---
title: "What is SeatLayer?"
description: "One seating inventory core for platform integrations and SeatLayer-managed ticketing."
---

SeatLayer is a reserved-seating platform for products and organizers that need
buyers to choose a real seat, table, booth, or a general-admission area inside
a seated chart. A pure-GA event without a seating chart is not a supported
target. One inventory core supports two deliberately separate products:
Platform/SDK infrastructure and SeatLayer-managed ticketing.

<Aside type="tip" title="The Platform/SDK contract">
  The **browser holds** inventory temporarily. **Your server books inventory**
  after it has inspected the hold and completed your payment or order logic.
  Your platform creates and delivers its own tickets.
</Aside>

For the relationship between inventory, audience access, pricing, and every SDK
or API surface, read the [SeatLayer product model](/start/product-model/).

## Two objects power everything

<CardGrid>
  <Card title="Chart" icon="ph:map-trifold">
    The reusable venue document: rows, tables, booths, GA areas, sections, accessibility metadata, and pricing categories.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Event" icon="ph:calendar-check">
    One independent realtime inventory occurrence created from a published
    chart snapshot. Reuse one chart for many performances. An Event does not by
    itself imply a public page, checkout, order, or ticket.
  </Card>
</CardGrid>

## Seat lifecycle

| Status | Meaning | Who changes it |
|---|---|---|
| `free` | Available to select | Expiry, release, or operator |
| `held` | Reserved for a short checkout window | Buyer SDK |
| `booked` | Permanently committed inventory | Your server or SeatLayer managed checkout |
| `not_for_sale` | Removed from sale | Organizer or operator |

The picker receives inventory updates in realtime, so buyers see a seat disappear before they can select stale inventory. A successful booking is all-or-nothing: conflicts return without partially booking the request.

## Choose the product boundary first

### SeatLayer Platform / Seating Infrastructure

Use this for a marketplace or ticketing platform that already owns its event
catalogue and commerce. SeatLayer supplies workspaces, charts, event inventory,
buyer SDKs, holds, idempotent booking, webhooks, inventory reports, and embedded
Designer/Control room tools.

Your platform remains the sole owner of buyer accounts, checkout and payment,
commercial Orders, ticket/QR/PDF creation and delivery, email, refunds,
check-in, and customer support. `bookingRef` links your order to the SeatLayer
inventory booking; SeatLayer does not mirror that purchase into its hosted
fulfilment product.

### SeatLayer Managed Ticketing

Use this when a direct organizer wants SeatLayer to run the end-to-end sale.
Managed Ticketing is request/staff-approved; the organization must have Hosted
Checkout (`hosted_checkout`) enabled before a managed Event can be sold. The
organizer creates a full event and connects an eligible Stripe or Razorpay
account. SeatLayer can then provide hosted checkout, Orders, tickets, QR/PDF
delivery, email, refunds, and Door/check-in through a Hosted Event Page, managed
embed, or Organizer Website. The connected provider controls its processing
fees, applicable taxes, and payout timing.

Commerce ownership is fixed for an Event. Changing between Platform/SDK and
Managed Ticketing means reusing the Chart and creating a new Event with the
intended product boundary.

## In a Platform/SDK integration, what stays in your product

- Event catalogue and buyer identity.
- Commercial orders, payments, refunds, fees, and tax logic.
- Tickets, QR/barcodes, PDFs, email delivery, scanning, and support.
- The final decision to confirm a booking.
- Your own checkout UI and business rules.

## What the shared SeatLayer inventory core provides

- A white-label Designer for authoring complex venues.
- Stable web SDKs for script tag, JavaScript, React, Vue, and Angular, plus
  supported production SDKs for React Native, iOS, Android, and Flutter.
- Realtime holds and inventory synchronization.
- Server APIs, signed inventory webhooks, an embeddable Control room, booking
  history, and inventory reporting.

## Current Platform/SDK scope

An Event remains the base inventory boundary. Each Event has its own chart
snapshot, availability, channels, and reports. For one fixed run of 2–8
compatible assigned-seat Events, [Performance Groups](/integrations/performance-groups)
add one coordinated hold and booking flow. For a renewable fixed Plan of 2–20
compatible Events, [Fixed Renewable Seasons](/integrations/seasons/) add same-seat
holds and booking, incumbent Seat Rights, renewal offers, occurrence amendments,
and operational reports. Reusing one Chart across independent Events alone does
not create a Season or shared entitlement.

The current Platform/SDK release does not provide:

- partial or buyer-built Seasons, or arbitrary per-performance Plan overrides;
- arbitrary event baskets, buyer-selected date subsets, or partial status
  changes across a Performance Group;
- a first-class resale/listing state or buyer-to-buyer relisting workflow;
- organizer-defined custom inventory statuses;
- true partial-GA channel allocation or season-inherited channels; or
- cross-product aggregate reporting beyond the documented Performance Group and
  Season contracts.

`unbook` can return booked inventory to `free`, after which it may be sold in a
new ordinary booking. That is cancellation and re-sale of free inventory; it
is not the resale listing product described above. Payments, seller identity,
listing price, ownership transfer, and payouts remain in your system.

<Aside type="note" title="Current SDK availability">
  Web JavaScript, React, Vue, and Angular packages provide their documented
  surfaces. React Native, iOS, Android, and Flutter are supported production
  SDKs. Vue and Angular provide a native Seating Chart wrapper plus the
  raw JavaScript Picker/frame helpers; they do not imply native Designer or
  Control room components.
</Aside>

<CardGrid>
  <Card title="Build the full loop" icon="ph:rocket-launch">
    Continue to the [Quickstart](/start/quickstart) to create a test event, embed the picker, and confirm a booking.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Inspect the server contract" icon="ph:brackets-curly">
    Jump to the [booking endpoint](/server-api/booking) for request fields, responses, and conflict handling.
  </Card>
</CardGrid>

## Open-source resources

<CardGrid>
  <Card title="SeatLayer SDK" icon="ph:github-logo">
    Inspect the official JavaScript, React, Vue, and Angular packages in
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-sdk](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-sdk).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer for Flutter" icon="ph:device-mobile">
    Follow the [Flutter seat-map guide](/buyer-sdk/flutter), install
    [`seatlayer`](https://pub.dev/packages/seatlayer), or inspect the source in
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-flutter](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-flutter).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer for React Native" icon="ph:atom">
    Build Expo, iOS, and Android applications with
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-react-native](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-react-native).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer iOS SDK" icon="ph:apple-logo">
    Evaluate the public Swift package source in
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-ios](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-ios).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer Android SDK" icon="ph:android-logo">
    Build native Kotlin applications with
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-android](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-android).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer AI Toolkit" icon="ph:robot">
    Give a coding agent the portable integration skill, diagnostics, and
    verification workflow from
    [seatlayer/seatlayer-ai-toolkit](https://github.com/seatlayer/seatlayer-ai-toolkit).
  </Card>
  <Card title="SeatLayer on GitHub" icon="ph:buildings">
    Discover all public SeatLayer repositories at
    [github.com/seatlayer](https://github.com/seatlayer).
  </Card>
</CardGrid>

The SeatLayer platform and inventory service remain private. Public repositories
contain supported SDKs, examples, and agent-integration tooling.