Virtual Event Budget: Free template and guide

Additionally, event planners are dealing constantly changing expectations. They need to snag shorter attention spans while working with shrinking budgets. Also, they must prove the ROI (ROI) of the events they host, and are generally expected to generate exactly the same kind of participation that you'd see at an in-person event virtually.

In the next section, we'll discuss how to budget for your virtual event, which are the line items that you can eliminate from your spreadsheet, and how you can track the results of your event so you can get a bigger budget for the following one!

Print copies of our complimentary event budgeting template.

In this article

1.    Why you need an budget for events (especially for virtual and hybrid events)
2.    Cost of hosting an event online
3.    Cost breakdown of virtual events
4.    What you need for an event that is successful online
5.    What is the best way to gauge the effectiveness of your online event
6.    Incorporate human-like touches to make your virtual experience feel IRL
7.    Budgeting FAQs for the virtual event
8.    The time is now to begin event planning

What are the reasons to have an estimated budget (especially in hybrid and virtual event)

In many ways, virtual events can be far cheaper to host than in-person events. There's also no requirement to hire chairs or space at an event and printing equipment. You can also sort accommodation, or even set up platters of charcuterie.

But, establishing a budget can help you make strategic decisions about your virtual event -- from how you can cut expenses to locating ways to increase sponsorship opportunities and cash flow.

If you have a budget for your event prior to the date it is possible to determine what line items are critical, which can be cut, and in which areas you can get creative in creating a memorable experience for your guests.

Cost of hosting an average virtual event

The cost for hosting a virtual conference is dependent upon a variety of variables including the duration of the event, to the number of participants and speakers.

Later on in this post, we'll go over the costs of hosting a virtual event, in order to allow you to more precisely assess the expense of hosting your own party. But for now, here's what you can anticipate to pay for hosting an event online:

• If you are hosting a smaller webinar, with up to 500 attendees, you can generally be prepared to spend between $2,500 or $10,000.
• If you are planning a one-day virtual conference that includes presentations and virtual breakout rooms, expect prices to vary from $4,000 to $20,000.
• To host a conference for multiple days which includes multiple sessions discussion rooms, breakout rooms and recordings, you can expect to shell out between $50,000 to one hundred thousand dollars.

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

Let's look at the various elements to be considered when planning the budget for your virtual event, in order to estimate costs more accurately.

Cost breakdown of virtual events

Example of cost breakdowns used for planning virtual events

What are the steps you must take to create a memorable virtual event

In terms of technology, you can conduct a virtual gathering with little less than an online space for meetings with a camera and a microphone. If you're looking to ensure an seamlessand successful virtual experience, there are several expenses you might want to consider making.

Gear

It doesn't take too much equipment to make 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 every sound ( 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)
• If needed, green screens are available ( prices start at $18)

If you're running an event with a tighter budget it's possible to avoid one or two of these items -- just make sure you're checking the the speakers' setups prior to of time, and coaching the speakers on how to improve the lighting they use and their the levels of background noise throughout the occasion.

Find out more about gear

Virtual event software for hosting

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

According to Markletic, here's what you can expect to pay for the virtual event platform each month:

• Between $50 and $250 , you can host small virtual conferences which can have up to 100 people for each.
• Between $600 and $8,000, you can organize larger virtual events, with between 500 and 2,500 people.
• Between $25,000 to $40,000 is the minimum amount needed to organize larger gatherings with more than three thousand attendees.

Most virtual event platforms will cost per user and have different pricing levels according to your requirements for your virtual event. (Think number of attendees or marketing and promotion options as well as security features, for instance.)

Be aware of the features that your platform for events comes with. Although some platforms might seem, at a superficial scale -- appear to be higher priced than other platforms, they may come with additional features that help them be more affordable over the long term.

All other software requires

If you choose to go with an option which does not include those features, however, make sure you include the following costs included in your budget when needed:

• Landing page hostingstarting at $39/month for a landing page with the domain of your choice. Enterprise plans, which are for businesses who host multiple large-scale events can cost up to $469 per month.
• Registration forms for events: free for free occasions, but otherwise you will pay the ticketing charge (for for example, $0.99 and 2% of the cost for tickets) per ticket, or a monthly subscription starting at 39 dollars per month.
• Software to manage emails starting at $3 per month to send 500 emails each month. Premium and enterprise plans usually cost from $36 - 150 per user for a month.
• Audience engagement software: Starting with $8/month for audiences up to 50. Pricing for the Enterprise plan ranges between $199/month to $1,000/month.

Speakers

Since virtual events require lesser travel and time than in-person events, most keynote speakers are charged about 50percent of their live fees when they host virtual events. Exactly how much the speaker is going to charge, though, will usually be based on their expertise as well as how popular they are.

As per Big Speak the company, you should expect to pay:

• A range of $2,500-$5,000 for an expert who is relatively new 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
• $20,000 to $75,000 for celebrities
• $100 to $200,000 for famous celebrities

Content

If you're planning to record any video or audio to be used at your celebration, be sure to factor production costs into the budget.

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

Either way, warns Zephan Blaxberg, the CEO of video production studio ZMBMedia, expect your production costs to be about three times higher than what you originally anticipated. If you want to edit your video post-production plan for $100 to $200 per hour.

"Keep an eye on a 1:3 ratio for recordings prior to events: for every minute of recording, there will be approximately three times as much amount of time charged. While your host 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 will also be staying for at least an hour following the recording has been completed to back up footage, and then begin editing procedure."

Marketing and advertising

Ask yourself (and members of your group! ):

• How long does our marketing team plan to be able to devote to this particular event?
• How can we advertise this event to potential attendees?
• Will we spend money on social media promotion?
• What will our email marketing appear to be?
• Will we work with influencers to help spread word regarding the special event?
• What will our post-event marketing take on?

Keep in mind that marketing and advertising are among the most expensive aspects when hosting a virtual occasion.

"The most significant expenditure we can make is advertising, as well as experts or thought leaders that we bring on to give talks," says Miles DePaul director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is the point where the value of the Superside brand comes in. When people are more comfortable with the Superside brand and gain knowledge from our content the participation rate increases and the event budget may begin to shrink. Advertising costs are reduced since the cost per click decreases with increased brand recognition, as well as more organic promotions pay off. Speaker fees are reduced due to the fact that great speakers would like to collaborate with us and they are willing to give discounts."

After you've developed your plan, you'll be able to know better how you can make use of the resources you already have (such for example, your advertising staff and the existing software for email marketing) as well as which areas you'll require additional funds (for instance, on partnership with influencers, or on landing pages hosting).

Swag or gifts

• A branded notepad for note-taking ( $4.66)
• A pair of custom socks ( $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 dollars.

Sponsors or partners

It is a good area where you can take out expenses from the cost of your virtual event. (We would love to know.)

Sponsorship opportunities might look different for virtual events than they would be for events that take place in person However, they're still there. Prior to the event begins, sponsors may be featured on every aspect of your marketing prior to the event, including your event web page, social media posts as well as your company's newsletter and reminder emails. You can also send registrants emails detailing any special offers by sponsors or partners.

In the course of your event, you can feature sponsor branding on transition slides, conduct sponsored polls for them and host a conversation with your sponsors, or showcase their short-form video. If they'd like to offer sponsored products to attendees and attendees, they could be included inside your swag bags.

Also, be sure to mention sponsors in your post-event content such as on-demand videos, post-event emails and social media postsas well as videos snippets. This way, you're actually giving benefit to your sponsors as they'll continue to enjoy time on the air long after the event has wrapped.

Additional event-related information and resources

How do you measure the impact of your virtual event?

As you can probably tell that there are plenty of expenses that go into hosting a great online event. To demonstrate the return on investment of your event and secure funding for future events, it is crucial to monitor and document the results of your event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Awareness of brand determined by events registrations, web traffic, event impressions, and social media engagements.
• Customers and leads generated by events: tracked via registration for events, responses to surveys for events, and any actions taken by new leads (such such as launching a free trial).
• Education of the audience Measured by the number of sessions attended by guests and the amount of participation during discussions, Q&As and chats.

"Our event strategy works the best when it delivers value across the full funnel that enables buyers to not only become problem-aware and aware, but also influence meetings with sales, and eventually the revenue" DePaul says. DePaul.

He continues:

"The key metrics we analyze for any occasion, regardless of whether it's online or live, are (1) the total number of attendees of our perfect customer profile (ICP), (2) the number of people who attended from our ICP, (3) opportunities that are created by account after engaging at an event, and (4) revenue generated from accounts that were engaged during an event.
 
  Certain down funnel metrics, like design subscriptions won, often require a long time to complete, therefore this is only an element of an ROI calculation. The leading indicator of this would be whether we're able to bring event attendees back to our website and consume more of our content and take the bottom-of-funnel actions like visiting our pricing page or requesting a demo."

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

When hosting the event via a computer It can be very difficult to remember that actual viewers are behind screens in the crowd, making it easy for attendees to lose interest or become lost in.

DePaul and Superside and the Superside team understand the importance of thoughtful, personal aspects when planning their events online. "Throughout this entire journey we are always trying to include a human element via things like gifts, direct mail and user-generated content or even videos," he says.

There are several methods to make your audience feel more connected to your program, the other attendees and speakers.

• Utilize tools for engagement with the audience -such as live chat, interactive polls as well as Q&A segments -- to make sure the event has a two-way conversation rather than a monologue.
• Allow attendees to get together and talk in break-out rooms. You can also create a LinkedIn group so that attendees can connect to one another after the conference. This will add a networking component (and an added benefit!) to the virtual event.
• Send out swag bags, and use a giveaway to encourage people to participate. These small elements can help foster excitement and keep attendees engaged all through the day.

DePaul's continues:

"For example, our most important Summit of 2022, Momentum Summit was heavily promoted using short video selfies from our speakers. These were used in both ads and personalized 1:1 emails. If visitors visit the landing page there will be videos of the speakers and from our team talking through the questions we'd like to talk about during the summit, not just a static text-heavy landing page.

We invite a few of our most VIP participants to join us and invite colleagues to join them by providing snacks in boxes, or to buy their lunch during the occasion. The day of the event We encourage peer-to-peer interactions through discussion in the event chatroom, small executive roundtables or inviting them into our Superside Communities for conversations that continue well beyond the event."

Questions about budgeting for a virtual conference

Do you have lingering questions about budgeting for your next event online? Below, we'll tackle some frequently asked questions , and provide you with links to additional resources to assist you plan your event.

What's the budget average for a virtual event?

According to Statista, 34% of marketers claim they will spend between $500 to $1,000 per participant on an online occasion.

What is the budget you can use for virtual events?

How can hosting virtual events earn money?

What do I need to be looking for in a virtual events platform?

The time is now to begin planning events

Organising a virtual gathering can be plenty of work However, it gives you unique opportunities to expand your following, work with innovative sponsors and presenters, and delight attendees. Aside from hosting, 's platform allows you to build a gorgeous landing page, send email reminders for events, connect with your audience, integrate with your marketing platform as well as analyze event the post-event analysis.