Packages are some of the best-value items an Altru organization sells: general admission plus a show, a garden entry plus a guided tour, a family bundle with parking. They are also, very often, the ugliest thing on the website. The package web form tends to show every component as its own block, asks for a date or time for each one, repeats price types, and runs long on a phone. Visitors who just wanted “admission plus the planetarium” end up scrolling through what looks like an internal order screen.
You can’t redesign Altru’s package form from scratch, but you have more influence over how it reads than most people use. Below is what you can actually control, what you probably can’t, and how to decide when the form itself is the bottleneck.
Why package forms look worse than single-ticket forms
A package in Altru is a bundle of separate items, and the web form reflects that structure honestly. Each component brings its own name, its own scheduling (if it’s a timed program), and its own price-type rows. A single-program ticket form has one of each. A three-part package has three, stacked. Nothing is broken; the form is just showing your setup back to you.
That’s useful to know, because it means a lot of the clutter comes from how the package and its programs are named and configured, not from the form layout.
Clean up the setup before touching the styling
Rename everything a visitor will read
Program and event names are often written for staff (“GA – Adult – Summer 2026,” “Planetarium Show 2 – Internal”). Those names flow straight onto the public form. Before you change anything else, review every program, event, package, and price type in the package and ask whether a first-time visitor would understand it. Short, plain names do more for the form than any color change.
Trim price types
Every price type you attach to a package becomes another row a buyer has to read past. If the package is meant for families, you may only need adult and child. Senior, student, and military pricing can live on regular admission instead. Fewer rows is the single biggest improvement on mobile.
Reduce the number of scheduled components
Each timed component typically asks the buyer to pick a time. If one piece of the package doesn’t really need a reserved slot (general admission on a non-capacity day, for example), consider whether it can be untimed. Fewer selection steps means a shorter form and fewer abandoned carts.
Use the description fields
Wherever Altru lets you add a description to the package or form, use it to say in one or two sentences what’s included and how scheduling works. “Includes all-day admission and one 30-minute planetarium show. Choose your show time below.” That sentence answers the question most buyers get stuck on.
What you can style
Altru web forms offer some control over appearance, and many organizations apply their own stylesheet or theme settings so fonts and colors roughly match the website. How much you can change, and where those settings live, depends on how your forms are set up and published. If you’re not sure what your instance supports, ask Blackbaud support or test changes on a copy of the form before touching the live one.
A few practical notes from working with these forms:
- Match fonts and colors, don’t fight the layout. Styling that changes typography, button colors, and spacing tends to hold up. Heavy CSS that tries to reflow the form into a different structure can break when Blackbaud updates the underlying markup.
- Check the embed on a phone. Package forms are long, and an embedded form that scrolls inside the page (instead of with it) is miserable on mobile. Test on a real device, not just a narrowed desktop browser.
- Keep a record of custom CSS. Store it somewhere outside Altru with a note on what each rule does, so the next admin isn’t afraid to change it.
Do the explaining on your own web page
The page that hosts or links to the package form is fully yours. Use it. Put a short “what’s included” list, the price, the rules (valid dates, whether show times sell out, whether members get a discount), and a single clear button above the form. When buyers already know what they’re getting, a clunky form is far less of a problem, and your front desk gets fewer “did I buy the right thing?” calls.
If you sell several packages, give each one its own page and its own form rather than one form listing everything. A focused form is shorter and easier to scan.
Test it the way a visitor would
- Open the page on your own phone on cellular data.
- Buy the package for two adults and one child, choosing a show time.
- Note every point where you had to stop and think, or scroll back up.
- Check the confirmation and the resulting order in Altru to make sure every component landed as expected.
Then hand the same task to someone outside your team. Their hesitation points are your to-do list.
When the form itself is the limit
After the cleanup, some organizations find the package form still doesn’t fit their brand or their mobile traffic. At that point the choice is either to accept it and lean on your own page copy, or to sell packages through a different front end that writes back to Altru.
That second option is what our Checkouts product does: a branded, mobile-friendly checkout that replaces Altru web forms for tickets, memberships, and donations, supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, and writes the transaction data back to Altru. It’s worth considering if package sales matter to your revenue and the form is clearly costing you buyers. If it isn’t, the setup and copy changes above are free and worth doing first.
Quick answers
Can I hide a component of a package on the web form?
Not that we’d count on. The form reflects the package’s contents. If a component shouldn’t be visible to buyers, reconsider whether it belongs in the package, and confirm the behavior with Blackbaud support or in a test form.
Will custom CSS survive Altru updates?
Light styling usually does. Rules that depend on specific page structure are more fragile. Recheck your forms after Blackbaud releases updates.
