Virtual Event Budget: Free template and guide

Additionally Event planners must contend with rapidly-evolving expectations: they have to compete with shorter attention spans while working with ever-shrinking budgets. Also, they must prove that they've earned a return on investment (ROI) of their events, and they're largely expected to drive the same type of engagement as you would see in the event in person.

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

Create a copy of our free budgeting templates for events.

In this article

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

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

Virtual occasions can be significantly less costly to hold than live events. In the end, there's no need to rent chairs or a space for an event or print equipment, arrange arrangements, or put out platters of charcuterie.

However, setting an appropriate budget will allow you to make strategic decisions about the virtual event you are planning -- from where to reduce costs, to discovering possible sources of sponsorship as well as cash flow.

If you have a budget for your event ahead of time, you can decide the line items that are critical, which can be slashed, and where you are able to be creative in creating a memorable experience for your guests.

Cost of hosting an average virtual event

The average cost of hosting a virtual conference is dependent upon a variety of variables including the duration of the event to the number of people who will be speaking and the number of attendees.

In the next 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. But for now, here's what you can expect as the ballpark cost of hosting a virtual event

• For a shorter webinar with more than 500 participants You can anticipate paying between $2,500 or $10,000.
• If you are planning a one-day virtual conference with the ability to present and even virtual breakout rooms, anticipate expenses to be between $4,000 up to $20,000.
• If you are planning a virtual conference that lasts for a long time which includes multiple sessions breakout rooms, discussions, and recordings, you can expect to pay between $50,000 between $50,000 and 150,000.

As you can tell it's quite a large spread.

Let's dig into the different line items to consider when planning the budget for your virtual event in order to estimate expenses more precisely.

Cost breakdown for virtual events

Example of cost breakdowns used to plan a virtual event

How do you create a memorable virtual event

In terms of technology, you can organize a virtual meeting with little less than an online space for meetings with a camera and a microphone. If you're looking to provide an seamless, successful virtual experience, here are some expenses could be worth spending money on.

Gear

It doesn't take too much equipment to make online speakers appear polished and professionalHowever, it will take some.

Instead, have presenters set up ahead of time with the followingitems:

• Microphones so that your audience can hear each sound ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras with crisp video ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights to control for any poor lighting ( prices start at $30)
• If needed, green screens ( 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 Make sure to check your speakers' existing setups ahead of time and instructing their staff on ways to maximize their lighting as well as levels of background noise during the event.

Learn more about gear

Virtual event hosting software

The idea is to consider an event-hosting software program as the virtual venue in the event that will take place. And just like physical venues the various platforms can provide you with many different options.

According to Markletic is a good resource for what you can expect to pay for the virtual event platform each month:

• Between $50 and $250 , you can organize small virtual conference that can accommodate up to 100 participants per conference.
• Between $625 and $8,000 to hold larger virtual events that have between 500 and 2,500 people.
• Between $25,000 to $40,000 is the minimum amount needed to organize larger gatherings with more than 3,000 attendees.

Virtual event platforms typically charge per user, and will charge different price tiers according to your requirements for your virtual event. (Think about the number of people attending as well as marketing and promotional features and security measures as an example.)

Make sure to take note of exactly what features your platform for events comes with. While some platforms may appear to be more expensive on a surface scale -- appear to be higher priced than other platforms however, they might have added features that can help them be more affordable when you consider the longer term.

Other software is also required.

If you opt for an option which does not provide these features but you must ensure you have included the following expenses included in your budget when needed:

• Hosting of landing pages:starting at $39/month for an online landing page that is hosted under an individual domain. Enterprise plans, which are for businesses that host multiple events of a large scale, could cost as high as $469 per month.
• Event registration forms: free for free occasions, but otherwise you will be charged a ticketing charge (for instance, $0.99 and 2% of the ticket cost) per ticket, or for a monthly subscription starting from 39 dollars per month.
• Software for managing emails: Starting at $3 per month to deliver 500 email messages per month. Premium and Enterprise plans generally cost between $136-150 per user for a month.
• Audience engagement software: starting from 8 dollars per month for audiences up to 50. The pricing for Enterprise plans ranges from $199/month all the way to $1,000/month.

Speakers

Virtual events take lesser travel and time as compared to in-person events. Most keynote speakers will charge around 50percent of their live cost for virtual events. The exact amount an individual speaker can charge however, is likely to be based on their expertise and how well-known they are.

As per the Big Speak, you can expect to pay:

• Between $2,500 and $5,000 for a relatively new expert in the space
• Seven,500-$10,000 for a seasoned keynote speaker
• $10,000 to $30,000 for a thought-leader who has a large following or published books
• From $20,000 to $75,000 for famous people
• $100,000 to $200,000 for well-known celebrity

Content

If you're planning to record any video or audio for your occasion, it's important add production costs to your budget.

For example, to pre-record at a studio, anticipate you to shell out anywhere from 375-$500 an hour to record. If you're pre-recording remotely the cost will drop to $125 to $200 an hour.

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

"Keep in mind a 1:3 ratio for pre-event recordings in that for every minute recording, there will be roughly three times the time being billed. Even though your presenter might be speaking for a mere 60 minutes, your livestream technician will be arriving one hour earlier to prepare the studio, and then prepare. They will also be staying at least one hour after the recording is completed, to save the footage and begin the editing procedure."

Advertising and marketing

You can ask you (and the team! ):

• How much time the marketing team of our company will devote to this event?
• How can we advertise the event to attendees who might be interested?
• Will we spend money on advertising on social media?
• What does our email marketing look like?
• Will we work with influencers to help spread word regarding the event?
• What kind of post-event marketing will take on?

Be aware that marketing and promotion can be some of the costliest portions of hosting an online event.

"The largest expenditure we make is for advertising as well as experts and thought leaders we invite on as speakers," says Miles DePaul director for Demand Generation at Superside. "This is the point where the worth of the Superside brand is realized. When people are more comfortable with our brand, and learn from our content the participation rate increases and our event budgets will begin to decrease. We save on advertising since the cost per click decreases with increased brand recognition, and more organic marketing pays off. Speaker fees are reduced because great speakers want to collaborate with us and will offer discounts."

Once you've come up with your plan, you'll be able to be able to see how you can make use of the resources you already have (such for example, your advertising team as well as the email marketing software you already have) as well as the areas where you might have to invest more (for instance, on influencer partnerships or landing page 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)

Although shipping costs will differ based on attendee location The materials inside the bags will cost $19.30, or just under $20.

Sponsors or partners

It is a good opportunity to deduct expenses from the budget for your virtual event. (We would love to know.)

Sponsorship opportunities may look different for virtual events than they would be for events that take place in person, but they absolutely exist. Prior to the event begins, sponsors may be highlighted across every aspect of your marketing prior to the event, including your event landing page and social media pages as well as your company's newsletter and reminder emails. It is also possible to send attendees emails detailing any special offers by sponsors or partners.

At the time of the occasion, you may display sponsor branding on transition slides, run sponsored polls on their behalf and host a conversation between your sponsors or showcase their short-form video. If your sponsors would like to provide merchandise from sponsors to guests and attendees, they could be included inside your swag bags.

Finally, don't forget to include sponsors in your post-event content such as on-demand videos 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 long after the event has wrapped.

Additional event-related information and resources

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

It's likely that you've guessed from the above, there's plenty of expenses that go in hosting an amazing virtual event. To demonstrate the return on investment of your event and secure financing for future events it's crucial to keep track of and demonstrate the effectiveness of your event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• The brand's awareness is measured by event registrations, website traffic events, impressions of the event, and engagements on social media.
• Leads and customer generated: tracked through registration for events, responses to survey questions as well as any action taken by new leads (such like announcing a trial trial).
• Education of the audience is measured by the amount of time with guests as well as the level of attendee engagement during discussions, Q&As and chats.

"Our event strategy works at its best when it delivers benefits across the entire funnel and influencing customers to not only become problem-aware as well as to drive more interactions with sales and ultimately the revenue" states DePaul.

Then he adds:

"The key metrics we examine in relation to every event, whether it's virtual or live, are (1) the number of registrants of our perfect customer profile (ICP), (2) the total number of attendees that we have in our ICP, (3) opportunities created from accounts after engagement at an event, and (4) the revenue generated by accounts that have been engaged at an event.
 
  Certain factors that are down the funnel, such as designs subscriptions, will typically take some time, so this is only an element of the ROI calculation. The leading indicator of this will be if we can bring attendees back to our website, consume more content, as well as take actions at the bottom of the funnel like visiting our pricing page or requesting a demo."

Include human touches to make your virtual experience seem IRL

If you're hosting a virtual event It can be very difficult to remember that actual people are sitting behind their screens in the audience and it's easy for attendees to lose interest or get distracted.

DePaul and Superside and the Superside team recognize the value of thoughtful, even personalized components when they design their events online. "Throughout the entire process We are constantly trying to include a human element by using things such as direct mail, gifting or user-generated content or even videos," he says.

Here are some ways to help your audience feel more connected to your occasion, others watching and speakers.

• Utilize tools for engagement with the audience -for example, live chat, interactive polls as well as Q&A segments in order to ensure that your event will be an open dialogue, 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 event. This helps bring a networking element (and additional value!) to your virtual event.
• Distribute swag bags and use a giveaway for participation. These little things can foster excitement and keep attendees active during the entire event.

DePaul's continues:

"For example, our most important summit of 2022, Momentum Summit, was promoted heavily with short selfie videos from our speakers, which we used in both ads and customized one-to-one emails. If visitors visit the landing page, we'd have videos from the speakers as well as from our team discussing questions we'd like to talk about at the event, not just the static landing page that is mainly text.

We invite a few of our VIP attendees to come along and invite their colleagues using things such as snack boxes, or offer for lunch to them at the time of the day's event. The day of the event the focus is on peer-to peer connections by engaging in a discussion chat, smaller executive roundtables, or inviting them to the Superside Communities for conversations that continue long after the event."

FAQs about budgeting for virtual events.

Do you have lingering questions about budgeting for the next virtual event? Here, we'll address a few commonly requested questions. We'll also direct you to additional resources to assist you plan your event.

What's the budget average for virtual events?

According to Statista, 34% of marketing professionals say they will spend between $500 to $1,000 for each participant in a virtual occasion.

What is the budget you can use for virtual events?

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

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

It's time to start planning your event

The process of planning a virtual event isn't easy however, it offers unique opportunities to grow your audience, partner with innovative sponsors and presenters, and delight attendees. In addition to hosting, the platform makes it easy to design a beautiful website, create the sending of reminder emails for your event, interact with your audience, integrate with your own marketing software and analyze post-event analytics.