Challenge

Founded in 2016, San Juan-based Ticketera is one of Puerto Rico’s largest ticketing platforms. The company uses Stripe Payments to process online payments across multiple payment methods and currencies, Stripe Radar to help prevent fraud, and Stripe Terminal for in-person payments. In late 2024, after previously relying on a third party to manage its Stripe integration, Ticketera established a direct relationship with Stripe and began managing its integration internally.

Ticketera’s main goal in working directly with Stripe was to create a smoother, more transparent payment experience while strengthening its ability to prevent fraud. “We wanted to make the payment process as seamless and transparent as possible for our customers while minimizing fraud risk and protecting customer trust,” said Katherine Nieves-Más, controller at Ticketera.

In 2025, that challenge became more complex and urgent when Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny announced his 31-date residency at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, one of the venues served by Ticketera. With fans from around the world expected to purchase tickets, Ticketera needed to manage an unprecedented increase in demand, respond to evolving fraud patterns, and maintain a reliable purchasing experience throughout the on-sale.

Solution

Ticketera turned to its Stripe technical account manager (TAM), available through its support plan. The TAM brings deep expertise in Stripe’s products and works closely with Ticketera’s technology and finance teams to address both immediate needs and longer-term priorities. The teams stay closely connected through regular email communication and biweekly calls to discuss emerging challenges, identify opportunities, and align on long-term goals.

Bad Bunny's residency was the largest event Ticketera had ever handled, presenting a major opportunity to showcase the company’s capabilities on an unprecedented scale. But the scale of the event also introduced significant reputational and operational risk if fraud or downtime disrupted customers’ ability to purchase tickets.

Before the residency, Ticketera worked closely with its TAM to ensure API rate limits and Radar rules were configured to support the anticipated demand. During the sale, Ticketera’s TAM worked alongside the technology and finance teams to respond to evolving fraud patterns and support payment performance amid unprecedented demand. As new fraud patterns emerged, Ticketera and its TAM worked in real time to adapt Radar rules, automatically blocking transactions identified as having a high likelihood of fraud.

After the residency, Ticketera’s TAM provided a summary of key performance metrics and worked with the team to identify successes and opportunities to refine the approach for future high-demand events.

Through its support plan, Ticketera also benefits from Stripe health alerts, which use more than 30 detectors to surface potential issues before they impact customers. For example, if authorization rates decline, Ticketera receives an alert and can work with its TAM to identify potential causes and make adjustments that help legitimate transactions go through successfully.

Beyond real-time support during high-profile events and urgent issues, Ticketera’s TAM proactively identifies optimization opportunities and shares data and analysis to strengthen the company’s broader payment strategy. When Ticketera relied on a third party to manage its Stripe infrastructure, the company had limited visibility into the transaction costs associated with card networks. The TAM identified an opportunity to improve that visibility and worked with Ticketera’s finance team to analyze the effective rate the company was paying on transactions and identify potential opportunities to improve margins.

Results

Ticketera reduces fraudulent transactions by 64%

Staying ahead of changing fraud patterns requires continuous monitoring and optimization. Ticketera and its TAM work together to analyze transactions in Radar, identify emerging patterns, and configure rules to help prevent fraudulent activity. For example, the teams have developed rules that evaluate multiple signals—including email addresses, cards, and customer behavior—individually and in combination, helping Ticketera significantly reduce fraudulent transactions.

The TAM’s support was especially critical during the Bad Bunny sale, when unprecedented demand brought increasingly complex fraud patterns and automated purchase attempts. “It was a significant challenge for both our technology and finance teams,” Nieves-Más said. “Having the Stripe team and our TAM working alongside us allowed us to respond quickly as new patterns emerged while continuing to provide a reliable purchasing experience for legitimate customers.”

Ticketera processes $32M+ in payments and maintains 100% uptime during its biggest-ever event

Ticketera achieved 100% uptime during the Bad Bunny on-sale, processing more than $32 million in sales over two days without any customer-impacting incidents.

“Customer trust is essential in our business, particularly during high-demand events where reliability is critical,” Nieves-Más said. “Working closely with our TAM and the Stripe team helped us respond quickly to potential issues while delivering the reliable purchasing experience our customers expect from Ticketera.”

Ticketera gains greater visibility into transaction costs

Previously, Ticketera operated as a connected account through a third party, which limited its direct access to Stripe’s reporting and account management tools. After establishing a direct relationship with Stripe, Ticketera worked with its TAM to analyze detailed transaction data, gain greater visibility into payment costs, and identify opportunities for optimization. These insights gave Ticketera’s finance team a clearer understanding of its cost structure and helped inform negotiations with payment providers, ultimately improving overall payment cost.

Ticketera builds on record year

Following the success of the Bad Bunny residency, 2025 became Ticketera’s biggest year to date, marking an important milestone in the company’s growth. Looking ahead, Ticketera is focused on building on that performance for future high-demand events, enhancing its platform to provide the best experience for its promoters, venues, and fans.

With Stripe’s broad product suite and scalable infrastructure, Ticketera is well-positioned to support its future growth and meet demand as new business opportunities emerge.

“We see Stripe as a long-term partner,” Nieves-Más said. “As our business continues to grow, having a platform that can scale with us gives us confidence in what’s ahead.”