Sponsorship & Exhibitor Pricing Calculator
Enter your audience, sponsor tiers and booth sizes to get a starting price for each package, your sponsor and exhibitor income, and what is left after the cost of delivering them.
Your sponsorship and exhibitor income
Price per sponsor tier
| Tier | Available | Suggested price | Price used | Per attendee | Cost to deliver each | Income if all sell | Left after delivery |
|---|
Booth prices
| Booth type | Size | Number | Price each | Income if all sell |
|---|
If everything sells, or only 60%
| Line | Everything sells | 60% sells |
|---|
Suggested prices are a starting point built from audience value, not a market quote. Results leave out tax, venue and staff costs for the wider event, sponsor refunds and anything you have not entered here.
A starting price for a sponsor package is the value of your audience to that sponsor, multiplied by how much exposure the package gives, plus the face value of its passes and the value of its booth space. For a 2-day B2B conference with 1,000 senior attendees valued at $30 each, the audience is worth $36,000, and a headline package with 10 logo placements, 20 minutes on stage, lead scanning, 10 passes and a 36 m² booth comes to $50,400, or $50.40 per attendee. Test that figure with real sponsors before you publish it.
How to price sponsorship packages
Organisers usually combine three methods. Each answers a different question.
- Value-based pricing asks what your audience is worth to the sponsor. This calculator uses it: a value per attendee, multiplied by attendees and by the share of exposure the package gives. It is the method that lets a 400-person conference of buyers charge more than a 5,000-person free fair.
- Cost-plus pricing asks what the package costs you to deliver. Passes, booth builds, lead scanning and printed signage are real costs. The calculator shows the cost of each tier next to its price, so you never sell a package for less than it costs.
- Market pricing asks what similar events charge. Ask sponsors what they paid elsewhere and what they got for it. If your price is far above the market, you need stronger proof of value.
Start from value, check the floor with cost, then adjust against the market. The audience values in the calculator ($30, $12, $4 and $3 per attendee) are directional starting points, not industry statistics. Replace them once you know what your sponsors pay.
What sponsors buy: leads, reach and association
- Leads. B2B and trade show sponsors want names of people who could buy from them. Lead scanning, meeting rooms and hosted sessions matter most to them. That is why lead scanning adds 10% to the exposure weight here.
- Reach. Consumer brands at festivals and conventions want to be seen by many people. Logo placements, stage mentions and big activations sell reach. Each logo placement adds 4% and each minute of stage time adds 1%, up to 100% in total.
- Association. Some sponsors want to be linked with your community, your programme or your values. Association is hard to count, so price it through the headline tier and naming rights, not through extra logos.
How to price exhibitor booths per square metre or square foot
Booth income is simple: size × price per area × any premium. Set one base price per m² or ft², then add a premium for booths with more open sides, because visitors can reach them from more directions. These ranges are directional:
| Booth type | Open sides | Directional premium on your base price per area |
|---|---|---|
| Inline or standard | 1 | None. This is your base price. |
| Corner | 2 | 10% to 15% |
| Peninsula | 3 | 15% to 20% |
| Island | 4 | 20% to 30% |
| Space only (no shell) | Any | Often a lower base price, because the exhibitor builds their own stand |
The example presets use $450 per m² for a B2B conference, $300 for a trade show, $120 for a fan convention and $60 for festival activation space. Treat them as examples and replace them with the rate in your market. Always check the floor space: the calculator adds the booth space inside each sponsor package to your exhibitor booths and warns you if the total is larger than the floor you can sell.
How many sponsor tiers should you have?
Three or four tiers suit most events: one exclusive headline package, a few mid-level packages and more entry packages. Add single items (a coffee break, the lanyards, the Wi-Fi) for sponsors who cannot afford a full tier. If 20 sponsors each get one logo, each logo is worth less, so lower the entry price.
Comp passes use capacity
Every pass in a package is a place a buyer could have paid for. If your event sells out, a sponsor pass costs you its full face value. The calculator counts passes at face value on both sides: in the price and in the cost to deliver. In the B2B example, sponsor packages hold 38 passes, 3.8% of attendees. The guest list cost calculator shows what a growing list of free places does to your income.
On Ticket Fairy, you can give a sponsor its passes through a delegation: a set number of tickets of the types you choose, marked as prepaid, that the sponsor issues to its own guests from a self-service portal with no dashboard login. You can revoke access or set an expiry date, and there is a full record of who issued what.
Activation: what the sponsor does at your event
An activation is an experience, such as a product demo, a sampling bar or a hosted breakfast. It usually delivers more than a logo and costs more to run. Price the space as a booth, put any build or staff you supply into "Other cost to deliver each", and agree in writing who pays for power, staff and waste.
Proving value after the event
Sponsors renew when you can show what they got. Plan the report before the event: leads scanned, attendance for each day and sponsored session, logo placements delivered and the attendee profile. Send it within two weeks.
Ticket Fairy can help with parts of that report. For business events and conferences, checkout can collect company and job fields for each ticket holder. The check-in dashboard shows arrivals and entry rates per gate in real time. You can give a sponsor a read-only sales tracking link that shows the sales of only the ticket types you choose, and build sponsor-branded landing pages. Event Management has a Sponsors section where each sponsor's logo attaches to its record, sponsor deliverables go onto the task board, and the budget has a sponsorship section for sponsor cash and in-kind value. See conference ticketing, exhibition ticketing and Ticket Fairy pricing.
How the answer changes with the size of the event
Audience value grows in a straight line with attendees, but the value of passes and booths does not. For a 100-person meetup of professionals at $12 each, the whole audience is worth $1,200: a host sponsor with 3 logo placements and 5 minutes on stage comes to $200 before any passes or space, and a one-logo supporter to $50. At that size, a single pass or a table in the room can be worth as much as the exposure. For a 150,000-attendee, 4-day convention using the fan preset, the audience is worth $960,000 and the presenting package reaches $763,050, or $5.09 per attendee. At that size, exposure is most of the price. Extra days add value, but repeat visits are worth less than new people, so the calculator stops at 60% extra for four days or more.
2-day B2B conference, 1,000 senior attendees
Value per attendee $30, pass face value $900, booth price $450 per m², build cost $60 per m², lead scanning $250 per sponsor, programme costs $5,000, ticket revenue $500,000, 900 m² of floor space.
- Audience value: 1,000 × $30 × 1.2 (two days) = $36,000.
- Headline (1 available): 10 logos (40%) + 20 stage minutes (20%) + lead scanning (10%) = 70%. $36,000 × 70% = $25,200, plus 10 passes × $900 = $9,000, plus 36 m² × $450 = $16,200. Suggested price $50,400, or $50.40 per attendee. Cost to deliver: $9,000 + $2,160 build + $250 + $3,000 other = $14,410.
- Gold (2 available): 34% exposure, 5 passes, 18 m². Suggested price $24,850. Silver (4 available): 22%, 3 passes, 9 m². $14,650. Supporter (6 available): 4%, 1 pass. $2,350.
- Sponsor income if every package sells: $172,800. Booth income: 20 standard booths at $4,050, 6 corner booths at $4,455 (10% premium) and 4 large booths at $8,100 = $140,130. Total: $312,930.
- Costs to deliver and sell: $67,990 for passes, builds, lead scanning and extras, plus $5,000 programme costs = $72,990. Left after these costs: $239,940.
- If 60% sells: $187,758 of income, $45,794 of costs, $141,964 left after these costs.
- Sponsors and exhibitors make up 38% of total event income. Booths and sponsor spaces use 414 of 900 m² (46%). Sponsor packages hold 38 passes, 3.8% of attendees.
"Left after these costs" is not profit. It leaves out the venue, staff, speakers and every other cost of the wider event. Run those through the event break-even calculator.
Common sponsorship pricing mistakes
- Pricing from your costs alone. Cost-plus sets the lowest price you can accept, not what the package is worth to the sponsor.
- Giving away passes without counting them. On a sold-out event, every sponsor pass is a ticket you did not sell.
- Selling more booth space than the floor holds. Add the space inside sponsor packages to your booth plan before you publish a floor map.
- Too many sponsors in one tier. Twenty logos on one banner are each worth less. Cap the tier or split it.
- No plan to prove value. Agree before the event what you will report afterwards, and collect that data from the first day of sales.
Frequently asked questions
How do I price sponsorship packages for my event?
Start from what your audience is worth to the sponsor, then check it against your costs and what similar events charge. This calculator multiplies your attendees by a value per attendee and by the exposure each package gives, then adds the face value of its passes and the value of its booth space. For 1,000 senior B2B attendees at $30 each over two days, a headline package with 10 logos, 20 minutes on stage, lead scanning, 10 passes and a 36 square metre booth comes to $50,400. Treat it as a starting point and test it with real sponsors.
How much should I charge per square foot or square metre for an exhibition booth?
Set one base price per square metre or square foot for your market, then multiply it by the booth size. Add a premium for booths with more open sides: as a directional guide, 10% to 15% for a corner, 15% to 20% for a peninsula and 20% to 30% for an island. Check that the booths plus the space inside sponsor packages fit the floor space you can sell.
How many sponsorship tiers should an event have?
Three or four tiers suit most events: one exclusive headline package, a few mid-level packages and more entry packages. Add single items such as a coffee break or the lanyards for sponsors who cannot afford a full tier. If many sponsors share one tier, each logo is worth less, so price the tier lower or cap the number.
What is the difference between value-based and cost-plus sponsorship pricing?
Value-based pricing asks what reaching your audience is worth to the sponsor. Cost-plus pricing asks what the package costs you to deliver, such as passes, booth builds, lead scanning and signage, and adds a margin. Cost-plus gives the lowest price you can accept. Value-based pricing tells you what the package can be worth. Market pricing then checks both against what similar events charge.
Do sponsor comp passes cost me money?
Yes. Every pass in a sponsor package is a place a buyer could have paid for. On a sold-out event, each pass costs you its full face value. This calculator counts passes at face value in the price of the package and in its cost to deliver, and shows how many passes all your packages hold as a share of attendees.
How do I show sponsors they got value from my event?
Agree before the event what you will report and send it within two weeks: leads scanned, attendance for each day and each sponsored session, logo placements delivered and the attendee profile, such as job titles or companies for a business event. Sponsors renew when they can see what their money bought.
Reviewed and updated September 2026 by the Ticket Fairy events data team. Benchmarks in this tool are directional — for real-time analytics against your own event history, use Ticket Fairy Intelligence.