Cvent's published institutional rate cards put the per-attendee charge at about $4. The University of Washington lists $4.10 per registrant, per event for 2026-27, and Stanford lists a licence plus $4 for every attendee above 100. That makes a 50,000-person event a six-figure line. A flat per-user subscription costs the same at any size.
Where do these Cvent numbers come from?
Cvent does not print a public price list, so the cleanest evidence is the rate cards that large universities publish for their own departments. They are internal recharge rates, which means a commercial buyer may be quoted something different, but they are real, dated and checkable, which is more than most vendor pricing pages can claim.
The University of Washington's FY27 schedule (1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027) charges a platform usage fee of $4.10 per registrant, per event, and an optional attendee hub and event app at $7.10 per registrant, per event. Card and ACH processing are billed separately when admission is charged.
Stanford's rate changes took effect on 1 September 2026. A twelve-month single licence costs $2,053, events with 100 attendees or fewer are covered by the licence, and every attendee beyond 100 costs $4. Events with a registration fee also carry a 2.5% transaction fee, with payment card and merchant fees on top.
Third-party buyer guides land in the same neighbourhood. Docket's pricing research estimates $7 to $12 per attendee for the full attendee hub and event app, plus annual licences that start in the tens of thousands, though those figures come from user reports rather than a Cvent price list, so treat them as estimates.
What does the same event cost at 500, 5,000 and 50,000 attendees?
At 500 attendees the two university schedules come to roughly $2,000 to $3,700 for a single event, at 5,000 they come to about $20,000 to $22,000, and at 50,000 they come to $200,000 or more. The table below uses only the per-attendee charges, so it is a floor, not a quote.
| Attendees at one event | University of Washington Cvent usage fee ($4.10 each) | Stanford Cvent (licence plus $4 above 100) | eventcloud Team, one user, annual billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $2,050 | $3,653 | $1,250 for the year |
| 5,000 | $20,500 | $21,653 | $1,250 for the year |
| 50,000 | $205,000 | $201,653 | $1,250 for the year |
Two honest notes on reading that table. The Cvent figures are per event, so an organiser running six events a year multiplies them, while the eventcloud figure covers every event in the year. And the Cvent columns exclude the 2.5% transaction fee, the optional $7.10 hub, payment processing and any implementation work, all of which push the true figure up.
A multi-event year makes the point sharper. An organiser running six events of 500 attendees each is billed on 3,000 registrations under the University of Washington schedule, which comes to $12,300 in usage fees for the year (3,000 times $4.10). The same programme on one eventcloud seat is still $1,250, because the number of events is not a meter either. Growth in either direction, more events or bigger events, lands on the invoice of a per-registrant tool and nowhere on a flat one.
What does "unlimited" mean when one side is counting people?
It means the price does not react to the thing you are trying to grow. A per-registrant model counts attendees, so every extra delegate is a billing event. A per-user model counts your staff, so the invoice moves only when your team does.
eventcloud's Team plan is $125 per user per month (or $1,250 per user on annual billing) with unlimited events, tickets and registrations, so selling 50,000 tickets costs the same subscription as selling 500. Payments go through your own Stripe account, so processing is between you and Stripe rather than a second meter inside the platform. That is the structural difference: sell a record number of tickets and the subscription does not notice.
What Would Zero Booking Fees Save You?
eventcloud charges a flat subscription, not a cut of every ticket. Compare it with what your current platform takes.
What do the rate cards leave out?
Quite a lot, and it is worth listing before you compare anything. Neither university schedule covers implementation, integration work or training, which Docket's research estimates can run into the thousands in a first year, again from user reports. Processing fees sit outside both. The $7.10 hub is optional but is what most organisers mean when they say they want an event app.
It also leaves out what you get for the money. Cvent is a large platform with a wide feature set built for enterprise programmes, and a six-figure bill at 50,000 attendees buys a lot of that. The fair question is not whether it is overpriced, but whether your event uses what you are paying per head for.
At what size does a flat subscription start to win?
Against the University of Washington schedule, a single eventcloud seat on annual billing ($1,250) pays for itself at about 305 attendees across a whole year, because $1,250 divided by $4.10 is roughly 305. Against Stanford's schedule the licence alone ($2,053) already costs more than the seat before a single attendee is counted.
The break-even moves once you add colleagues. With five users on the Team plan the annual cost is $6,250, and that matches the University of Washington per-registrant fee at around 1,525 attendees a year. Past that point the per-head meter keeps climbing while the subscription stays put, which is why the gap in the table widens so fast at 5,000 and 50,000.
What should you ask any vendor before you sign?
Ask which noun the meter counts: attendees, tickets, events, emails or seats. Ask for the total on your biggest event and your smallest, not the headline rate. Ask what is excluded, particularly the transaction percentage and the event app. If the answer to any of those is "it depends, let us get you on a call", you have learned something about how forecastable the bill will be.
Who this is not for
eventcloud does not do virtual or hybrid events. If most of your programme happens on a screen with a production layer behind it, Cvent, Bizzabo or vFairs will serve you better, and no pricing comparison changes that. If you need attendee matchmaking, look elsewhere. The only connector eventcloud has is Stripe, so anything your own team keeps elsewhere arrives as an Excel file that you import yourself.
The flat model also has its own edges. You pay per user from the first seat, so a large team of staff all needing logins adds up, and white-label branding is an Enterprise feature rather than part of the Team plan. If your event has 80 attendees, the per-attendee models in the table are cheap, and the flat fee only starts winning once your volume grows.
Where eventcloud fits
eventcloud is an in-person ticketing and registration platform for conferences, trade shows, corporate events, summits and galas, and its price is the same at 500 attendees and 50,000. If you are weighing it against a per-registrant tool, our Cvent comparison sets the two side by side, and the pricing page has the current plans. For exhibition organisers, the trade shows and exhibitions page covers how registration and badges work at scale.
The test is easy to run yourself. Take your biggest event from last year, multiply the attendee count by $4, and see whether that number is one you would choose to pay again.
