Trying to find Whova pricing on Whova's website is a bit like trying to read the specials board through frosted glass. There is no public price list. Instead you tell them about your event (size, format, duration), and a custom quote comes back. So here is the answer up front, verified fresh for 2026: Whova pricing has two moving parts. There is a quoted per event fee for the app and platform, and on top of that a registration fee of 3.0 percent plus 0.99 dollars per paid ticket (free tickets carry no fee). Then there are add ons. This piece breaks down what the quote actually includes, what quietly costs extra, and how to pressure test it before you sign.
Whova is a genuinely good conference app: strong attendee networking, agenda, in app engagement. The question is never whether it works, it is whether the total cost matches what you actually need. Let us open the box.
Why there is no price on the website
Quote based pricing is not a conspiracy, but it is a choice that benefits the seller. It lets the vendor size the number to your event and your apparent budget, and it stops competitors (and you) from comparing like for like at a glance. The trade off for you is that you cannot plan a budget from the homepage. You have to get into a sales conversation first, which is exactly when it helps to already know the levers that move the number.
Those levers are the usual suspects: how many attendees, how many events, how long the event runs, and how many of the paid add on modules you switch on. The more of Whova's toolbox you light up, the higher the quote climbs.
The two costs that always apply
Whatever your quote looks like, two things are consistent. First, the platform or app fee, quoted per event. This is the licence for the core Whova experience: the mobile app, agenda, attendee networking, and the base management tools. Second, the registration fee on ticket sales.
That registration fee is where the per ticket maths lives. At 3.0 percent plus 0.99 dollars per paid ticket, a 500 dollar conference pass carries about 13.49 dollars in Whova registration fee, and that sits on top of the quoted app fee and on top of your payment processing. On free tickets, the registration fee drops away, which makes Whova friendlier for free professional events than for high value paid ones.
The app fee is quoted, the ticket fee is a percentage, and the interesting stuff is often an add on. Add all three before you compare, not just the headline.
What tends to be an add on
This is the part that catches people. A lot of the features organisers assume are "in the app" are separately priced modules. Depending on your quote, these can include exhibitor and sponsor lead retrieval, speaker and abstract management, surveys and feedback tools, certificate generation, and advanced document handling. Multi event bundles are offered too, which can be good value if you genuinely run a series, and dead weight if you do not.
None of this makes Whova expensive by default. It makes Whova's price a moving target, which is why two organisers can quote the same event and swap wildly different numbers depending on which modules got switched on. If lead retrieval matters to your exhibitors, price it in deliberately rather than discovering it later. We wrote a whole separate guide on how lead retrieval actually works so you can judge whether the add on is worth it or whether a phone based scanner does the job.
How the pricing model compares
The useful thing about Whova pricing is not the exact number, it is the shape of the model. Here is how that shape lines up against the platforms organisers usually weigh it against. All figures verified fresh for 2026.
| Platform | Pricing model | Per ticket fee | Public price? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whova | Quoted app fee plus ticket fee plus add ons | 3.0% + $0.99 per paid ticket | No, quote only |
| Cvent | Annual licence plus per registrant plus implementation | $7 to $12 per registrant | No, quote only |
| Bizzabo | Per user subscription, 3 user minimum | Built into subscription | Around $499 per user per month |
| Eventbrite | Per ticket percentage plus fixed plus processing | 3.7% + $1.79 service, plus 2.9% processing | Yes |
| eventcloud | Flat per user subscription, own Stripe | $0 per ticket, ~2.9% + $0.30 processing floor | Yes, $125 per user per month |
Two things jump out. Whova and Cvent both make you ask for the number, which means budgeting is a negotiation rather than a calculation. And the per ticket fee compounds with volume: at 3.0 percent plus 0.99 dollars, a 2,000 person paid conference is a very different Whova bill than a 200 person one, on top of the quoted app fee that also scales. If your event is large and paid, run the ticket maths, do not just eyeball the app quote.
Pressure test the quote before you sign
When the Whova quote lands, do not react to the total. Interrogate the structure. A short checklist that works on any quote based vendor:
What is in the base fee versus an add on? Get the module list in writing. Lead retrieval, surveys, certificates and abstract management are the usual extras.
Is the ticket fee on top or absorbed? Confirm the 3.0 percent plus 0.99 dollars is separate from the app fee, and who pays it, you or the attendee.
Does the price scale with attendees? Ask for the number at your realistic headcount and at double it, so a good year does not become a billing shock.
What happens next year? Quote based pricing has a habit of drifting upward at renewal once you are embedded.
What do you actually use? If you are buying Whova mainly for ticketing and check in, you may be paying for an app experience you do not need.
That last point is the honest one. Whova earns its price when the in app networking and agenda experience is central to your event, the kind of multi day conference where attendees genuinely live in the app. For that job it is strong, and we would not pretend otherwise. If your event is fundamentally sell tickets, get people through the door, scan them in, then the app led model can be a lot of cost and complexity for a job a simpler flat fee platform handles without a quote call. For a wider view of that trade off, our rundown of conference registration software compared groups the options by the job they are best at, and our Cvent pricing explainer pulls apart the other big quote based model.
The flat fee alternative
If the thing you dislike about quote based pricing is the uncertainty, the opposite model is a flat subscription with no per ticket fee. eventcloud sits there: 125 dollars per user per month, zero dollars per ticket, unlimited events and tickets, and you keep your own Stripe account so the only unavoidable cost on a sale is the processing floor of roughly 2.9 percent plus 0.30 dollars that every platform pays. Your success stops being a billing event, because selling more tickets does not ratchet the fee. That is a different philosophy from "quote us your event and we will price it", and for paid events at any real scale the maths tends to favour the flat model.
We are not saying Whova is the wrong choice. For an app centric conference it can be exactly right. We are saying: get the full quote, add the ticket fee and the add ons, compare the shape not just the sticker, and make sure you are paying for what your event actually is.
Curious what flat, no per ticket pricing looks like next to a Whova quote? Compare the models on our pricing page, or see how we stack up across the field on the comparison hub.
