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The drastic shift from in-person to virtual events has made webinars more attractive than ever for brands.

But with so many brands hosting webinars, have you ever wondered—how much does it cost to host a webinar?

If so, this post has all the answers for you.

According to a report by Content Marketing Institute, 39% of B2C marketers have reported using webinars in the last 12 months:

Image via Content Marketing Institute

Besides, 48% of marketers say webinars are the top content format for engaging and nurturing leads.

Image via DemandGen

Generally, webinars can be used for a wide range of marketing purposes such as lead generation, boosting brand awareness, and driving sales.

But the cost you incur to host one does matter. After all, you can only determine your ROI if you know how much you’ve spent on hosting it.

So, how do you find this cost?

In this blog post, we take a close look at the cost of various aspects of hosting a webinar.

Let’s get started.

How Much Does it Cost to Host a Webinar: A Breakdown

Here are the various costs involved in hosting a webinar.

Webinar Equipment Cost

Some of the basic equipment you need to host webinars, include:

1. Headset

If you intend to invite presenters or keynote speakers, you will need to invest in a quality headset with an adjustable mic, adding to your costs. Headsets help deliver clear sound as they block any noise from outside. Include this as you plan your webinar cost.

For headsets you can go with any of the following depending on your budget:

• Logitech H390 USB Headset
• Audio-Technica BPHSI Headset
• Logitech H800 Bluetooth Headset
• Sennheiser PC 8 USB On-Ear Headset

2. Webcam

If you already have a good laptop with a high-quality camera, you may not need to purchase a separate webcam because most likely, the camera is 1080p.

However, using a separate webcam to shoot webinars can give your audience an immersive experience. Besides, most built-in cameras don’t offer the same quality as external cameras so it’s always a better idea to get a separate one for your webinar.

Here are a few good-quality webcams you may try:

• Logitech HD Pro C920
• Logitech HD Laptop Webcam C615
• Razer Kiyo Full HD Webcam for Streaming

3. Laptop

You probably have a good laptop with either Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or your preferred browser installed. If not, you need to factor it into our webinar costs.

The good thing is that you can get a laptop without breaking the bank.

Here are a few laptop models you can use to produce a webinar.

• HP-Spectre X360 13.3″ Touch-Screen
• Dell Inspiron 11.6” HD Anti-Glare Touch-Screen
• Dell XPS 13”(2017) Core i7

4. Microphone

In case you already have a set of headsets, you probably don’t need a microphone (if the headsets come with them).

But these built-in microphones won’t come with added features like background noise cancellation.

This makes it necessary to purchase a dedicated microphone for hosting your webinar. It’s critical to the overall webinar experience that you’ll offer your webinar attendees.

Here are a few microphones you’d want to check out:

• Zoom DZM-1 Dynamic Microphone
• Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone
• Creators Blue Snowball iCE USB Microphone

Webinar Presentation Creation Cost

Now that you’ve purchased your webinar equipment, the next thing you have to consider is the platform for creating the webinar presentation. You’d need some powerful visuals backing you up, after all.

Here are a few platforms you can use to design your webinar presentations before hosting them:

• Canva
• Prezi
• Keynote
• SlideDog

Webinar Software Platform Cost

So, you have your webinar ready. But where do you host it? Sure, you could opt for a platform like Google Meet, but that gives you limited capabilities.

To create and host highly engaging webinars that can hold your audience’s attention and meet your marketing objectives, you have to choose the best webinar software.

A robust webinar platform will help you deliver high-quality video and audio to your attendees to host your webinar. They’ll also support a large attending audience and provide engaging features like text chat and hand raise during webinar sessions.

Below are a few platforms to use:

• Demio: Starting from $34 per month for up to 50 attendees per room.
• GoTo Webinar: Starting from $49 per month for up to 250 participants.
• Livestorm: Free up to $88 per month

In a nutshell, the cost of a robust webinar platform ranges from $34 and upwards depending on capacity, technical support need, etc. And you may choose between monthly and annual fee to get the subscription to these platforms to host webinars.

Webinar Promotion Cost

It’s not easy to get attendees for your webinar, even if the topic is interesting enough. To run a successful webinar that attracts a huge number of attendees, you need to use the right webinar promotion tools and strategies.

The best thing is that you don’t have to invest a huge amount of money to promote your webinars. In fact, there are many free and paid webinar marketing tools out there. Using them, you can easily share content related to your webinar on social media and emails. You could also leverage SEO to get sign-ups for the webinar.

Some webinar platforms also come with built-in marketing tools that can help you share the event across multiple platforms.

You can also promote your webinar in the following ways:

• Create a top-quality landing page on your website. Designing a landing page costs anywhere between $75 to $3000 or more. You could also use landing page building software for it.
  
  Here is an example of a webinar landing page by Slack:

  Image via Slack

• Add a compelling CTA on your homepage.
• Create automated email campaigns using email marketing tools
• Run social media ads

The promotion cost will totally depend on how many attendees you’d want for your webinar and whether it’s paid or free, as that’ll determine your budget.

FAQs

Q1. How much does hosting a webinar really cost?

A. There’s no exact amount that you can expect to spend to host your webinar. It depends on a range of factors, right from the cost of equipment to the promotion costs. But when you’re hosting your first webinar, the cost will be high as you’d be investing in a lot of equipment and software. Successive webinars will cost less.

Q2. Can you run a webinar for free?

A. Yes. You can host webinars for free by using a live streaming platform like YouTube Live or Facebook Live. However, you would incur cost for creating the content. You won’t be able to charge attendees for the webinar too.

Q3. How long does it take to develop a webinar?

A. You can take anywhere between 4 and 6 weeks to organize and coordinate a webinar project. Of course, this will depend on your audience, the size of the presentation, and the webinar topic.

Q4. Are webinars still effective?

A. Absolutely. Webinars are one of the most effective ways for lead generation for B2B companies.

Q5. How long do webinars usually last?

A. Most webinars are 60 minutes long but you can create webinars that are longer or shorter than this depending on the topic you intend to cover.

Conclusion

Webinar costs vary depending on your needs and webinar objectives.

If you already have the equipment and software available for the webinars, your costs will be minimal. The budget will also depend on the audience size as you might need to spend aggressively on marketing if you want a large audience.

We hope this cost breakdown will enable you to determine how much you can expect to spend to run a webinar.

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments section below.