Leaving money on the table is one of the scariest things a haunt owner can do.
But how do you even know if you’re missing out? How much is one customer worth? (Or how much should they be worth?)
Your first step should be to look at the data. The annual Haunt Industry Report peels back the flesh to uncover exactly how much folks are spending, on average, across our industry. And where they’re spending it.
Picture this: It’s a chilly Saturday night in October. Two groups of guests approach your attraction. Group A bought their tickets online last Tuesday while sitting on their couch; Group B is standing at your ticket booth, shivering, digging through their pockets for a crumpled twenty or a credit card.
Which group do you think walks away leaving more cold, hard cash in your coffers?
If you guessed the gate sales, you’re in for a fright. According to real-time, anonymized data from the HauntPay platform featured in our latest Haunt Industry Report, online transactions are drastically outperforming on-site sales.
In 2025, the average online transaction was a whopping $84.00, while in-person purchases averaged just $54.71. That is a massive 54% increase in cart value when guests buy online!
Why Do Guests Spend More Online?
Why are online monsters spending so much more than walk-ups? They’re not under a witch’s curse; they’re just trying to avoid the sting of opening their wallets.
It’s much easier for your victims…er, guests…to spend money when they aren’t actively watching cash vanish from their wallets or seeing a card swiped at a terminal. And this isn’t just a ghost story, it’s backed by hard data.
When a fan visits your website, they are in a comfortable, low-stress environment. They aren’t rushing through a freezing line at the gate. This gives them the time and peace of mind to upgrade to a VIP pass, add on a skip-the-line option, or bundle an escape game into their evening. Plus, most of us aren’t even taking out our wallet for online payments anymore: the details get auto-filled at checkout. It just doesn’t have the same sting as pulling cash or a card out of our wallets and watching the money disappear in front of us.
By the time guests arrive at your haunt, their tickets are paid for, their budget has reset, and they still have cash in hand for concessions and merchandise.
Right now, 68.32% of total haunt sales volume is happening online. If you are still heavily relying on gate sales to hit your revenue goals, you’re essentially ghosting your own bottom line.
Why Should Haunt Owners Care About Transaction Value?
Running a haunt isn’t getting any cheaper. In the Haunt Industry Report, haunters explicitly named Promoting Your Haunt (41%) and Overhead Costs (33%) as some of their absolute greatest operational nightmares.
When inflation and overhead are trying to bleed you dry, increasing your average order value is the ultimate defense mechanism. You don’t necessarily have to stress about summoning double the foot traffic to your gates if you can simply maximize the spend of the crowds you already attract.
Plus, driving your ticket sales online gives you predictable, guaranteed revenue before the weekend even starts. If bad weather strikes (a disaster that triggered an increase in refunds across the industry recently) having that online revenue cushion can mean the difference between surviving the season and going completely under.
How Can You Summon More Online Sales?
Ready to banish low-value gate transactions to the graveyard? Here are a few zombie-proof strategies to push your crowd toward digital checkouts:
- Create a Slasher Price Differential: Train your customers to buy in advance by charging a premium at the gate. If a ticket is $25 online but $30 at the box office, budget-conscious monsters will flock to your website.
- Haunt Your Checkout Flow: Ensure your online ticketing page is lightning-fast and entirely optimized for mobile phones. If a guest encounters a clunky, confusing checkout flow, they will abandon their cart, and that juicy $84 transaction disappears into thin air.
- Upgrade the Box Office Friction: For the 31.68% of diehards who still insist on buying in person, make spending painless. Fortunately, the industry is adapting: 65.1% of haunts now accept tap-to-pay or contactless payments. If you haven’t upgraded to contactless options yet, you’re making it entirely too hard for gate customers to split their cash with you.
Don’t Let Your Haunt Get Left in the Dark
Moving your box office online isn’t just about cutting down the terrifying lines at your front gate…it’s about building a healthier, more resilient business.
Data like this helps the entire haunt community build stronger, more profitable attractions. What kind of spending habits are you witnessing at your own gates? Help us paint an accurate picture of the current ecosystem by contributing your voice to the 2026 Haunt Industry Survey today!
