Everyday & industry
Event Budget Calculator
Estimate total event cost and cost per guest using your own venue, catering and event-expense assumptions. Model contingency, compare guest counts and optionally include event funding.
Use this calculator to estimate an event budget from guest count, venue, catering, entertainment, rentals, staffing and other expenses.
Actual event costs vary by location, event type, service level and vendor pricing. Enter your own assumptions to build a planning estimate.
The dollar sign is generic: use one currency throughout. Event type is descriptive only. Catering and beverages vary with guest count; every other expense is a fixed entered total. Blank optional amounts count as zero. No taxes are calculated automatically.
Calculations run locally in your browser. Your inputs are not saved.
Enter your event assumptions and choose a calculation mode.
Example: 100-Person Event
Example only: 100 guests, a $2,000 venue, catering at $50 per person ($5,000), beverages at $15 per person ($1,500), $800 entertainment, $500 decor, $500 rentals, $300 staff and $100 printing. All remaining costs are $0. The base subtotal is $10,700. A 10% contingency adds $1,070, for an $11,770 total event budget and $117.70 per guest. No revenue is included.
About this calculator
Fixed and variable event costs
Event budgets usually contain both fixed and variable costs. Venue and entertainment costs may remain similar as guest count changes, while catering and beverage costs usually move with attendance.
- For this MVP, only catering and beverages scale with guest count. All other entered costs are held fixed.
- Event type is descriptive only and does not change prices or introduce hidden multipliers.
- Fixed cost per guest excludes contingency; total cost per guest includes it.
Contingency and per-guest comparisons
A contingency allowance can help model unexpected expenses, but the appropriate amount depends on the event.
- Cost per guest is useful for comparing event scenarios, but it does not mean every cost is actually incurred per attendee.
- Percentage contingency is recalculated from each scenario’s subtotal. A fixed contingency amount stays unchanged.
- Target per-guest budgets show the difference from the current modeled event, without recommending which category to cut.
Optional event funding
Ticket or contribution revenue and sponsorship can offset the current modeled budget. Revenue above cost is a projected surplus under entered assumptions, not a guarantee.
- Paying or contributing attendance cannot exceed the current number of guests.
- The guest-count comparison compares expenses only; entered funding applies to the current guest scenario.
- This calculator provides a planning estimate and does not use vendor pricing or live event-market data.
Planning estimates only. This Tool does not retrieve vendor pricing, recommend venues, book services, manage RSVPs or guest records, create seating charts or invitations, provide wedding-planning advice, or calculate taxes automatically. No accounts, database or external APIs are used. Your inputs are not saved.