Rising inflation was a recurring theme filling the 2022 news cycle. As we watched inflation impact our 2022 budgets, it often felt like we could do little more than hold our breath and subject ourselves to higher costs. Event planners are scrambling, and a lack of transparent pricing when comparing conference scheduling software only adds to their struggle.
Why are the costs of event planning software rising?
But how is it possible for inflation to touch the software industry? The industry doesn’t face transportation bottlenecks. There are no supply chain limitations. There is very little that puts pressure on event management software pricing.
In mid-December, a Sched customer forwarded a high-pressure email they received from a competitor. The Sales rep was pushing the Sched customer to commit to their conference management platform before their prices increased in 2023. They announced that its pricing would increase across the board from between 10% and 25%. How exactly that plays out isn’t immediately clear, but it begs the question: “Why are they raising the price of their event planning software?”.
Despite the email, there is no reference to any pricing (current or future) on their website. Like most event planning software companies, this competitor offers so many options that they require a configuration meeting to determine the price.
This competitor is raising prices at a time when event planners are still struggling to fit their 2019-sized budget into the realities of 2023 costs. Sadly, event management inflation is likely much higher than anything impacting consumers. Industries like travel and hospitality have been hit much harder by inflation than other industries.
How can event planners find cheaper event management solutions?
Sched has some good news. Sched has no plans to increase its software prices. Sched has consistently been and will continue to be the industry’s low-price leader. While most of our competitors charge $10, $20, or even $40 per attendee, Sched’s pricing still starts at just $4 per attendee and quickly falls based on volume and commitment. Sched also proudly offers both educational and non-profit discounts.
In addition, Sched makes it easy to configure our software because it includes everything you need to organize, promote, schedule, and manage great events in one of three distinct packages. If you have an approximate attendee count (or even if you don’t) it’s easy to price Sched’s software by simply visiting the pricing page.
From Sched’s perspective, there is no underlying reason to change the pricing for event management apps. While all companies are experiencing some cost increases, event planning software companies are some of the most insulated companies from the impact of inflation. We have no shipping costs. There is no scarcity of bits and bytes.
Our pricing is the best on the market, and after hosting over 25,000 events for more than 10 million attendees over the past 15 years, Sched is famous for being easy to use with great support. We think that event planners will find that Sched is easy to buy and very easy to justify to the boss.