Comparison
Looking for a Master Tour Alternative? Here's the Honest Answer
Master Tour by Eventric is the industry-standard tour management platform, and it earned that position. But it's priced and designed for professional tour managers — and if you're a band running your own tour, you're probably paying for a cockpit when you need a van. Here's a straight comparison so you can decide.
What Master Tour is, and who it's really for
Master Tour has been the default tool of professional tour managers for well over a decade. If you've ever seen a day sheet taped to a dressing room door on an arena tour, odds are it came out of Master Tour. It handles deep itineraries, crew travel, multi-leg routing, production schedules, and tour accounting at a level of detail that serious productions need — and it syncs offline on desktop, which matters when the production office is in the bowels of an arena.
Where it shines: large crews, dedicated tour managers, bus and fly tours, and productions where one or two trained people maintain the data and everyone else consumes it read-only. The workflows assume a professional at the keyboard. That's not a flaw — it's the product working as designed.
What it costs
Master Tour Professional is priced per editor: $64.99/month per editor billed annually, or $74.99/month billed monthly. That's roughly $780 per year for a single editor seat. Band and crew members can view data through companion apps, but everyone who needs to edit — add a show, update a schedule, log an expense — needs a paid seat. For a professional TM whose salary depends on this tool, that's a reasonable business expense. For a five-piece DIY band where everyone shares the workload, per-editor pricing gets expensive fast.
Where DIY bands don't fit the mold
- Per-editor pricing punishes shared workloads. In a self-managed band, the drummer books, the bassist advances, the singer runs merch numbers. Three editors ≈ $2,340/yr.
- Desktop-centric workflow. Master Tour's full power lives in the desktop app. DIY bands live on their phones — in the van, at the venue, at day jobs.
- Learning curve. It's a professional tool with professional depth. If nobody in your band is a full-time TM, a lot of that depth goes unused while still costing time to learn.
The TourCog angle: price the band, not the seat
TourCog flips the model. One price covers the whole band and crew — everyone gets their own login with role-based access (manager, artist, sound, merch, crew, agent, accountant), and everyone can edit what their role allows. The free tier covers up to 5 active shows; Pro is $12/month or $99/year for the entire org.
It's a mobile-first PWA that installs on any phone and works offline in the van — no app store, no desktop required. And it keeps the pro touring workflows that actually matter at the DIY level: advancing (with a venue-facing advance portal and email advancing), day sheets with shareable links, guest lists with door check-in, setlists with a performance mode, stage plots, travel, and settlement math with income splits and per diems. Pro touring depth, without needing a tour manager to drive it.
Master Tour vs TourCog at a glance
| Master Tour | TourCog | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per editor seat | Per band (org) |
| Price | $64.99/mo per editor (annual) or $74.99/mo monthly — ≈ $780/yr per editor | Free tier; Pro $12/mo or $99/yr for the whole band |
| Whole band + crew access | View-only apps; each editor is a paid seat | Included — every member gets full role-based access |
| Platform | Desktop-first (Mac/Windows) + companion mobile apps | Mobile-first PWA — works on any phone, installable, offline |
| Offline | Yes (desktop sync) | Yes — PWA works offline in the van |
| Day sheets | Yes | Yes, plus public shareable links |
| Advancing | Yes (pro-grade) | Yes — venue advance portal + email advancing |
| Guest lists | Yes | Yes, with door check-in |
| Financials / settlements | Yes (deep accounting) | Yes — settlements, splits, per diems (Pro) |
| Setlists & stage plots | Limited | Yes — setlists, performance mode, stage plot builder |
| Learning curve | Steep — built for professional TMs | Low — built for band members |
| Best for | Arena/bus tours with dedicated tour managers | DIY and indie bands running their own tours |
The honest verdict
If you're a professional tour manager running bus tours with a real production budget, stay on Master Tour — it's the standard for a reason, and your promoters and production crews already speak its language. If you're a DIY or indie band where the members are the tour manager, TourCog gives you the workflows that matter at a price designed for a band splitting gas money: free to start, $99/year all-in versus $780/year per editor. Try both — TourCog's free tier means the comparison costs you nothing.