The Breakdown — Chesapeake Beach Water Park

How ticket sales worked before

Through the 2023 season, this was the path a family took to buy a ticket — and it's the setup the park would return to by default when it reopens.

Guests started on the park's website at chesapeakebeachwaterpark.com — and the moment they tapped "Buy Tickets," they left it.
The sale happened off-site — on shop.chesapeakebeachwaterpark.com, a hosted webstore titled "Online Registrations," running on the ticketing vendor's platform (Ticketing by Convergence).
The park rented that store — a page it couldn't redesign, that wasn't built for phones, with no guest accounts, and with guest and payment data living in the vendor's system.
At the gate, the same vendor's hardware — proprietary point-of-sale stations and kiosks, sold and serviced only through the vendor.

The park's hosted ticket store. It did its job for years — but it was rented, it wasn't mobile-first, there were no guest accounts, and it could never be made to match the park's brand. The 2027 reopening is the natural moment to replace it with something the park owns.

The pricing picture

Every way a park can sell tickets online, and what each one takes off the top. Card processing (roughly 2.9% + 30¢) is the same for everyone — the real difference is what's stacked on top of it.

	This platformbuilt for the park	Attraction SaaSConvergence, ROLLER, CenterEdge…	Per-ticket platformse.g. TicketSpice	Marketplacese.g. Viator
Software fee	$75/mo hosting — that's it	Quote-based — reported $300–$1,000+/mo	$0 / month	$0 / month
Per-ticket fee	$0	Varies — often per-booking fees on top	$0.99 per ticket	~20–30% commission
Support	Traded for season passes	Paid support plans	Email support	—
Card processing	Stripe, 2.9% + 30¢	Via the vendor's gateway	~3% + card fees	Built into the commission
Hardware	iPads + Stripe Reader S710 ($299)	Proprietary terminals & kiosks, sold or leased by the vendor	Bring your own	—
Contract	None — you own it	Typically annual, with setup fees	Month to month	Their terms
Guest data	Yours, in your database	Lives in the vendor's system	Exportable	Theirs — you get a manifest
Where checkout lives	chesapeakebeachwaterpark.com	The vendor's domain	Their hosted checkout	viator.com

Sources and reported ranges are listed at the bottom of this page. Quote-based vendors don't publish pricing; the ranges shown are what operators report paying.

The season math

An illustration, not a forecast: say the reopened park sells 25,000 tickets online in a season at the current $22 weekend rate. Here's what each model takes off the top — on top of the card fees everyone pays.

~$24,750 / yrA 99¢-per-ticket platform, every single season.

~$8,400 / yrA mid-range SaaS subscription at ~$700/month — before any per-booking fees.

$900 / yrThis platform: $75/month hosting, no per-ticket fee, and software support traded for season passes.

Assumes ~25,000 online tickets at $22. Card processing (~2.9% + 30¢) applies equally in every scenario and is excluded from all three figures.

Hardware that doesn't lock you in

The staff-device screens are already built as clickable mockups — a front-gate register, a gate scanner, and a kitchen display. They run on ordinary iPads and tablets, with the Stripe Reader S710 handling cards. Try all three live →

Front gate POS register mockup — Front Gate POSA tile-based register built for a wet thumb on an iPad — admission tiles colour-coded by residency rate, cash and card, 6% tax handled.

Gate scanner mockup — Gate ScannerPasses and tickets scan from a phone screen or a printout; duplicates are caught instantly and the in-park count updates live.

Kitchen display mockup — Kitchen DisplayGuest food orders land straight in the kitchen and age from blue to red, so the longest wait is obvious from across the room.

This platform: commodity hardware

Buy it at any store today. Replace it same-day.

iPad (runs POS, scanner, kitchen display) from ~$349
Stripe Reader S710 — touchscreen card terminal, countertop or handheld $299
Outfit the whole front gate + kitchen ~$2,000 one-time

Vendor systems: proprietary hardware

Sold or leased through the ticketing vendor.

Purpose-built POS stations & ticketing kiosks quote-based
Often bundled into the software contract leased
Serviced only by the vendor their schedule
Tied to the vendor's software bricks if you switch
Replacement on their timeline not the shelf at Best Buy

The investment

Built in three phases, in the order the park actually needs them — selling first, running the park second, the gates last, timed to the reopening.

Phase 1First

The website & online sales

The chosen storefront design built for real: day tickets and season passes sold on the park's own domain, embedded Stripe checkout, guest accounts with "My Wallet," promo codes, and party inquiries. The park starts selling the moment this ships.

$8,500

Phase 2Then

The back office & training

Park Manager: the dashboard, orders and refunds, customer profiles, the cabana map, pricing and promo controls, and the party pipeline — plus the staff learning system, so training and certifications are in place before seasonal hiring ramps up.

$8,000

Phase 3Near reopening

Staff devices at the gate

The Front Gate POS, QR gate scanner, and kitchen display running on iPads with Stripe Reader S710 terminals — built and installed close to opening day, so the gate crew trains on the real thing.

$6,000

$22,500 total Less than one season of renting a 99¢-per-ticket platform at the park's volume — and after that season, it's yours.

Each phase is quoted, built, and handed over on its own. Hardware (~$2,000 at retail) is purchased directly by the park with no markup. Hosting is $75/month, and ongoing software support is traded for season passes under a simple written agreement.

The breakdown.