Annual member meeting
€1,490one-off
180 participants, registration and participation options, email communication, no abstracts. One Registration Event Package, Small.
With a guided setup session: €1,789. No monthly fee.
Price guide · updated August 2026
What does conference software cost?
Conference and congress management software costs €1,490 to €12,990 as a one-off price for a single event, or €290 to €1,190 per month plus €290 to €2,490 per event if you run several events a year. What moves the number is not how many people attend — it is whether you collect abstracts, review them, and take payments.
Those are vCongress list prices, published in full and identical to the numbers our invoices are generated from. Most vendors in this market quote on request; this page exists so a board can build a budget without booking a sales call first.
€1,490One-off, one event with registration and participant management, up to 250 participants
€3,990One-off, one congress with abstracts, peer review and a published programme
€7,080/yearRecurring platform for an organisation running abstract-driven events, plus a fee per event
€99Starter Pilot: a 45-day window to validate the fit before committing
One conference
What a single conference costs
A one-off Event Package covers one conference from setup to three months after the event. The price is set by what the event does, then adjusted by size. Every cell below is a list price, not a starting point.
Event typeSmall (to 250)Medium (to 500)Large (500+)
Registration event€1,490€2,290€3,590
Scientific event€2,990€4,490€6,990
Congress€3,990€5,990€9,490
Advanced congress€5,990€8,690€12,990
Choosing the modules an event uses — the same choice that sets the price
- Registration event — participant registration, participation options, participant management, email communication, exports.
- Scientific event — everything above, plus abstract submission, contribution types and tracks, file attachments, abstract export.
- Congress — everything above, plus reviewer management, the review process, scoring, programme planning and a public programme page.
- Advanced congress — everything above, plus payment processing, early-bird pricing, coupons, waitlists, public abstracts, sponsor and exhibitor areas.
Size is a fair-use guide, not the main price driver: moving from 250 to 500 participants on the same workflows costs less than adding a review process to the same audience. Optional onboarding is €299 for a guided walkthrough or €599 for hands-on configuration with you.
Several events a year
What a recurring conference programme costs
Organisations running events year after year pay for a platform that exists between them, plus a fee for each event executed on it. The plan decides which workflows are available; the event fee decides how much you use them.
PlanPlatformPer event executed
Foundation
€290 / monthRegistration, participant management, email communication, standard event website and reporting. Fair use to 400 participants per year.€290 registration event
€290 / monthRegistration, participant management, email communication, standard event website and reporting. Fair use to 400 participants per year.€290 registration event
Growth
€590 / monthAdds abstract submission, peer review, payment processing, public abstracts, coupons, waitlists, refunds and dunning. Fair use to 1,500 participants per year.€790 scientific · €1,490 congress
€590 / monthAdds abstract submission, peer review, payment processing, public abstracts, coupons, waitlists, refunds and dunning. Fair use to 1,500 participants per year.€790 scientific · €1,490 congress
Enterprise
€1,190 / monthEverything in Growth with no fair-use ceiling at all, plus priority support, an individual SLA, and integration or custom extension work delivered as a partnership.€2,490 advanced congress event
€1,190 / monthEverything in Growth with no fair-use ceiling at all, plus priority support, an individual SLA, and integration or custom extension work delivered as a partnership.€2,490 advanced congress event
A yearly baseline is the plan times twelve plus the events you actually run: €7,080 for a Growth platform, plus €790 for one scientific conference, is €7,870 a year.
Cost drivers
The five things that actually set the price
Ranked by how much they move a quote. Use them to sanity-check any offer you receive, from any vendor.
- Whether you collect abstracts
The single largest step. Submission means a structured editor, contribution types, file handling, deadlines and author communication — a whole second workflow beside registration.
- Whether those abstracts are reviewed
Peer review adds reviewer accounts, assignment, scoring, conflict handling, decisions and author notifications. It is the difference between collecting text and running a scientific programme.
- Whether you take payments
Fees, invoices, VAT, refunds, cancellation policies and dunning turn an event into an accounting process. This is where the cheap tools stop and where audit expectations start.
- How many participants you expect
It matters, but least. It affects support load, storage and email volume rather than which features you need — which is why it should band a price rather than multiply it.
- Whether the programme is published
A public schedule, public abstracts and a searchable programme are a website with its own content model, not an export. Price it as publication, not as a PDF.
Comparing offers
Four pricing models you will meet
Two quotes for the same conference are rarely comparable, because they charge on different things. This is what each model bills for and where it surprises you.
ModelWhat it charges onWhere it surprises you
Per participantA fee for every registered participant, sometimes tiered.The total is unknown until registration closes, and success at filling the room raises the bill. Hard to budget a year ahead.
Percentage of ticket revenueA share of what participants pay, often plus payment fees.Free or heavily subsidised events look cheap; a paid congress can pay several times a fixed licence for the same software.
Fixed price per event by scopeWhat the event does — registration, abstracts, review, payments — with size as a band.Little, if the scope is written down. Ask which workflows the quoted tier includes and what happens if one is added later.
Quote on requestNothing published; the price is set per project after a discovery call.You cannot compare without a sales process, and the number can reflect your budget rather than the work. Ask for the list price the quote was derived from.
vCongress uses the third model: a fixed price per event set by workflow scope, with participant count only selecting one of three size bands. That is why the whole price list fits on one page.
Worked budgets
Three real budgets, end to end
Each total is computed from the published price list — nothing here is a rounded illustration.
Most common
Annual scientific conference
€5,990one-off
400 participants, abstract submission, peer review, published programme. One Congress Event Package, Medium.
As a subscription instead: €7,870 a year (Growth plus one scientific event) — more expensive for one event a year, and the right answer only if you want the platform between events.
Society running four events
€9,940/year
Two registration events, one scientific conference, one congress. Growth plan plus four event fees, on one platform with a shared participant base.
The same four events bought as separate one-off packages come to €9,960 — within a few euros either way. At this volume the two models cost the same, and the subscription is the one that leaves a platform standing between events.
Custom development, where a workflow genuinely does not exist yet, is quoted separately from €1,500 to €25,000 one-time, with maintenance from €79 per month after release.
Questions
Conference software costs: common questions
What does conference software cost?
Conference management software for a single event starts at €1,490 as a one-off package and reaches €12,990 for a large congress with review, payments and public programme publication. Organisations running several events a year pay a platform subscription instead — from €290 per month plus €290 to €2,490 per event executed. These are vCongress list prices, published in full.
What is the cheapest way to run a conference with proper software?
The cheapest real option is a one-off Event Package at €1,490 for an event with registration, participant management and email communication, up to 250 participants. A €99 Starter Pilot is cheaper still, but it is a bounded 45-day validation window rather than a way to run a live event.
Is conference software priced per participant?
Some vendors price per registered participant, which makes the total scale with attendance and unpredictable until registration closes. vCongress does not: the price is set by what the event does — registration, abstracts, review, payments — with participant count only deciding which of three size bands applies.
What drives the price of congress management software?
Five things, in order of impact: whether you collect abstracts, whether those abstracts go through peer review, whether you take payments and issue invoices, how many participants you expect, and whether the programme and abstracts are published publicly. Participant count matters least — the workflows matter most.
What does abstract and review management cost on top of registration?
Adding abstract submission moves a small event from €1,490 to €2,990. Adding peer review, reviewer management and programme publication on top takes it to €3,990. On a subscription the same step is the difference between the Foundation and Growth plan.
Are there costs that do not appear on a conference software price list?
Usually four: payment provider fees, which are charged by the provider and not by the software vendor; onboarding or setup, which is often quoted separately; additional languages; and data export at the end of the contract. Ask for all four in writing before comparing two quotes.
When is a subscription cheaper than paying per event?
From about three events a year. Below that, one-off packages are cheaper. At three to four the two are level — four events bought as separate packages come to €9,960, against €9,940 a year on a Growth subscription running the same four. Above that the subscription is cheaper outright, and at every volume it buys something a package cannot: one participant base across events, reusable configuration, and a system that exists between events rather than only during them.
Is the Starter Pilot or an Event Package wasted money if we then subscribe?
No. The €99 Starter Pilot is credited in full against your first Event Package, and one Event Package is credited in full against a 12-month SaaS subscription started within 12 months of that event. You can start at the smallest commitment and only pay the difference if you grow into the next step.
Why do most conference software vendors not publish their prices?
Because quoting per participant or per project lets the price be set after they know the size of your budget. Publishing a list price removes that option, which is why so few do it. Every vCongress list price is on this site and is the same number the invoice is generated from.
Can we try conference software before committing to a full event?
Yes. The Starter Pilot is €99 one-time and gives a bounded 45-day window to configure and validate a first event before any subscription starts.
Put your own numbers in
The calculator takes the event type, the size and the onboarding you want, and returns a planning range from this same price list. No form, no email address.