Virtual event budget: Free template and guide

On top of that, event planners are dealing with rapidly-evolving expectations: they need to snag shorter attention spans and work with shrinking budgets. Additionally, they need to demonstrate the ROI (ROI) of their events, and they're generally expected to generate exactly the same kind of participation as you would see in an in-person event virtually.

Below, we'll cover how to budget for your online event, what lines you should eliminate from your spreadsheet, and how you can track the results of your event -- to help you get bigger budget for the following one!

Print a copy of our free templates for budgeting your event.

In this article

1.    What is the reason to have an budget for events (especially in hybrid and virtual events)
2.    Average cost of hosting a virtual event
3.    Cost breakdown of virtual event
4.    What do you require for an event that is successful online
5.    What is the best way to gauge the impact of your virtual event
6.    Add human touchpoints to make your virtual experience appear real
7.    Budgeting FAQs for an event that is virtual
8.    The time is now to begin event planning

What are the reasons to have an expense budget for your event (especially for virtual and hybrid occasions)

Virtual events can be far cheaper to host than in-person occasions. There's also no need to rent chairs or a space for an event or print equipment, arrange arrangements, or put out charcuterie boards.

Setting the budget will help you take a strategic approach to the virtual event you are planning -- from where to cut costs to finding possible sources of sponsorship as well as cash flow.

If you plan your event prior to the date it is possible to determine which line items are mission vital, which could be slashed, and where you are able to be creative in creating a memorable experience for your guests.

The average cost for hosting a virtual event

The price of hosting an online event is contingent on a number of factors including the duration of the event, to the participants and speakers.

In the following post, we'll go over the costs of hosting a virtual event to help you better estimate the cost of hosting your own party. However, for now, we'll outline what you can expect as the ballpark cost of hosting an event online:

• In the case of a webinar that is shorter, and has up to 500 attendees, you can generally anticipate paying between $2000 to $10,000.
• A single day virtual conference, complete with sessions and virtual breakout spaces, you can expect expenses to be between $4,000 to $20,000.
• If you are planning a virtual conference that lasts for a long time that features multiple sessions, breakout rooms, discussions, as well as recorded material Expect to shell out between $50,000 and 150,000.

You can see this is a significant variation.

We'll look into the many aspects to take into consideration when budgeting for your virtual event to help you estimate the cost more precisely.

Cost breakdown for virtual event

Example of cost breakdowns used for planning virtual events

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

It is technically possible to organize a virtual meeting using just an online meeting room, a camera, and a microphone. But, if you're trying to provide an smooth, efficient virtual experience, there are some expenses you might want to consider spending money on.

Gear

It's not that difficult to find technology to make your online speakers look polished and professional -However, it will take some.

Instead, set presenters up ahead of time with the following:

• Microphones that ensure your viewers can be heard each word ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras with crisp video ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights that can be controlled for any poor lighting ( prices start at $30)
• In case you need to, use green screens are available ( prices start at $18)

If you're planning an event with a tighter budget it's possible to skip some of the items above -- just make sure to check the speakers' setups prior to of time, and coaching the speakers on how to improve their lighting and the levels of background noise throughout the occasion.

Find out more about gear

Virtual Event Hosting Software

You can think of Event Hosting Software as the virtual venue in the event that will take place. Similar to physical venues, different platforms offer you various features.

According to Markletic is a good resource for what you could expect to spend in virtual event platform costs per month:

• Between $50 and $250 to hold small virtual meetings which can have up to 100 people per conference.
• Between $625 and $8,000 to hold larger virtual events that have between 500 and 2,500 people.
• Between $25,000 and $40,000 to hold larger events that have more than 3,000 attendees.

Most virtual event platforms will charge per user, and charge different pricing tiers according to your specific requirements for your virtual event. (Think number of attendees as well as marketing and promotional features and security measures as an example.)

Make sure to take note of exactly what features the platform you use for your event provides you with. While some platforms may appear to be more expensive on a surface level -- seem more expensive than others however, they might have added features that can will make them cheaper in the long run.

Any other software needs

If you opt for an option that doesn't offer these functions but you must ensure you include the following costs in your budget as needed:

• Hosting of landing pages:starting at $39/month for a landing page with an individual domain. Enterprise plans, which are for businesses hosting multiple large-scale events, can cost up to $469 per month.
• Registration forms for events: free for free occasions, but otherwise you will be charged an ticketing cost (for for example, $0.99 and 2% of the ticket price) per ticket, or for the monthly fee starts with $39/month.
• Email management software: Starting at $3 per month to deliver 500 email messages per month. Premium and Enterprise plans generally cost between $36 - 150 per user per month.
• Audience engagement software: beginning from 8 dollars per month for groups of up to 50. The pricing for Enterprise plans can range from $199/month all the way to 1,000 per month.

Speakers

Virtual events take lesser travel and time than in-person events, most keynote speakers are charged approximately half of their in-person cost for events that are virtual. The exact amount the speaker is going to charge, though, will usually be based on their expertise as well as how popular they are.

Based on Big Speak the company, you should expect to payfor:

• Between $2,500 and $5,000 to a relative new expert within the field
• Between $7,500 and $10,000 to an experienced keynote presenter
• Between $10,000 and $30,000 to a thought-leader with huge following or previously published books
• From $20,000 to $75,000 for famous people
• From $100,000 to $200,000 to well-known stars

Content

If you're pre-recording any content for your event, you'll need include production costs in your budget.

For example, to pre-record in a studio, expect to pay anywhere from $300 to $500 per hour to record. If you're pre-recording from a remote location it's likely to cost less by $125-$200 an hour.

Either way, warns Zephan Blaxberg, the CEO of video production studio ZMBMedia, expect the costs of production to triple than you initially anticipated. For post-recording edits, budget in $100 to $200 per hour.

"Keep your mind on a 1:13 ratio for pre-event recordings in that for every minute recording, it will take around three times the time being billed. Although your presenter may have a brief talk lasting only 60 minutes, your livestream engineer will be arriving one hour before to setup the studio and prepare. They'll also stay at least one hour after the recording has been completed to back up footage before beginning the editing process."

Advertising and marketing

Do you ask yourself (and members of your group! ):

• How much time does our marketing team plan to be able to devote to this event?
• How can we advertise the event to prospective attendees?
• Do we want to spend our money on advertising on social media?
• What is our marketing email going to appear to be?
• We will work with influential people to get the word out on our event?
• What will our post-event marketing be like?

Be aware that marketing and promotion are among the most expensive aspects of hosting an online event.

"The most significant expenditure we can make is on advertising and experts or thought leaders that we bring on as speakers," says Miles DePaul director for Demand Generation at Superside. "This is where the worth of the Superside branding comes into. Once people get more acquainted with the Superside 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 better brand awareness, and more organic marketing pays off. We can save money on speakers because great speakers want to work with us, or will offer discounts."

Once you've come up with an idea, you'll have a better understanding of where you can use your current resources (such like your sales staff and existing email marketing software), and where you may need to spend extra (for instance, for partnership with influencers, or on landing page hosting).

Gifts or swag

• 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)

While shipping will vary greatly based on attendee location The materials inside each of these swag bags would cost you $19.30 which is less than $20.

Sponsors or partners

It is a good opportunity to take out costs from your virtual event budget. (We love to see it.)

Sponsorship opportunities might look differently for online events than they do for in-person events However, they're still there. Before the event begins, sponsors may be featured on every aspect of your marketing prior to the event such as your event's landing page and social media pages as well as your company's newsletter and reminder emails. You can also send registrants emails with details of special deals of sponsors or partners.

During the occasion, you may display sponsors' logos on the slides, run sponsored polls on their behalf or host a panel discussion with your sponsors, or show their short-form films. If they'd like to offer sponsored products to attendees, you can include these inside your swag bags.

Don't forget to include the sponsors you've partnered with in your post-event media such as on-demand videos, post-event emails and social media postsas well as short video clips. In this way, you're giving value to your sponsors, as they'll continue to enjoy broadcast time long after the event has been concluded.

More event resources

How to measure the success of your virtual event?

It's likely that you've guessed by now, there are many expenses involved to hosting an excellent virtual event. To prove the ROI of your venture and to secure financing for future events it is crucial to monitor and demonstrate the effectiveness of the event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Brand awareness: measured through events registrations, web traffic as well as event impressions as well as social media interactions.
• Customers and leads generated: tracked through events, response to survey questions or any other actions performed by the new leads (such as starting a free trial).
• Educational value for the user is measured by the number of sessions attended by guests and the amount of participation in discussions, Q&As, and chats.

"Our event strategy works most effective in delivering benefits across the entire funnel, influencing buyers to not only become problem-aware as well as to drive more sales engagements and, ultimately, revenue," DePaul says. DePaul.

Then he adds:

"The key metrics we analyze for any event, no matter if it's virtual or on-site, comprise (1) the total number of attendees of our perfect customer profile (ICP), (2) the total number of attendees from the ICP, (3) opportunities generated by accounts following engagement at an event and (4) the revenue generated by accounts that have been engaged at an event.
 
  Some of the lower funnel indicators, such as designs subscriptions, will typically require a long time to complete, therefore it's only one part of your ROI calculation. The most reliable indicator will be if we are able to get event attendees back to our website, consume more content, and also take action at the bottom like visiting our pricing pages or asking for an demo."

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

When you're running a virtual event It can be very simple to overlook the fact that real people are sitting behind their screens in the crowd, making it easy for people to lose interest or be lost in.

DePaul and Superside and the Superside team understand the importance of thoughtful, even personalized elements as they plan their online events. "Throughout this whole process we are always trying to include a human element via things like mailing letters, gifts, user generated content, or videos," he says.

Here are some methods to make your audience feel more connected to the event, other viewers and speakers.

• Utilize tools for engagement with the audience -such as live chat, interactive polls, and sections for Q&A -- to make sure the event has a two-way conversation rather than a monologue.
• Allow attendees to get together and chat in breakout rooms, and establish a LinkedIn Group so that participants can interact with one another following the occasion. This helps bring a networking element (and an added benefit!) for your online event.
• Distribute swag bags and use a giveaway to encourage participation. These little things can to keep the crowd entertained and keep' energy up throughout the event.

DePaul's continues:

"For instance, our biggest Summit in 2022 called Momentum Summit, was promoted heavily with short selfie videos from our speakers, which we utilized in our ads as well as customized 1:1 emails. If visitors visit the page for landing you'll see videos from the speakers and from our team discussing 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 most VIP participants to attend and invite colleagues to join them by providing snacks in boxes or even offer the lunch option on the day of the event. The day of the event the focus is on peer-to peer connections through discussion in the event chat, smaller executive roundtables or inviting them into the Superside Community for conversations that continue throughout the duration of the event."

Budgeting questions for virtual events.

Have a few lingering questions regarding budgeting your next virtual event? We'll answer a few commonly asked questions , and provide you with links for additional resources that can help with your planning.

What's the average budget for a virtual event?

According to Statista, 34% of marketers claim they will spend between $500-$1,000 for each participant in an online occasion.

How do you budget for a virtual event?

How does hosting virtual events generate income?

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

Time to get event planning

Organising a virtual gathering can be plenty of work however, it offers unique opportunities to grow your audience, partner with creative sponsors and speakers as well as delight guests. Aside from hosting, 's platform makes it easy to build a gorgeous landing page, send event reminder emails, engage the audience, incorporate your own marketing software as well as analyze event after-event data.