Virtual event budget The template is free and includes a guide

On top of that Event planners must contend with ever-changing expectations. They have to compete with shorter attention spans, while working on ever-shrinking budgets. Additionally, they need to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of their events, and they're typically expected to create exactly the same kind of participation that you'd see at the event in person.

In the next section, we'll discuss how to budget for your virtual event, which line items you can strike from your spreadsheet, and how to measure the success of your event -- in order to get bigger budget for the next one!

Print an image of our no-cost budgeting templates for events.

In this article

1.    Why you need an budget for your event (especially for hybrid and virtual occasions)
2.    Cost of hosting the virtual event
3.    Cost breakdown of virtual occasions
4.    What do you require to have an effective virtual event
5.    How do you measure the success of your virtual event
6.    Include human touches to make your virtual experience feel IRL
7.    FAQs on budgeting a virtual event
8.    It's time to start organized for your event

The reasons you should have an expense budget for your event (especially in hybrid and virtual event)

Virtual occasions can be far cheaper to organize than traditional occasions. After all, there's no need to rent an event space or chairs and printing equipment. You can also sort accommodation, or even set up charcuterie boards.

But, establishing the budget will help you make strategic decisions about your virtual event -- from how to reduce costs, to discovering possible sources of sponsorship as well as cash flow.

If you have a budget for your event prior to the date it is possible to determine what line items are essential, and which ones can be reduced, and how you can get creative in surprising and delighting attendees.

Average cost of hosting a virtual event

The average cost of hosting a virtual event depends on several factors -- from the length of the event, to the speakers and attendees involved.

In the next post, we'll go over the costs of hosting an event online, in order to allow you to more precisely determine the costs for hosting your own event. But for now, here's the information you should expect to pay to pay for hosting an event online:

• For a shorter webinar with as many as 500 people, you can generally expect to pay between between $2,500 or $10,000.
• If you are planning a one-day virtual conference that includes presentations and virtual breakout rooms, anticipate expenses to be between to $4,000 to $20,000.
• For a multi-day virtual conference which includes multiple sessions breakout rooms, discussions, and recordings You can anticipate to shell out between between $50,000 and 150,000.

It's clear it's quite a large range.

Let's look at the various line items to consider when planning the budget for your virtual event, in order to estimate expenses more precisely.

Cost breakdown of virtual events

Cost breakdown examples for planning virtual events

What are the steps you must take to pull off a successful virtual event

Technically, you could run a virtual event using just an online meeting room with a camera and a microphone. But, if you're trying to ensure a smooth, efficient virtual experience, here are some expenses you might want to consider spending money on.

Gear

It doesn't take too much equipment to make speakers online appear professional and polished -however, it takes some.

Instead, get presenters set in advance, preparing the following:

• Microphones to ensure your audience can hear every phrase ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras with crisp video ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights that can be controlled for any lighting issues ( prices start at $30)
• In case you need to, use green screens are available ( prices start at $18)

If you're running an event on a budget that's less expensive it's possible to avoid some of the items above Make sure that you're checking your speakers' existing setups ahead of time and guiding the speakers on how to improve their lighting and levels of background noise during the event.

Find out more about gear

Virtual Event Hosting Software

You can think of event hosting software as the venue virtual in the which your event takes place. Just like the physical venue the various platforms can provide you with a range of different features.

According to Markletic is a good resource for what you can expect to pay in the cost of a virtual event platform per month:

• Between $50 and $250 , you can hold small virtual meetings that can accommodate up to 100 participants each.
• Between $600 and $8,000, you can host larger virtual events with between 500 and 2,500 people.
• Between $25,000 and $40,000 to host larger events with over 3,000 attendees.

Most virtual event platforms will cost per user and will charge different price tiers depending on your requirements for your virtual event. (Think about the number of people attending, marketing and promotion features, and security controls, for instance.)

Take careful stock here of exactly what features your event platform provides you with. Though some platforms could seem, at a superficial level -- seem to be more costly than others but they could have additional features that make them more affordable over the long term.

Any other software needs

If you choose to go with one which doesn't offer these functions, however, make sure you add the following charges included in your budget when needed:

• Landing page hosting:starting at $39/month for landing pages that are hosted on an individual domain. Enterprise plans, for companies that host multiple events of a large scale, may cost you up to $469 per month.
• Registration forms for events: free for free events, otherwise expect to pay an ticketing cost (for for example, $0.99 and 2% of the ticket price) per ticket, or for a monthly subscription starting from 39 dollars per month.
• Software for managing emails: starting at $3/month to send 500 emails per month. Premium and Enterprise plans typically cost between $36 - 150 per user per month.
• Audience engagement software: starting with 8 dollars per month for audiences of as large as 50. Enterprise plan pricing can range between $199/month to $1,000/month.

Speakers

Since virtual events require lesser travel and time than traditional events, the majority of keynote speakers will charge approximately half of their in-person fees when they host virtual events. Exactly how much an individual speaker can charge but it will typically be based on their expertise and their popularity.

As per Big Speak You can anticipate to pay:

• Between $2,500 and $5,000 for an expert who is relatively new in this field
• Seven,500-$10,000 for an established keynote presenter
• A $10,000-$30,000 price range for a thought leader with an extensive following, or who has written books
• From $20,000 to $75,000 for famous people
• $100,000 to $200,000 for well-known celebrity

Content

If you're pre-recording any content for the celebration, be sure add production costs to the budget.

For example, to pre-record in a studio, you can expect to pay anywhere from $300 to $500 per hour for filming. If you're recording remotely, this cost should drop to $125 to $200 an hour.

Whatever way you go, warns Zephan Blaxberg who is the CEO of the ZMBMedia, the video production studio ZMBMedia, expect that your costs for production will be about three times higher than you initially anticipated. If you want to edit your video post-production plan for $100 to $200 per hour.

"Keep your mind on a 1:13 ratio of pre-event recordings in that for every minute recording, there will be approximately three times as much amount of time charged. Although your presenter may speak for only 60 minutes, the livestream tech will be arriving one hour early to set up the studio and begin preparing. The technician will stay for at least an hour following the recording has been completed to back up footage before beginning the editing process."

Advertising and marketing

Ask yourself (and your team! ):

• How long the marketing team of our company will spend on the event?
• How will we promote this event to potential attendees?
• How much will we invest in advertising on social media?
• What is our marketing email going to take on?
• Will we work with influencers to help spread word about our occasion?
• What is our post-event advertising strategy? look like?

Remember that advertising and marketing are among the costliest portions of hosting an online occasion.

"The most significant expenditure we can make is advertising, as well as the thought leaders/experts we bring to speak at our events," says Miles DePaul director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is the point where the worth of the Superside brand is realized. Once people get more acquainted with our brand and take advantage of our information, our participation improves, and event costs may begin to shrink. Advertising costs are reduced since our cost-per-click decreases due to increased brand recognition, and more organic marketing pays off. We can save money on speakers since great speakers are eager to collaborate with us and will offer discounts."

When you've made a plan, you'll be able to see where you can use your current resources (such for example, your advertising team and the existing software for email marketing) or which areas you'll have to invest more (for example, collaborations with influencers or landing pages hosting).

Swag or gifts

• A notepad with a brand name to take notes ( $4.66)
• A pair of socks that are custom-made ( $9.78)
• A custom tote bag ($3.99)
• A plain mailer bag ($0.87)

Although shipping costs will differ depending on the location of attendees and the contents inside, the bags are priced at $19.30, or just under $20.

Sponsors or partners

Fortunately, this is an aspect where you are able to take out the costs of the budget for your virtual event. (We would love to know.)

Sponsorship opportunities may look distinct for virtual events as those for live events however, they are still available. Prior to the event, the sponsors will be highlighted in the marketing for your event prior to it such as your event's website as well as social media updates as well as your company's newsletter and reminder emails. It is also possible to send attendees emails with details of special deals of sponsors or partners.

At the time of the celebration, you could display sponsors' logos on the slides, run sponsored polls for them or host a panel discussion with your sponsors, or feature their short-form videos. If they'd like to send sponsored products to attendees they can be included inside your swag bags.

Also, be sure to feature the sponsors you've partnered with in your post-event media -- including on-demand footage as well as post-event emails, social media postsas well as videos snippets. This way, you're actually adding value to your sponsors, since they continue to receive time on the air for a long time after the event ended.

Additional event-related sources

What is the best way to gauge the effectiveness of your virtual event?

It's likely that you've guessed from the above, there's numerous expenses that go in hosting an amazing online event. To demonstrate the return on investment of your venture and to secure the funding needed for future events, it's critical to track and document the results of your event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Brand awareness determined by event registrations, website traffic as well as event impressions as well as social media interactions.
• Leads and customer generated: tracked through event sign-ups, responses to event surveys or any other actions performed by the new leads (such as starting a free trial).
• Education of the audience Measured by the number of sessions attended by guests and the level of attendee engagement with discussions, questions and answers and chats.

"Our strategies for events are at its best in delivering value across the full funnel and influencing customers to not only become problem-aware as well as to drive more meetings with sales, and eventually the revenue" DePaul says. DePaul.

He continues:

"The most important metrics we analyze in relation to every occasion, regardless of whether it's online or on-site, comprise (1) the number of attendees from our ideal customer profile (ICP), (2) the total number of participants of the ICP, (3) opportunities that are created by account after engaging during an event, and (4) revenues generated by accounts that have been engaged at an occasion.
 
  Certain factors that are down the funnel, such as design subscriptions won, often will take a while, and this is only just one aspect of the ROI calculation. One of the most important indicators would be whether we can bring attendees back to our website and consume more of our content and also take action at the bottom such as visiting our pricing page or requesting a demo."

Incorporate human-like touches to make your virtual experience seem IRL

When hosting a virtual event it's simple to overlook the fact that real people are sitting behind their screens in the crowd and it's easy for attendees to lose interest or be distracted.

DePaul and the Superside team recognize the value of thoughtful, personal aspects when planning their online events. "Throughout this whole process We are constantly trying to include a human element via things like mailing letters, gifts and user-generated content or video," he says.

Here are a few strategies to help your attendees feel more connected to the program, the other attendees and speakers.

• Utilize tools for engagement with the audience -- like a online chat or interactive survey, as well as Q&A segments -- to make sure your event is an interactive conversation, not a monologue.
• Invite attendees to meet and have a chat in the breakout rooms. Also, set up a LinkedIn group to ensure attendees are able to connect with one another following the event. This can add a social aspect (and extra value!) to your virtual event.
• Give out swag bags as well as use giveaways for participation. These small elements can help foster excitement and keep attendees active throughout the event.

DePaul's continues:

"For instance, our biggest Summit of 2022, Momentum Summit, was promoted heavily by short videos of our speakers. These were utilized in our ads as well as customized email messages that were 1:1. When readers come to our landing page you'll see videos from the speakers and from our staff discussing the questions we'd like to talk about at the event instead of the static landing page that is mainly text.

We invite a few of our VIP attendees to come along and invite colleagues to join them by providing snacks in boxes, or offer to buy their lunch during the day's event. The day of the event, we prioritize peer-to-peer connections through discussion in the event chat, smaller executive roundtables, or inviting them to our Superside Community for conversations that continue long after the event."

Budgeting questions for virtual events.

Have a few lingering questions regarding budgeting the next virtual event? Below, we'll tackle a few commonly asked questions , and provide you with links for additional resources that can help you plan your event.

What's the average budget for a virtual event?

According to Statista, 34% of marketing professionals say they invest between $500-$1,000 for each participant in a virtual conference.

How can you plan your budget for an online event?

How does hosting virtual events make money?

What are the most important things to look for in a virtual events platform?

The time is now to begin planning events

The process of planning a virtual event could be a lot of work -- but it also provides unique opportunities to increase your reach, collaborate with innovative sponsors and presenters as well as delight guests. In addition to hosting, the platform lets you create a stunning landing page, send event reminder emails, engage your guests, connect with your own marketing software and analyze post-event analytics.