Virtual event budget: Free template and guide

In addition the event planners have to deal with rapidly-evolving expectations: they have to compete with shorter attention spans and work with ever-eroding budgets. They also need to prove the return on investment (ROI) of the events they host, and are generally expected to generate an engagement level similar to that as you would see in an in-person event virtually.

Below, we'll cover the steps to budget your virtual event, which line items you can strike in your spreadsheet, as well as how to track the success of your event to help you get more substantial budget for the following one!

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

In this article

1.    The reason you should have an event budget (especially for virtual and hybrid events)
2.    Cost of hosting an event online
3.    Cost breakdown of virtual events
4.    What you need to pull off an event that is successful online
5.    How do you measure the success of your virtual event
6.    Include human touches to make your virtual event feel IRL
7.    Budgeting FAQs for a virtual event
8.    The time is now to begin started with event planning

Why you need an estimated budget (especially for virtual and hybrid events)

In many ways, virtual occasions can be far cheaper to organize than traditional occasions. After all, there's no need to lease an event space or chairs or print equipment, arrange accommodation, or even set up boards of charcuterie.

But, establishing the budget will help you make strategic decisions about your virtual event -- from where you can cut expenses to locating potential sources of sponsorship and cash flow.

When you budget for your event ahead of time You can determine which line items are mission essential, and which ones can be reduced, and how it is possible to come up with a new way of engaging and delighting guests.

The average cost for hosting a virtual event

The average cost of hosting an online event is contingent on several factors -- from the length of the event, to the participants and speakers.

Later on in this post, we'll go over the different costs involved in hosting an event online, so you can more closely assess the expense of hosting your own event. For now, let's look at what you can expect as the ballpark cost of hosting an event online:

• For a shorter webinar with more than 500 participants typically, anticipate paying between $2,500 to $10,000.
• A single day virtual conference, complete with presentations and virtual breakout rooms, anticipate expenses to be between to $4,000 to $25,000..
• For a multi-day virtual conference which includes multiple sessions breakout rooms, discussions, as well as recorded material You can anticipate to pay between $50 to one hundred thousand dollars.

You can see, that's a pretty significant spread.

Let's dig into the different aspects to take into consideration when budgeting for your virtual event in order to estimate expenses more precisely.

Cost breakdown of virtual events

Examples of cost breakdowns for planning virtual events

What you need to pull off a successful virtual event

In terms of technology, you can run a virtual event using just an online meeting room along with a camera microphone. If you're looking to create an smooth, efficient online experience, there are some expenses may be worth spending money on.

Gear

It's not that difficult to find equipment to make speakers online appear polished and professional- but it does take some.

Instead, get presenters set up ahead of time with these:

• Microphones so that your audience can hear every phrase ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras with crisp video ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights to control for any lighting issues ( prices start at $30)
• If required, green screens are available ( prices start at $18)

If you're running an event with a tighter budget, you may be able to skip one or two of these items Just make sure to check your speakers' existing setups ahead of time and instructing 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

The idea is to consider event hosting software as the venue virtual in the which your event takes place. Just like the physical venue various platforms provide many different options.

According to Markletic Here's the amount you can expect to pay in the cost of a virtual event platform every month:

• Between $50 and $250 , you can hold small virtual meetings that can accommodate up to 100 participants each.
• Between $625 and $8,000 to host larger virtual events with 500-2,500 guests.
• 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 charge different pricing tiers depending on your virtual event needs. (Think the number of guests as well as marketing and promotional features and security measures, for instance.)

Be aware of what functions the platform you use for your event provides you with. Though some platforms could -- at the surface scale -- appear to be higher priced than other platforms however, they might have extra features that actually help them be more affordable when you consider the longer term.

Any other software needs

If you select one that doesn't provide these features, however, make sure you include the following costs in your budget as needed:

• Landing page hostingstarting at 39$ per month for an online landing page that is hosted under your own domain. Enterprise plans, which are for businesses that host multiple events of a large scale, can cost up to $469/month.
• Forms for registration to events: free for free events, otherwise expect to pay a ticketing fee (for instance, $0.99 and 2% of the cost for tickets) per ticket or the monthly fee starts with $39.90 per month.
• Software for managing emails: starting at $3 per month to send 500 emails each month. Premium and Enterprise plans usually cost from $150-$36 per user per month.
• Software for engagement with audiences: Starting at 8 dollars per month for audiences of between 50 and. Pricing for the Enterprise plan can range between $199/month up to 1,000 per month.

Speakers

Since virtual events require much less travel time and effort as compared to in-person events. Most keynote speakers are charged approximately 50% of their in-person fees when they host virtual events. The exact amount an individual speaker can charge but it will typically depend on their experience and their popularity.

As per Big Speak, you can expect to pay:

• $2,500 to $5,000 to a relative new expert in this field
• $7,500 to $10,000 for an established keynote or keynote speaker
• A $10,000-$30,000 price range for a thought leader with a large following or book published
• 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 the occasion, it's important add production costs to your budget.

For example, to pre-record at a studio, anticipate to spend anywhere between $375 to $500 an hour for filming. If you're pre-recording remotely the cost will drop by $125-$200 an hour.

In any case, warns Zephan Blaxberg who is the CEO of the video production studio ZMBMedia, expect that your costs for production will triple 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 pre-event recordings in that for every minute recording, it will take approximately three times as much time that is billed. Even though your presenter might be speaking for a mere 60 minutes, your livestream technician will be arriving one hour before to setup the studio, and then prepare. They'll also stay until at the least 1 hour after the recording to backup footage before beginning the editing process."

Marketing and advertising

Do you ask yourself (and the team! ):

• What amount of time will our marketing team spend on this event?
• How will we promote the event to prospective attendees?
• Will we spend money on promotions on social media?
• What is our marketing email going to look like?
• Do we collaborate with influencers to help spread word on the event?
• What will our post-event marketing take on?

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

"The biggest spend we have is for advertising as well as the thought leaders/experts we bring on as speakers," says Miles DePaul Director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is where the power of the Superside brand comes in. Once people get more acquainted with the Superside brand and learn from our content the participation rate increases and the event budget may begin to shrink. It is cheaper to advertise because our cost-per-click decreases due to increased brand recognition, as well as more organic promotions pay off. We save on speaker fees because great speakers want to collaborate with us and are willing to offer discounts."

Once you've come up with your plan, you'll be able to know better how you can make use of your current resources (such like your sales staff and existing email marketing software) or which areas you'll have to invest more (for example, influencer partnerships or landing pages hosting).

Gifts or swag

• A branded notepad to take notes ( $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 dependent on where the attendees are located and the contents inside, the bags would cost you $19.30 which is less than $20.

Partners or sponsors

This is an area where you can deduct the costs of your virtual event budget. (We love to see it.)

Opportunities for sponsorship may be differently for online events than they do for in-person events, but they absolutely exist. Before the event, sponsors can be highlighted across the marketing for your event prior to it, including your event landing page as well as social media updates as well as your company's newsletter and reminder emails. Also, you can send participants email notifications of any offers by sponsors or partners.

During the occasion, you may display the logo of your sponsor on slides, conduct sponsored polls in their name, host a discussion with sponsors, or showcase their short-form video. If they'd like to send items from their sponsors to the attendees and attendees, they could be included in your swag bags.

Finally, don't forget to include sponsors on your post-event material such as on-demand videos, post-event emails and social media postsas well as short video clips. By doing this, you're giving worth to sponsors because they will continue to get airtime long after the event has ended.

More event sources

How to measure the success of your online event?

It's likely that you've guessed by now, there are plenty of expenses that go to hosting an excellent online event. In order to prove the value of your venture and to secure financing for future events it's crucial to keep track of and prove the success of the event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Awareness of brand: measured through the number of registrations for events, traffic on websites events, impressions of the event, and engagements on social media.
• Leads and customer generated by events: tracked via event sign-ups, responses to surveys for events, and any actions taken by new leads (such as starting a free trial).
• Education of the audience is measured by the average number of sessions that guests attend and the amount of participation in discussions, Q&As, and chats.

"Our event strategy works at its best when it delivers worth across all channels that enables buyers to become aware of issues but also to influence more meetings with sales, and eventually the revenue" says DePaul.

He adds:

"The most important metrics we look at for any event, no matter if it's virtual or on-site, comprise (1) the total amount of people who register from our perfect customer profile (ICP), (2) the total number of attendees of the ICP, (3) opportunities created from accounts after engagement at an event, and (4) revenues generated by accounts with engagement at an event.
 
  Some of the lower funnel indicators, such as design subscriptions won, often will take a while, and it's only an element of the ROI calculation. The leading indicator of this is whether or not 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 viewing our pricing pages or asking for a demo."

Add human touchpoints for your virtual events to seem IRL

If you're hosting the event via a computer, it can be difficult to remember that actual viewers are behind screens in the crowd, making it easy for guests to lose focus or be distracted.

DePaul and the Superside team understand the importance of thoughtful, and even personal aspects when planning their online events. "Throughout this whole process, we increasingly try 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 methods to make your audience be more engaged with the occasion, others watching and speakers.

• Make use of tools to engage your audience- like a online chat or interactive survey as well as Q&A segments for ensuring the event has a two-way conversation rather than a monologue.
• Invite attendees to meet and chat in breakout rooms, and create a LinkedIn group so that participants can interact with one another following the event. This helps bring a networking element (and extra value!) to your virtual event.
• Send out swag bags, or use a prize for participation. These small elements can help to keep the crowd entertained and keep 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. When readers come to our landing page, we'd have videos from speakers, as well as our staff discussing the questions we'd like to talk about during the summit rather than an unchanging landing page with lots of text.

We invite a few of our more VIP registrants to attend and bring their colleagues along with things like snack boxes, or offer for lunch to them at the time of the day's event. In the actual event We encourage peer-to-peer interactions via discussion during the event chatroom, roundtables for executives with smaller groups or inviting them into the Superside community in which conversations go on well beyond the event."

Budgeting questions for a virtual conference

Do you have lingering questions concerning budgeting your next event online? We'll answer some frequently requested questions. We'll also direct you to further resources to help you plan your event.

What is the typical budget for a virtual conference?

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

How can you plan your budget for a virtual event?

What is the best way to host virtual events? generate income?

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

Time to get event planning

Planning a virtual event isn't easy However, it offers unique opportunities to grow your reach, collaborate with both speakers and sponsors who are creative and entertain attendees. In addition to hosting, the platform allows you 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 dig into the post-event analysis.