "to be confirmed" rather than asserted. → Download the Event Organiser's Migration & Data-Rescue Checklist (Free. Your company name and work email are required.)
The Shutdown Timeline and the Real Deadline
The first thing to understand is that "the service ended June 30" and "everything ended June 30" are not the same thing. LY Corporation's official blog post [1] lays out a schedule with grace periods, and you are inside one of them right now.
| Date | What Happens |
|---|---|
| December 18, 2025 | Permanent ticket validity/duration settings disabled |
| June 30, 2026 | PassMarket shuts down (event creation, sales, and hosting end) |
| August 31, 2026 | Admin tools access deadline (data downloads still available) |
| September 1, 2026+ | Purchase history and admin dashboard become permanently inaccessible |
The date that is actually live now is August 31, the true deadline for data. The service itself stopped at the end of June, but the ticket management tool is announced as accessible through the end of August. The remaining job is to move your data into your own hands within that window. Reading it as "I still have a month" is risky: the official notice itself calls the date planned, so allow for it moving earlier.
There is a second problem. The route that let you contact past attendees directly is likely gone with the service. The official notice does not say when the messaging feature stops, so check whether it still works before relying on it, and build an alternative if it does not. You have about a month left for the data, but relationships with attendees are the hard thing to get back. That is the painful part of this migration. And if the migration has you rethinking how you run your attendee community in the first place, our free community health check is a quick way to take stock before you plan the move.
One more thing. PassMarket's privacy policy does not disclose attendee email addresses to organizers. The downloadable attendee list (Excel format) includes names, ticket types, order numbers, prices, and check-in status, but not email addresses. If you collected email addresses through PassMarket's survey feature, that CSV is your most valuable asset for reconnecting with attendees after migration. Download it now. Don't wait until August.
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What to Do Before You Migrate
Before you start comparing alternative services, there are tasks with hard deadlines. Data you can export from PassMarket will become permanently unavailable once those deadlines pass. Handle these four items as soon as possible.
Notify attendees about the migration (service already closed — verify first). The in-service messaging feature is likely unavailable now that the service has shut down. The stop date is not in the official notice, so check whether it still works before counting on it. If it does, keep the message simple: future events will be on a new platform, here's the link. If it does not, fall back on contacts collected through surveys, lists you hold yourself, social channels, and a notice on your own site. Every one of those routes may be used only within the purpose you disclosed when you collected the details.
Download attendee lists (by August 31). In the event management menu, select "Download Attendee List" to get an Excel file. This feature is PC-only. No email addresses are included, as mentioned above, but it's still worth saving for attendee counts and ticket sales records.
Download survey data (by August 31). If you used the survey feature, export the response data as CSV. For organizers who included email addresses in their surveys, this CSV becomes the foundation for post-migration communication.
Back up event pages (before the management tool closes). PassMarket has no bulk export function for event pages. You'll need to manually screenshot or copy event titles, descriptions, images, and ticket configurations. Tedious, yes. But you'll thank yourself when rebuilding event pages on your new platform and asking, "What did I write last time?" Don't forget screenshots of your sales and payout history.
What Actually Matters When Choosing a Replacement
When looking for a PassMarket alternative, most organizers start by comparing transaction fees. I get it. PassMarket's 3.564% was genuinely exceptional. But I wouldn't recommend choosing your next platform on fees alone.
The reason is straightforward: no service currently matches PassMarket's 3.564%. Fees will go up no matter where you move. Given that, the more productive question is: "What do I gain in exchange for the higher fee?"
Here are the five factors I think matter most.
Total cost. Look beyond the headline fee percentage. Factor in per-ticket flat fees (like the "99 yen per ticket" charges some platforms levy) and monthly subscriptions. This is especially important for low-priced tickets in the 1,000 to 2,000 yen range, where a flat fee per ticket has an outsized impact. A 99-yen flat fee on a 5,000-yen ticket alone adds roughly 2% to your effective rate. For a full breakdown of how these stacked ticketing fees work, see why major ticketing platforms charge multiple layered fees.
Payment method coverage. Visa and Mastercard support is a given. In the Japanese market, JCB support is effectively mandatory. Not supporting JCB narrows your reach among domestic attendees for no good reason.
Attendee management and data flexibility. CSV exports of attendee lists, tagging, re-engagement messaging to past attendees, and import support for data from PassMarket. These features determine how smooth your migration will be and how efficiently you can operate afterward.
Day-of-event operations. Every platform offers QR check-in now, but the depth varies. Venue-specific and session-specific real-time attendance tracking, smartphone wallet ticket support (TIMEWELL BASE and Company C support Apple Wallet). If you run large events, check the granularity of these features.
Post-event follow-up. I believe the real work of an event happens after the event itself. Post-event surveys, thank-you emails, announcements for the next event. Whether you can handle this flow smoothly directly affects your repeat attendance rate. PassMarket was weak in this area, so a migration is a good opportunity to level up.
Comparing the Major Alternatives
Let's look at the numbers. Here are the three services most commonly mentioned as PassMarket replacements: TIMEWELL BASE, Company A, and Company C.
| Feature | PassMarket (ref.) | TIMEWELL BASE | Company A | Company C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup fee | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Monthly fee | ¥0 | ¥0+ | ¥0 | ¥1,650+ (tax incl.) |
| Transaction fee | 3.564% | 4.8% | 4.9% + ¥99/ticket | 2.5% + ¥99/ticket + Stripe 3.6% |
| Effective rate* | 3.564% (ending) | 4.8% | 6.88%+ | 8.08%+ |
| JCB support | Yes | Yes (via Stripe) | Yes | Yes (via Stripe, config required) |
| Attendee data export | Yes (Excel) | Yes (CSV, all plans) | Yes | Yes |
| QR check-in | Yes | Yes (venue-specific, real-time stats) | Yes | Yes |
| Community features | No | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Email campaigns | Limited | Yes (all plans, Free uses per-send pricing) | Yes | Yes |
| Lottery events | Yes | Yes (fair algorithm, waitlist promotion) | Limited (paid option, currently suspended) | No |
| AI features | No | Yes | No | No |
| Free event fee | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
*Effective rate calculated for 100 tickets at ¥5,000 each
On fees alone, TIMEWELL BASE at 4.8% is the closest to PassMarket. Company A charges 4.9% plus a flat ¥99 per ticket, bringing the effective rate to 6.88%. Company C's ticket fee is lower at 2.5%, but Stripe's processing fee (approximately 3.6%) is charged separately, and a monthly subscription of ¥1,650 or more is required.
To put this in concrete terms, here's a simulation for an organizer running one event per month at ¥5,000 per ticket with 100 attendees (¥500,000 in revenue), 12 times a year.
| Service | Monthly fee | Fee per event | Annual total cost | Annual net revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PassMarket (ref.) | ¥0 | ¥17,820 | ¥213,840 | ¥5,786,160 |
| TIMEWELL BASE (Free) | ¥0 | ¥24,000 | ¥288,000 | ¥5,712,000 |
| Company A | ¥0 | ¥34,400 | ¥412,800 | ¥5,587,200 |
| Company C (Starter) | ¥1,650 | ¥40,400 | ¥504,600 | ¥5,495,400 |
Switching from PassMarket to TIMEWELL BASE adds about ¥74,000 per year, or roughly ¥6,200 per month. The gap with Company A is about ¥125,000 per year, and with Company C it's about ¥217,000.
Personally, I think ¥74,000 a year is a reasonable trade for community management, AI-assisted event creation, and a fair lottery system that PassMarket never had. If you only run small free events once a month, every platform charges zero fees anyway, so just pick whichever feels easiest to use. TIMEWELL BASE is designed as an AI-native community and event platform rather than a pure ticketing tool; you can see the full feature set on the BASE service page.
Step-by-Step Migration to TIMEWELL BASE
Once you've chosen your destination, it's time to do the actual migration. Here's the process using TIMEWELL BASE as an example. The general flow applies regardless of which platform you choose.
Step 1. Create an account (about 2 minutes). Go to TIMEWELL BASE and sign up with your email. Set your organization name and logo, and you're ready. The Free plan has no setup or monthly fees. Think of it as a test drive.
Step 2. Create an event (about 10 minutes). Using the information you backed up from PassMarket, build your event page. Set the title, description, ticket types, capacity, and registration deadline. TIMEWELL BASE has an AI assistant that can suggest titles and descriptions based on your event details. The AI flyer generator can also create promotional images for social media. Tasks that used to be entirely manual on PassMarket get noticeably faster.
Step 3. Notify your existing attendees. This is the most critical step in the migration. Now that the service has closed, the route through PassMarket is likely gone, so you will be combining the channels you hold yourself: contacts collected through surveys, your own lists, social media, and a notice on your website. A single page telling people who arrive from an old event URL where you moved is worth putting up too.
The message doesn't need to be elaborate. "PassMarket is ending in June. Future events will be held on [platform name]. Sign up for the next event here: [URL]." That's enough. What matters is sending it soon.
Step 4. Start operating. Run one event on the new platform. QR check-in, attendee management, email campaigns. You'll feel the difference from PassMarket immediately. The community features in particular are a game-changer for organizers who want to build ongoing relationships with attendees rather than treating each event as a one-off.
One Month Left: Turn the Migration into an Upgrade
PassMarket shutting down is, honestly, bad news. A 3.564% fee rate may never come around again. But looking back, PassMarket was a simple, focused service: ticket sales and check-in management. No community features, limited post-event follow-up, not much design flexibility for event pages.
That's why I'd encourage you to think of this migration not as a forced move, but as a chance to upgrade how you run events. A few percentage points more in fees buys you AI-powered event page creation, community-driven repeat attendance, and fair lottery systems for large-scale events. Things that simply weren't possible on PassMarket.
But the urgent one now is to rescue your data before August 31. Once the management tool closes, neither the attendee records nor the revenue records come back. You can do the rescue even without having chosen a platform. Then use what you rescued to tell attendees how to stay in touch. Clear those two and you can afford to take a little longer over the choice.
TIMEWELL BASE offers a Free plan with zero setup and zero monthly fees. Create a test event and see how it feels.
If you'd like to discuss your migration timeline or data handover individually, book a consultation.
References
[1] PassMarket Official Blog. "Important Notice: PassMarket Service Termination." https://blog-passmarket.yahoo.co.jp/archives/post_15.html (2025-12-17)
[2] Company A official pricing page (accessed 2026-03)
[3] Company C official pricing page (accessed 2026-03)
[4] TIMEWELL BASE Official. "Pricing Plans." https://timewell.jp/base (accessed 2026-03-23)
