Virtual event budget: Free template and guide

Additionally, event planners are dealing with ever-changing expectations. They need to snag shorter attention spans and work with ever-shrinking budgets. Additionally, they need to demonstrate that they've earned a return on investment (ROI) of their events, and they're largely expected to drive an engagement level similar to that like you'd experience at the event in person.

Below, we'll cover how to budget for your virtual event, which lines you should eliminate in your spreadsheet, as well as how you can track the results of your event -- to help you get larger budget for your next one!

Make copies of our complimentary budgeting templates for events.

In this article

1.    Why you need an budget for events (especially for hybrid and virtual occasions)
2.    Cost of hosting an event online
3.    Cost breakdown for virtual events
4.    What do you require to pull off an event that is successful online
5.    What is the best way to gauge the success of your virtual event
6.    Include human touches to make your virtual experience appear real
7.    FAQs about budgeting for the virtual event
8.    The time is now to begin event planning

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

In many ways, virtual events are significantly less costly to hold than live gatherings. After all, there's no requirement to hire an event space or chairs, print materials, sort arrangements, or put out platters of charcuterie.

Setting the budget will help you take a strategic approach to the event that you're planning online -- from how to reduce costs, to discovering possible sources of sponsorship as well as cash flow.

If you plan the event in advance, you can decide which line items are mission essential, and which ones can be cut, and in which areas you can get creative in surprising and delighting attendees.

Average cost of hosting a virtual event

The cost for hosting a virtual conference is dependent on a number of factors such as the length of the event to the number of speakers and attendees involved.

Later on in this piece, we'll discuss the different costs involved in hosting a virtual event, to help you better assess the expense of hosting your own event. However, for now, we'll outline what you can expect as the ballpark cost of hosting a virtual event

• If you are hosting a smaller webinar, with as many as 500 people typically, anticipate paying between between $2,500 and $10,000.
• If you are planning a one-day virtual conference, complete with the ability to present and even virtual breakout rooms, expect prices to vary from $4000 to $25,000..
• If you are planning a virtual conference that lasts for a long time with multiple sessions, breakout rooms, discussions, and recordings, you can expect to pay between $50 between $50,000 and 150,000.

As you can tell, that's a pretty significant variation.

Let's dig into the different aspects to take into consideration when planning the budget for your virtual event in order to estimate costs more accurately.

Cost breakdown for virtual events

Example of cost breakdowns used for planning virtual events

What you need to pull off a successful virtual event

In terms of technology, you can organize a virtual meeting with little less than an online space for meetings, a camera, and a microphone. However, if you want to create an seamless, successful virtual experience, here are several expenses may be worth investing in.

Gear

It's not a lot of equipment to make speakers online appear professional and polished -- but it does take some.

Instead, get presenters set in advance, preparing these:

• Microphones so that your audience can hear every phrase ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras with crisp video ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights are used to regulate the possibility of poor lighting ( prices start at $30)
• In case you need to, use green screens ( prices start at $18)

If you're planning an event that is more limited in budget 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 the lighting they use and their volume of background sound during the event.

Read more about gear

Virtual Event Hosting Software

It is possible to think of the event hosting software as the online venue the which your event takes place. Similar to physical venues various platforms provide a range of different features.

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

• Between $50-$250 to hold small virtual meetings which can have up to 100 people each.
• Between $625 and $8,000 to organize larger virtual events, with 500-2,500 guests.
• Between $25,000 to $40,000 is the minimum amount needed to hold larger events that have more than 3000 attendees.

Virtual event platforms typically cost per user and have different pricing levels according to your specific requirements for your virtual event. (Think the number of guests, marketing and promotion features, and security controls as an example.)

Take careful stock here of exactly what features the platform you use for your event provides you with. While some platforms may -- at the surface level -- seem higher priced than other platforms however, they might have additional features that will make them cheaper in the long run.

Other software is also required.

If you choose to go with a platform which does not provide these features but you must ensure you have included the following expenses within your budget to cover the following:

• Landing page hosting:starting at $39/month for landing pages that are hosted on your own 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 pay the ticketing fee (for instance, $0.99 and 2% of the cost for tickets) per ticket, or an annual subscription that starts at 39 dollars per month.
• Email management software: beginning at $3 per month to send 500 emails each month. Enterprise and premium plans usually cost from $136-150 for each user, per month.
• Software for engagement with audiences: beginning at 8 dollars per month for audiences of between 50 and. The pricing for Enterprise plans is ranging from $199/month to $1,000/month.

Speakers

Virtual events take much less travel time and effort than in-person events, most keynote speakers are charged approximately 50% of their in-person fee for virtual events. Exactly how much the speaker is going to charge however, is likely to depend on their experience as well as how popular they are.

According to Big Speak, you can expect to be charged:

• $2,500 to $5,000 for an expert who is relatively new in this field
• Between $7,500 and $10,000 to an experienced keynote speaker
• $10,000 to $30,000 for a thought-leader who has huge following or previously written books
• Between $20,000 and $75,000 for the most famous.
• $100,000 to $200,000 for well-known stars

Content

If you're recording any type of content for your celebration, be sure add production costs to your budget.

To record in a studio, you can expect to spend anywhere between 375-$500 an hour to record. If you're recording remotely it's likely to cost less by $125-$200 an hour.

Whatever way you go, warns Zephan Blaxberg, the CEO of video production studio ZMBMedia, expect that your costs for production will at least three times more than you initially anticipated. If you want to edit your video post-production plan for $100 to $200 for an hour.

"Keep in mind a 1:3 ratio for recordings prior to events that is, for each minute of recording, it will take roughly three times the amount of time charged. Although your presenter may be speaking for a mere 60 minutes, the livestream tech will arrive an hour early to set up the studio and begin preparing. They will also be staying at least one hour after the recording has been completed to back up footage, and then begin editing process."

Marketing and advertising

Ask yourself (and your team! ):

• How long will our marketing team be able to devote to this particular event?
• What can we do to promote the event to prospective attendees?
• Do we want to spend our money on advertising on social media?
• What does our email marketing appear to be?
• Do we collaborate with influencers to help spread word on our occasion?
• What will our post-event marketing look like?

Keep in mind that marketing and advertising can be some of the costliest portions of hosting a virtual event.

"The biggest spend we have is on advertising and the thought leaders/experts we bring on as speakers," says Miles DePaul Director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is where the value of the Superside brand comes in. When people are more comfortable with our brand and take advantage of our information, our participation improves, and our event budgets will begin to decrease. We save on advertising since our cost-per-click decreases due to greater brand awareness and more organic marketing pays off. We can save money on speakers due to the fact that great speakers would like to work with us, or will offer discounts."

After you've developed your plan, you'll be able to know better where you can use your existing resources (such as your marketing team and the existing software for email marketing), and which areas you'll require additional funds (for instance, for influencer partnerships or landing pages hosting).

Swag or gift cards

• A notepad with a brand name that allows note-taking ( $4.66)
• A pair of custom socks ( $9.78)
• A custom tote bag ($3.99)
• A plain mailer bag ($0.87)

Shipping costs can vary based on attendee location, the materials within the swag bags are priced at $19.30, or just under $20.

Sponsors or partners

Fortunately, this is an opportunity to reduce expenses from the budget for your virtual event. (We would love to know.)

Sponsorship opportunities may look differently for online events than they do for in-person events, but they absolutely exist. Prior to the event begins, sponsors may be highlighted in the marketing for your event prior to it like your event's web page and social media pages, company newsletter, and reminder emails. Also, you can send participants emails detailing any special offers of sponsors or partners.

At the time of the event, you can feature the logo of your sponsor on slides, run sponsored polls on their behalf and host a conversation with sponsors, or feature their short-form videos. If they'd like to offer items from their sponsors to the attendees they can be included in your swag bags.

Finally, don't forget to feature sponsors on your post-event material which includes on-demand video, post-event emails and social media postsas well as video snippets. By doing this, you're giving value to your sponsors, as they'll continue to enjoy broadcast time for a long time after the event been concluded.

Additional event-related resources

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

You're probably aware that there are plenty of expenses that go into hosting a great online event. To demonstrate the return on investment of your event , and ensure financing for future events it is crucial to monitor and demonstrate the effectiveness of your event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• The brand's awareness: measured through the number of registrations for events, traffic on websites as well as event impressions and engagements on social media.
• Leads and customers generated by events: tracked via events, response to event surveys or any other actions performed by the new leads (such like announcing a trial trial).
• Education of the audience is measured by the average number of sessions attended by guests and the level of attendee engagement in discussions, Q&As, and chats.

"Our events strategy is the best in delivering value across the full funnel and influencing customers to be aware of their problems and aware, but also influence sales engagements and, ultimately, revenue," states DePaul.

Then he adds:

"The key metrics we analyze when it comes to any event, whether it's virtual or on-site, comprise (1) the number of registrants from the ideal profile of our customers (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) the revenue generated by accounts that have been engaged at an event.
 
  A few of the down funnel metrics, like design subscriptions won, often will take a while, and this will just be just one aspect of the ROI calculation. The leading indicator of this would be whether we are able to get event visitors back to our website, consume more content, as well as take actions at the bottom of the funnel such as visiting our pricing page , or even requesting an demo."

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

When you're running a virtual event it's easy to forget that real viewers are behind screens in the crowd, making it easy for people to lose interest or get lost in.

DePaul and Superside and the Superside team are aware of the significance of thoughtful, personal elements as they plan their online events. "Throughout this entire journey, we increasingly try to include a human element by using things such as mailing letters, gifts or user-generated content or videos," he says.

There are several methods to make your audience feel more connected to the program, the other attendees as well as your speaker:

• Utilize tools for engagement with the audience -- like a Live chat feature, polls that are interactive and sections for Q&A in order to ensure that your event will be an open dialogue, rather than an unison monologue.
• Invite attendees to meet and talk in break-out rooms. You can also set up a LinkedIn group to ensure attendees are able to connect with each other after the event. This can add a social aspect (and additional value!) to the virtual event.
• Send out swag bags, or use a prize to encourage participation. Small things like this can to keep the crowd entertained and keep active throughout the event.

DePaul's continues:

"For example, our largest event of 2022, Momentum Summit is heavily advertised by short videos of our speakers, which we used in both ads and personalized one-to-one emails. When readers come to the page for landing, we'd have videos from the speakers as well as from our team discussing problems we want to discuss at the conference rather than a static text-heavy landing page.

We encourage some of our most VIP participants to join us and invite their colleagues by providing snacks in boxes or even offer for lunch to them on the day of the event. In the actual event the focus is on peer-to peer connections via discussion during the event chatroom, small executive roundtables and inviting them to the Superside community for conversations that continue throughout the duration of the event."

Budgeting questions for virtual events.

Are you still unsure concerning budgeting your next virtual event? Below, we'll tackle some frequently asked questions , and provide you with links to further resources to help you plan your event.

What is the typical budget for a virtual conference?

According to Statista the survey found that 34% of marketers claim they invest between $500 and $1,000 per participant on an online event.

What is the budget you can use for virtual events?

What is the best way to host virtual events? earn money?

What should I look for in a virtual event platform?

The time is now to begin planning events

The process of planning a virtual event isn't easy However, it offers unique opportunities to grow your following, work with innovative sponsors and presenters, and delight attendees. In addition to hosting, the platform allows you to create a stunning landing page, automate event reminder emails, engage the audience, incorporate your own marketing software, and dig into post-event analytics.