How much to charge for online access to your conference

During the pandemic, we conducted a study to discover the average price of a ticket to an online tech conference.

As you might expect, there was quite a range.

A quarter of the events we sampled charged less than 50 USD while 7% charged over 500 USD, but the average emerged as 170 USD. (Read about our methods here). Of course, things have evolved now many events are moving to a hybrid format.

Consideration #1: Price point

Costs for online participants don't tend to scale in the same way as in-person events, so you might choose to set your online access price on the lower end in order to attract a wider audience. That said, your price also communicates value, and having paid for a ticket makes it more likely that folks will actually attend on the day.

We've seen a very rough formula emerge for hybrid events where organizers tend to charge around a quarter of the in-person ticket price for online-only passes. While we haven't tested this as thoroughly as our earlier study, this could act as a rule of thumb if you're not sure where to start.

In should be said of course that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to ticket pricing, and will of course depend on your costs, audience, profit margins, sponsorships and so on.

Consideration #2: Pricing strategy

Vito's built-in checkout keeps things simple with a single price for access. But if you're using Vito with Tito or another registration tool, you may want to experiment with other pricing formats, such as:

Phased pricing: Think 'early bird', 'standard', 'last minute' etc., as is typical for in-person events.
On-demand passes: Charge to catch up in-hub for a set period following the event.
Combined tickets: Making online access an additional perk of purchasing in-person tickets.
Online workshops: Offer extra paid content without the associated costs of physical events.
Donation pricing: Set a suggested price (including an optional minimum) and let customers choose.
Group tickets: This could include an "unlimited access" ticket for folks from the same company.

These are just some ideas to kick you off, but there are tons of approaches you could adopt to pricing.

Consideration #3: What the price includes

When figuring out pricing, and indeed communicating the value to potential attendees, it's worthwhile listing out what online access passes will include. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Teaser video content ahead of time
Behind-the-scenes videos and livestreams
On-demand access to the videos immediately following the talks
Access to virtual swag and sponsor spaces
Discussion feed(s) for connecting with organizers, speakers, sponsors and other participants
Bonus workshops and other content

We hope you'll be able to take some of the ideas and run with them so that both you and your attendees get the most out of having an online element to the event.