Trade show ROI calculator
Put in what the stand costs and what you expect to get out of it. The answer is cost per lead, cost per customer, how many leads it takes to break even, and how long the payback runs. Nothing is sent anywhere: it is arithmetic in your browser, and the filled-in version is a link you can send to whoever signs off the budget.
The numbers
What the stand costs
What you expect back
What that comes to
A dash is a figure the numbers above cannot answer. Break even needs a margin and a conversion rate above zero, and a stand whose whole return does not cover it has no payback period rather than a long one.
Why the answer is lower than you have seen elsewhere
Most versions of this calculator work the return out of revenue. This one works it out of gross profit, which is what a stand actually returns.
A stand that turns 30,000 of cost into 120,000 of revenue at a 20% margin lost money. Reported against revenue it is a 300% return, and that is the figure most of these tools print. The margin field is asked for here, so it is used: profit is gross profit less what the stand cost, and break even counts the leads whose gross profit covers it rather than the leads whose revenue does. At a 20% margin those two answers differ five-fold, which is the one figure anybody carries into a meeting.
The number this cannot give you
Leads expected is a guess, and it is the input every other figure hangs off.
The honest way to improve it is to know who is on the floor before you go. Pengo reads a fair’s exhibitor list end to end, works out what each company sells, and scores every stand against who you sell to, so the number in that box is a count of stands worth walking up to rather than a hope.
Know who is on the floor
before you book the stand
Sign up and read a fair's exhibitor list end to end, ranked against your own ideal customer.