If you’re running a raffle as a fundraiser, you probably don’t want to build an entire website or sign up for a new service dedicated to selling a few tickets. But using Google Forms and the Payable Add-On , it’s easy to set up a raffle, take money for tickets, then use a simple formula in the Google Sheet that’s automatically created to track your Form responses in order to choose your random winner. All you need to do is spread the word and watch sales come in!
Set up your Raffle
Simply set up a Google Form to sell tickets, activate the Payable Add-On, and in minutes, you can collect money as raffle ticket buyers fill out your Form and are moved through the checkout process. You can also add options for extra donations, or for things like t-shirts or other tickets. The coordinating Google Sheet where your Form responses is stored will show how many tickets people bought (if multiples were available) as well as their contact info so you can let the winner know they’ve won.
Payable only makes money if you do, and our fees are significantly lower than typical ticket-selling sites. (For example, in the US, Eventbrite takes $0.79 plus 2 to 2.5% per ticket sold.)
For a simple similar tutorial, check out this video:
Not great at using Forms? This simple template for Student Valentines can be copied and tweaked to be an easy raffle Form if you’re struggling to get started.
Choosing Your Winner
If you don’t want to print out all the names and do a physical random draw for the prize, it’s easy to pull a random name from a list in Sheets. There’s a relatively simple formula you can find right here to pick a name at random. Simply explained, you’ll input the formula =INDEX(START CELL:COLUMN, RANDBETWEEN(1, START CELL:COLUMN))) into a cell where you want to generate the random name.
Example: =INDEX(C4:C, RANDBETWEEN(1, COUNTA(C4:C)))
Hit enter and you’ve got a winner!
Raffle plus Ticket Sales
Need to run a raffle along with ticket sales? No problemβbut make sure you separate out the raffle ticker buyers from those who just bought tickets. To choose your winner, you’ll do the same thing we mentioned above, but before you randomly select a name, copy your Sheet over to a new tab and sort entries by raffle ticket purchases. Delete entries that didn’t buy a raffle ticket, then run the same random generator.
Multiple Raffle Tickets
If you offer the ability to buy multiple raffle tickets, you will need to duplicate the names of those who buy more than 1 ticket, so they have a fair shot at winning based on the total tickets purchased! Find those names quickly by sorting the number of tickets sold in ascending order.