How to Charge for Drop-In D&D Game Slots

Charge for a drop-in D&D slot by listing each open seat as a fixed-price custom request with no ongoing obligation attached: the player pays upfront for that one session, you confirm the date and time directly, and nothing auto-renews. A workable starting price is $20 to $30 per seat for a three-to-four-hour online session — a step above the $15–$20 average on booking marketplaces, because a drop-in seat buys you no repeat business. This keeps an open table's core appeal — no long-term commitment — while still getting you paid before you prep. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. You can start with any audience size, players need no account, one link can hold all your offers, and creators can get paid in 41 countries (pricing).

An open table runs on a specific promise: players can pick up a seat for one session without signing up for a campaign. The Alexandrian's widely-cited Open Table Manifesto describes this structure as letting a game be "picked up and played with little or no prep," where attendance is drop-in and drop-out rather than a fixed roster. That structure is exactly what makes an open table different from a campaign — and it is also what makes pricing an open table feel awkward, because there is no subscription to bill and no ongoing relationship to invoice. A per-slot custom request link solves that: it is a single, priced transaction for a single seat.

What should a drop-in D&D seat cost?

Price a drop-in D&D seat at $20 to $30 per player for a three-to-four-hour online session, above the marketplace midpoint because a one-shot generates no repeat bookings. StartPlaying's own help center states that "the average price on StartPlaying is $15–$20 per session per player" in its Best Practices for Game Masters guide.

"The average price on StartPlaying is $15–$20 per session per player, but charge what feels right for you." — StartPlaying Help Center, "Best Practices for Game Masters"

Three adjustments move a drop-in seat inside the $20–$30 band. Session length is the first adjustment: StartPlaying's help center states in its Best Practices for Game Masters guide that "most games on StartPlaying are 2–3 or 3–4 hours long", so a two-hour introductory one-shot sits near $20 while a four-hour convention-style scenario sits near $30. Prep load is the second adjustment: a pre-built module you have run before costs you less time than a bespoke scenario written for one night, and a drop-in seat price should reflect that gap in prep hours. Scarcity is the third adjustment: an open table that fills every week supports the top of the $20–$30 band, while a new open table that still has to prove itself supports the bottom.

Two hard price floors are worth knowing before setting a drop-in seat price. StartPlaying's help center states that the platform "requires a minimum charge of $5 per session to ensure payments are processed correctly through Stripe," per its article on editing a player's price — a useful signal that very low per-seat prices get eaten by fixed processing costs. Stripe's published US card rate includes a fixed $0.30 per successful transaction, per Stripe's pricing page, which is 6% of a $5 seat but only 1% of a $30 seat.

What counts as a drop-in D&D slot?

A drop-in slot is a single, standalone seat at one session that does not obligate the player to return, unlike a recurring campaign seat that implies weekly attendance. A drop-in slot is typically a one-shot, a West Marches-style hexcrawl, or a rotating open table whose roster changes week to week.

The defining feature of a drop-in slot is that buying one seat creates no expectation of buying another. A drop-in slot differs from a campaign booking in one important way: campaign players are effectively pre-committing to a cadence, while a drop-in player is evaluating a single night. Roleplay Rescue describes open tables as "drop-in-drop-out social games designed to allow low-commitment play on any schedule" — low-commitment play is the product being sold, and the price should match a single unit of it, not a subscription.

Why price a single seat instead of the whole table?

Pricing per seat lets you fill a table incrementally as individual players commit, instead of needing one buyer to cover the whole session cost upfront. Each seat becomes its own transaction, so a table of four separately-paying players generates four confirmations instead of one lump payment you would otherwise have to split or chase down after the session ends.

Per-seat pricing is also how the largest tabletop booking marketplace works: StartPlaying states that "every game charges on a per player, per session basis" in its player guide, so buyers arriving from that marketplace already expect to pay for one seat at one session. Per-seat pricing matters most when your player pool is a rotating cast rather than a fixed group: if three regulars plus one new face claim seats, per-seat pricing means each player pays independently instead of one person fronting the whole session cost. For a full comparison of charging per seat versus one flat price for the whole table, see per-player vs. per-table pricing for paid D&D; for the per-seat dollar benchmarks GMs use for an ongoing session, see how much to charge per player for a D&D session.

How do you list a single drop-in seat as a paid offer?

List a drop-in seat as a custom request with a fixed price and delivery time, and put the exact session date in the offer. After a follower pays upfront as a guest, send the VTT link, Discord invite, and start time in one delivery. With Brillay, the request and the payment happen on the page, as a guest; you set the session date yourself (how it works). One link that carries every offer, with nothing to moderate and no community to keep warm.

The session itself happens on whatever platform you already use, such as Roll20, Foundry, or a Discord voice channel. Name the ruleset explicitly in the listing, because a drop-in buyer is choosing a system as much as a night: Roll20's own Orr Group Industry Report for Q2 2021 put Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition at 53.7% of campaigns on Roll20, and Roll20 has not published a newer edition of that report, so treat 53.7% as a 2021 figure rather than a current share. A workable listing for a single seat needs:

• What's included: This includes one seat at one specific session, not an ongoing spot.
• Game and system: The listing names the ruleset, tone, and content rating.
• Session length and format: The listing says whether it is online or in person, and roughly how long it runs.
• Character requirements: The listing says whether a pre-gen is provided or the player brings their own.
• Confirmation method: The listing says where the join link gets sent after payment, such as in a private message.

With Custom Work, a follower can attach up to five files of up to 50 MB each, such as a character sheet, and you can make one delivery with text, files of any allowed type, and/or a link.

How is a drop-in seat different from a recurring campaign seat?

A drop-in slot is priced and sold as a single transaction with no renewal, while a recurring campaign seat implies the same player returning week after week for an ongoing story. The distinction is commercial rather than mechanical: both use the same listing structure, but only the campaign seat assumes a second purchase.

Wizards of the Coast told a 2023 press summit that 58% of D&D players play on a weekly basis, as reported by GeekWire; Wizards has not published the underlying survey data, so the 58% figure should be treated as secondary reporting of an unpublished internal study rather than a citable primary dataset. Read directionally, that reporting suggests much of the audience buying seats from a paid GM already plays on a standing weekly cadence, so some drop-in buyers are testing a table before committing to a recurring seat. If a good one-off session turns into a standing seat, that is a separate listing decision covered in turning a one-off request into a recurring paid tabletop game.

Should you collect payment before or after the session?

Collect payment before the session for a drop-in seat, since there is no ongoing relationship to fall back on if an unfamiliar player no-shows afterward. Upfront payment is standard practice on paid-session marketplaces for exactly this reason, and the largest tabletop booking marketplace charges players automatically rather than invoicing them after play.

StartPlaying charges players automatically per session and gives them "a 24-hour cancellation period through which players can skip a session before being charged," per its own player guide. After that 24-hour window closes, the charge goes through and any refund is issued as site credit rather than reversed automatically, per StartPlaying's refund policy.

With Custom Work, followers pay upfront before you prep, and you deliver the agreed join details later. The mechanics of collecting from a full table upfront, including how to handle a partial no-show, are covered in collecting payment from your D&D table upfront.

What do you actually keep on a $20, $25, or $30 seat?

A $20 drop-in seat sold through a Brillay custom request nets about $17.52 after the 8% platform fee on a custom request and standard US Stripe card processing; a $25 seat nets about $21.97, and a $30 seat about $26.43. The formula is net = price − (0.08 × price) − (0.029 × price + $0.30). Tips and goals carry a 5% platform fee instead.

Payment-processing fees are deducted separately from creator earnings, so creator earnings equal the follower payment minus the platform fee minus the processing fee. Stripe's published US rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge on domestic cards, with an additional 1.5% for international cards and an additional 1% when currency conversion is required, per Stripe's pricing page.

Stripe's published 2.9% + $0.30 rate is not one universal number. Stripe's card rate varies by country, payment method, card origin, currency conversion, and any custom or negotiated platform agreement, so a creator outside the US, or one taking international cards, should read the rate card for their own country on Stripe's pricing page rather than assume the US figure applies.

Two implications follow from the $20/$25/$30 fee math. First, Stripe's fixed $0.30 component means fee drag falls as the seat price rises: total fees come to 12.4% of a $20 seat but 11.9% of a $30 seat under the published 8% platform fee for paid work and 2.9% + $0.30 US card rate. Second, filling one extra seat at $25 adds roughly $22 of net revenue to a single session, which is a larger swing than any realistic fee optimization between payment platforms.

How does a direct link compare with a marketplace listing?

A drop-in seat sold directly through your own link keeps more of the price than the same seat sold through a booking marketplace, because a marketplace charges a cut for discovery and scheduling tools you do not need if you already have an audience. StartPlaying deducts 15% automatically before payout; Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals.

StartPlaying deducts its fee automatically at 15% before payout, per its help center. Venmo charges a seller transaction fee of 1.9% + $0.10 on payments received by a business profile, per Venmo's own fees page. PayPal's standard US rate for receiving a domestic invoicing transaction paid through PayPal Checkout is 3.49% + $0.49, per PayPal's merchant fees page. Followers pay upfront as guests when they send the request, so the request arrives already paid for, and your bank details stay with Stripe rather than with the buyer.

"StartPlaying automatically deducts 15% before the remainder is paid out to you." — StartPlaying Help Center, "What Does the 15% Fee Cover?"

Fee percentage is not the whole tradeoff. A marketplace's fee buys exposure to new players searching for a table, while a direct link is cheaper per seat but relies on you already having somewhere to post it, such as a Discord server or a stream. For paid game seats, Venmo's help center states that a buyer may pay for goods or services only "by paying an authorized business profile or by tagging a payment to a personal profile" as a purchase, per Venmo's article on selling goods and services. For the full case on moving intake off a marketplace once you have an audience, see taking D&D bookings without StartPlaying fees. With Brillay, players who already know you go straight from the link you post to your own page, rather than browsing a directory where other GMs are listed beside you.

What should any direct-payment setup for drop-in seats include?

Any direct-payment setup for drop-in seats — Brillay, a Venmo business profile, a PayPal invoice, or a Stripe payment link — needs the same six things: a fixed published price, payment before prep, a written cancellation window, a private channel for delivering join details, a refund path, and a record of what each player paid.

Use this checklist to evaluate whichever tool you pick:

• Fixed, published price per seat. The player should see the exact amount before paying, not receive a quote afterward.
• Payment is made upfront. A drop-in player has no ongoing relationship with you, so the payment should be approved before you prep.
• A stated cancellation window. StartPlaying's published 24-hour window (player guide) is a reasonable model to copy in your own listing text.
• A private channel for join details. The VTT link, Discord invite, and start time should go to the buyer privately, not into a public comment thread.
• A refund path you control. Confirm before your first sale how the tool handles a refund, and whether it returns cash or credit.
• A per-transaction record. Payments received for services are generally reportable business income; the IRS states that "you must report on your tax return all income you receive from your business, including income not reported to you on a Form 1099" in Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business, so keep a record of each seat sold regardless of which tool routes the money. The US Form 1099-K filing threshold has reverted to more than $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions, per the IRS newsroom FAQ on the 1099-K threshold, which means most drop-in GMs will sell too few seats to receive that US form and still owe tax on the income; creators outside the US should check their own country's reporting rules rather than apply the $20,000 US threshold.

Peer-to-peer apps such as Venmo clear the fixed-price and upfront-payment tests but usually fail the refund-path and per-transaction-record tests without extra manual work. Booking marketplaces clear all six requirements but charge for discovery an established creator may not need. A creator link like Brillay clears all six requirements at a lower published fee than the 15% StartPlaying deducts, built for the audience you already have.

What else can an open table sell besides the seat itself?

Beyond the seat price, supporters can send Tips as a one-time thank-you with nothing to deliver in return, or contribute one time through Goals toward a stated goal such as new minis or a VTT subscription. Tips require no reply and no delivery; nothing is owed back.

Goals collect one-time contributions toward a named funding target with a progress bar; there is nothing to ship, so keep them separate from seat sales. A quick rules or lore question from a player between sessions can be a Paid Question: the player pays your set price, and you reply in writing on your own time within the window you set; use Custom Work for character-sheet reviews with attached files.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge for a single drop-in D&D seat?

Charge $20 to $30 per seat for a three-to-four-hour online session. StartPlaying's help center puts the average price on its platform at $15–$20 per session per player (Best Practices for Game Masters), and a drop-in seat reasonably sits above that average because it produces no repeat booking.

Can I sell a single D&D seat without committing to a recurring campaign?

Yes. List the seat as a one-time custom request with a fixed price and delivery time. The follower pays for that session only, one time, and you are free to run it as a genuine open table where the roster changes week to week.

Does Brillay handle the scheduling or booking calendar for the game?

No. Brillay lets followers pay upfront for a listed custom request; you set the game's date and time yourself. Put the date and time in the listing, collect required details in the request form, and send the Discord, Roll20, or Foundry join information in one delivery. There is no built-in scheduling calendar.

What happens if a player pays for a drop-in seat and then can't make it?

That is decided by the refund policy you publish on your Brillay page, which the player reads before paying. Setting your own cancellation window in the listing description — similar to the 24-hour policy StartPlaying publishes for its own bookings (player guide) — helps set expectations upfront.

Is a drop-in seat priced differently from an ongoing campaign seat?

The listing structure is the same — a fixed price and delivery time — but a drop-in seat is sold as a single, standalone transaction with no renewal, while a campaign seat is priced assuming the player returns weekly. See how much to charge per player for a D&D session for the ongoing-seat benchmark.

Do I need a marketplace like StartPlaying to run an open table?

No. A marketplace helps you find new players you do not already have, at a 15% fee deducted automatically (StartPlaying). If you already have players through Discord, a stream, or social media, a direct Brillay link charges 8% when a follower pays for work, 5% on tips and goals, and skips the discovery layer entirely.

Create your free Brillay page and turn your next open-table night into a priced seat instead of a group chat full of "who's in?"