Pricing Online vs In-Person Paid D&D Games

An online paid D&D game and an in-person one shouldn't default to the same price, because in-person sessions carry real added costs — venue rental, travel, and printed materials — that an online table on Discord or a VTT mostly avoids. Price each format for what it actually costs you to run, not for how the game itself is priced.

The pricing mistake to avoid is setting one number for the game and reusing it unchanged for both formats. Prep time and table time can look identical on paper, but overhead isn't identical, and overhead is what a price has to cover before the game itself is worth what it's worth.

What's the real cost difference between an online and in-person D&D session?

The real difference between an online and an in-person paid D&D session is overhead, not the game. An in-person session adds venue access, travel, and printed materials, while an online session adds a virtual tabletop license at most. Neither format changes what the game itself is worth to a player at the table.

A three-hour one-shot prepped identically for both formats has a very different cost basis once a drive and a rented room land on one version and nothing but a laptop lands on the other. A 20-mile round trip to a game store costs $15.20 in vehicle expense at the IRS business standard mileage rate of 76 cents per mile in effect from July 1 through December 31, 2026 (IRS, Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29) — and that figure covers the car alone, before any venue charge or the unpaid drive time.

What extra costs does an in-person paid game add?

An in-person paid game adds three cost lines an online table does not have: venue access, travel, and physical materials. Mileage has a published federal rate a DM can apply directly, venue rates differ by venue type and city, and printed maps, minis, or handouts are a real per-session or one-time spend. Price all three before setting a seat price.

Mileage is the most concrete line to price because it has a published federal rate: the IRS set the business standard mileage rate at 76 cents per mile for July 1 through December 31, 2026, up from 72.5 cents in the first half of the year.

Venue rates vary by venue type and city and must be checked locally, but three published examples show how widely posted rates differ. Snakes & Lattes charges a $7 per-person game admission at its Chicago board-game café, waivable by a $7 minimum food or drink purchase, and bills it per visit rather than per game (Snakes & Lattes, Chicago location). Cedar Park Public Library in Texas rents its classroom at $25 per hour for residents and $50 per hour for non-residents (Cedar Park Public Library, Reserve a Room). Austin Public Library charges nothing at all for branch meeting rooms, but restricts them to non-commercial use, which rules out a paid table (Austin Public Library, Meeting Rooms).

"Free of charge; Designed to meet non-commercial, informational, educational, cultural and civic needs." — Austin Public Library, Meeting Rooms (library.austintexas.gov)

Austin Public Library's non-commercial-use restriction is the practical lesson for any paid table: a free room is not automatically an option for a game a Dungeon Master charges money to run. The three venue rates cited above — $0 per hour at Austin Public Library, $7 per person at Snakes & Lattes Chicago, and $25 to $50 per hour at Cedar Park Public Library — are published examples rather than a market survey, so build the number your own venue actually charges into the seat price rather than an average drawn from someone else's city.

What extra costs does an online paid game add?

An online paid game adds software cost, not logistics. Roll20 keeps a free base tier and charges $5.99 a month for Plus and $10.99 a month for Pro, Foundry Virtual Tabletop sells a single $50 license, and Discord is free to download and runs free open-source dice bots. There is no venue charge and no mileage to price.

Roll20, a browser-based VTT, keeps its core session-running features free — its own subscription page states "Roll20 always keeps the base elements you need to run a game for free," with paid tiers adding storage and customization. Roll20's published feature breakdown prices the Plus tier at $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year and the Pro tier at $10.99 per month (Roll20 Help Center, Feature Breakdown).

Foundry Virtual Tabletop takes the opposite model, selling one license outright instead of a subscription: its own FAQ states that "individual licenses for Foundry Virtual Tabletop are sold for $50 USD" and that each license hosts a single game server (Foundry Virtual Tabletop, FAQ). Foundry's own home page states that the software "allows you to self-host a game server that players connect to for free directly through a web browser," so the $50 is a one-time host-side cost with no per-player charge (Foundry Virtual Tabletop, home page).

Discord itself carries no license cost for a game table. Discord's own press-release boilerplate states that "Discord is free to download at Discord.com with an optional membership subscription offering called Nitro," and puts the platform at more than 90 million daily active users. Dice rolling is free too: Avrae, the D&D-focused Discord dice and character bot, publishes its full source under the GNU General Public License v3 and lists no price on its site or its server-invite page.

Online-only software cost for a paid D&D table therefore runs from $0 on Discord or Roll20's free tier up to $10.99 a month for Roll20's top Pro tier, with Foundry's $50 license the only one-time option among the three — small, fixed, and the core reason an online seat can often be priced lower than the identical in-person seat without the Dungeon Master losing money on the online table.

How do you calculate a per-seat price for each format?

Use one formula for both formats: per-seat price = (base session fee + venue + mileage + materials) ÷ seats, then gross that figure up for whatever booking-platform and card-processing fees apply — dividing by 0.88 absorbs a 12% platform fee on its own. The base session fee stays identical across formats. Only the venue, mileage, and materials lines change.

The table below works the per-seat formula through for a four-hour one-shot with five paying seats, using a $150 base session fee the DM sets themselves:

Sources for the figures in the worked example: the $25-per-hour room rate is Cedar Park Public Library's published resident rate; the $0.76 per mile is the IRS business standard mileage rate for July 1 through December 31, 2026; the 12% gross-up is FanBell's flat platform fee, charged only when a fan pays (FanBell Pricing page, /pricing); and the 2.9% + 30¢ in the final row is standard US online-card pricing on Stripe (Stripe, Pricing). The $150 base fee and $10 materials line are the DM's own numbers, not sourced figures — substitute your own.

For a four-hour, five-seat one-shot built on a $150 base session fee, covering the 12% platform fee alone prices the online seat at $34.09 and the in-person seat at $62.55 — a $28.46 gap in which every dollar traces to a venue, mileage, or materials line rather than to a judgment call about which format feels more premium.

Card processing is deducted separately from the platform fee — FanBell's pricing page states that creator earnings equal the fan payment minus the platform fee minus the processing fee (FanBell Pricing page) — and standard US online-card pricing on Stripe is 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful transaction. Adding a flat 3% undercharges on cheap seats, because the 30-cent piece is fixed rather than proportional: on a $30 seat those 30 cents are another full 1% of the price, and on a $10 seat they are 3% on their own. The exact gross-up is: seat price = (target take-home per seat + $0.30) ÷ 0.851, where 0.851 = 1 − 0.12 platform fee − 0.029 processing rate. Worked per seat on the example above, the online seat becomes ($30.00 + $0.30) ÷ 0.851 = $35.61 and the in-person seat ($55.04 + $0.30) ÷ 0.851 = $65.03.

Should an in-person table cost more than the same game online?

An in-person table should cost more only by the amount that format actually adds — not by a round number chosen because in-person feels more premium. Price the game once, then add the venue, mileage, and materials lines that apply only in person. A DM who walks to a free venue can legitimately charge the same for both.

Sources for every figure in the table above: Roll20 Help Center, Feature Breakdown for the free tier and $5.99/month Plus tier; Foundry Virtual Tabletop, FAQ for the $50 license; Snakes & Lattes, Chicago for $7 per person and Cedar Park Public Library, Reserve a Room for $25/hour; IRS, Standard Mileage Rates for 76¢/mile; StartPlaying Help Center for 15%; and the FanBell Pricing page, /pricing, for the flat 12%.

A booking platform's fee applies the same way to an online seat and an in-person seat, so a 12% FanBell cut or a 15% StartPlaying cut should not factor into the online-versus-in-person price gap at all — only the venue, travel, and materials rows should.

How does travel time change what you should charge?

Travel changes the price twice: once as vehicle cost, which has a published federal rate, and once as unpaid time, which does not. A DM driving 20 minutes each way spends roughly an extra hour per session that an online table would not cost them at all. Price both, or fold both into a flat surcharge.

A 15-mile round trip costs about $11.40 in vehicle expense at the IRS business standard mileage rate of 76 cents per mile for the second half of 2026. The IRS rate is designed for tax deductions rather than menu pricing, so treat it as a defensible floor for vehicle cost, not as a complete travel charge — it covers no part of the DM's drive time. If a table meets regularly at the same venue, fold the fixed travel cost into a flat per-session surcharge rather than recalculating it every time.

Does a booking platform change what a DM should charge?

A booking platform's fee applies on top of whatever price a DM sets, and applies identically whether the game runs online or in person — so it belongs in the base price on every listing, not in the online-versus-in-person gap. StartPlaying deducts 15% and FanBell deducts 12%, both only when a session is actually paid for.

StartPlaying, a marketplace for finding paid tabletop games and GMs, deducts 15% from a booked session's price before paying the GM the rest, per its own Help Center.

"StartPlaying is a marketplace and payment platform. It provides the infrastructure and the player pipeline, not a full campaign suite." — StartPlaying Help Center, What Does the 15% Fee Cover? (intercom.help/startplaying)

FanBell's own platform fee is a flat 12%, taken only when a fan actually pays, with no monthly fee and no difference between an online or in-person listing (FanBell Pricing page). Whichever platform a DM uses for intake, the platform's cut is a cost of finding the player — keep it separate from the format-specific cost gap.

How do you set up an online-vs-in-person listing on FanBell?

Set up separate listings — or clearly labeled tiers on one listing — so a fan knows which format they are buying before paying. Both formats use one tool: a Creator Service with a set price and a delivery window of up to 120 hours for confirming details (FanBell How It Works page, /how-it-works).

Both formats use one FanBell tool: a Creator Service with a set price and a turnaround window for confirming and delivering session details, while the game itself always happens off FanBell — on Discord, a VTT, or a physical table (FanBell How It Works page). For an online session, the private order thread is where a DM sends the VTT link, Discord invite, and start time once payment clears. For an in-person session, the same thread carries the venue address, parking notes, and day-of instructions. FanBell doesn't run a calendar or booking system in either case — the private thread replaces DM back-and-forth, not a scheduling tool (FanBell How It Works page). If a request falls outside what the listing described — a fan expecting an in-person table from an online listing, say — a creator can decline and refund it before the session rather than absorb a mismatch they never priced for (FanBell How It Works page).

For campaigns that run the same table repeatedly, charging for a D&D campaign vs. a one-shot covers structuring recurring pricing once the online-vs-in-person question is settled. If an in-person table still collects payment the day of the session, collecting payment from your D&D table upfront covers moving that ahead of the game. And if you're not yet sure a paid table fits Creator Services, which FanBell offer should a paid Dungeon Master use breaks that down directly.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about pricing an online D&D table against an in-person one come down to the same rule: keep the base session fee identical across formats, then add only the venue, mileage, and materials that the in-person version actually incurs. The answers below cover formula, travel cost, platform fee, and listing setup.

Should an online D&D session always cost less than an in-person one?

Not always, but an online session often can cost less, because it typically carries no venue, travel, or materials cost while an in-person session usually carries all three. Price the difference from your own actual costs for each format rather than from which format feels more valuable.

How do I estimate what travel is really costing me?

The IRS business standard mileage rate of 76 cents per mile for July 1 through December 31, 2026 is a sourced baseline for estimating vehicle cost on a round trip to a venue. Add your own estimate of drive time on top, because the IRS mileage rate covers vehicle expense only, not time.

What formula should I use to price a seat?

Use (base session fee + venue + mileage + materials) ÷ number of seats to get your target take-home per seat, then gross it up with (take-home + $0.30) ÷ 0.851 to cover FanBell's 12% platform fee (FanBell Pricing page) plus Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ US card rate. Keep the base session fee identical across both formats so the price difference reflects overhead alone.

Does FanBell charge a different fee for online vs in-person games?

No. FanBell's platform fee is a flat 12% on any paid transaction, whether the session runs on a VTT or around a physical table, with no monthly fee to start (FanBell Pricing page).

Can I list the same game as both an online and an in-person option?

Yes — list the game as two separate Creator Services, or as clearly labeled tiers on one listing, each priced for its own format's costs. Making the format explicit before a fan pays avoids booking mismatches between an online seat and an in-person one.

Does FanBell handle scheduling for in-person tables?

No. FanBell collects payment and gives a creator a private thread for sending the venue address, time, and any instructions; FanBell doesn't run a calendar or booking system. The live session — online or in person — happens entirely outside FanBell (FanBell How It Works page).

Create your free FanBell page and price your online and in-person tables for what each one actually costs to run.