A quick note: we make ConferenceCRM, so we are not a neutral party. Every price here is verified from each vendor’s own page — ours included.
- A 10-person team that needs scanning + CRM sync pays roughly: $49/mo ConferenceCRM · ~$50–70/mo Blinq · $499/mo BoothIQ · $500/event Captello · or “call sales” (Popl, iCapture, Grip).
- Solo and want it free? BoothIQ’s free individual tier does the most for $0.
- Cheapest flat rate with CRM sync for a team: ConferenceCRM — about $49/mo (flat on seats + your Claude sub + light usage; the bill only climbs if you capture in real volume).
- Is any of it worth it? You already spent ~$10,861 to staff one booth. Recovering a single lead that would otherwise be lost pays for any tool here for a year.
Pricing in this category is deliberately hard to compare. List prices hide per-event fees, “team” plans quietly require five seats, the cheapest tier often cannot scan a badge, and the feature you actually need, CRM sync, is routinely gated behind a sales call. This guide cuts through that: real numbers where they exist, an honest “contact sales” where they do not, and the total a real team ends up paying. If you want the feature-by-feature breakdown instead, see the best conference lead capture tools in 2026; this post is about the money.
The five ways these tools charge you
Before the numbers, it helps to know the pricing models, because they are what make sticker prices misleading.
- Per-user, per-month (Blinq, HiHello). Cheap for one rep, scales against you as the team grows, and the useful tier usually has a 5-seat minimum.
- Per-event (Captello). A flat fee each show, plus separate API/badge-kit fees per event. Predictable per show, expensive across a season.
- Usage-based (Popl, often Momencio). Priced on leads captured or credits consumed. No published rate, scales with volume, requires a demo.
- Flat team (BoothIQ Teams, ConferenceCRM). One price, unlimited seats. Predictable, but watch what is excluded (BoothIQ excludes CRM sync; ours requires a Claude subscription).
- Organizer-set (Grip, Bizzabo, Swapcard). You do not buy these; the event organizer licenses the platform and decides what, if anything, exhibitors pay.
What each tool costs
Enterprise lead retrieval: iCapture (Cvent), Captello, Momencio
The oldest category, built for large exhibitors running trade shows at scale. Strong on process consistency, analytics, and CRM routing. Not designed for individual networking or small teams.
iCapture (Cvent). Works at any event regardless of which registration provider the organizer uses. Enterprise pricing, no published rate, requires a sales conversation. Estimates in the $8,000+/year range circulate, but they come from competitor comparison articles, not from Cvent directly. Good fit for large organizations with dedicated event marketing teams who need standardized forms across many reps and solid analytics. Acquired by Cvent in 2024.
Captello. The best-reviewed tool in this report: 165 G2 reviews, 4.8/5 stars. Base pricing is $500/event, and API kits, required for badge data access at many venues, add another $700–$1,200/event. Budget $5,000–$7,000/year for 10 events is realistic. The 60+ gamified booth activations (spin-to-win, prize wheels, competitions) are unique in this market and genuinely draw booth traffic. The learning curve is also real; it shows up in a third of G2 reviews. Best for exhibitors whose booth strategy is built around engagement and interactive activation, not for individual floor networking.
Momencio. Focuses on large exhibitor setups with interactive content experiences. Reported at $6,000+/year with a 5-seat minimum. That pricing figure comes from a Blinq comparison article, and Blinq is a direct competitor, so verify it with Momencio directly before budgeting.
Digital business card + event capture: Blinq, Popl
Both started as digital business card platforms and grew into full event lead capture tools. They are the most proven options in this market with the largest user bases and the most independent reviews.
Blinq. Pricing verified directly from blinq.me/pricing, June 2026.
- Free: Two digital cards, unlimited sharing. No badge scanner included; contacts can be added but not scanned.
- Premium: $9.99/month ($7.33 annually). Universal badge and card scanner, AI Notetaker, contact enrichment, CSV export.
- Business: $6.99/user/month ($4.99 annually), minimum 5 users. Adds CRM sync across 20+ CRMs, custom lead capture forms, admin controls, team analytics. Relationship Intelligence, their conversation context feature, is available at Business tier but at additional usage-based credit pricing. It is not flat-included in the subscription.
- Enterprise: Custom.
The cost trap to watch: the $9.99 Premium tier scans badges but does not sync to your CRM. CRM sync needs Business at $6.99/user/month with a 5-seat minimum, so a real team starts at ~$35/month (annual) and climbs from there. Relationship Intelligence, the conversation-context feature, bills as separate usage credits on top. (For what Blinq does feature-by-feature, see our full comparison.)
Popl. Pricing verified directly from popl.co/pages/pricing, June 2026.
Popl’s enterprise event lead capture is usage-based with no published rate, priced on leads captured and quoted only after a demo. (The $7.99 and $14.99/month tiers on their site are the consumer digital business card app, a different product, so do not budget from those.) Popl has 5,292 G2 reviews and serves 90% of the Fortune 500, so the track record is strong, but you cannot know your cost without talking to sales. (Feature detail in the full comparison.)
Enterprise event platforms: Bizzabo, Swapcard, Cvent, Whova, Grip
These are organizer-side tools, bought by the company running the conference, not by exhibitors or attendees. If you are an exhibitor or individual attendee shopping for your own tool, these are not what you are looking for.
Bizzabo’s Klik SmartBadge lets attendees tap to exchange contact info passively. Bizzabo reports a 389% increase in exhibitor leads at Klik events vs. non-Klik events; that figure comes from Bizzabo’s own case study.
Swapcard is an AI matchmaking platform built around pre-planned networking. Swapcard’s own research claims only 25% of trade show leads come from badge scanning, with the remaining 75% from digital touchpoints. That is a claim worth noting, but it comes from Swapcard’s own data, so read it as one perspective.
Cvent and Whova are comprehensive event management suites where lead capture is one feature among many.
Grip. Background from TechCrunch (Feb 2021), Grip website (verified June 2026), Capterra and G2 reviews (June 2026). Pricing: no published rates, contact sales.
You cannot price Grip as an exhibitor, because you cannot buy it as one. Grip is licensed by the event organizer; exhibitors get badge scanning only because the organizer paid for the platform, and it works only at that Grip-powered event. The exhibitor-facing tiers it introduced in Q3 2025 (AEC Basic and AEC Pro, Pro being the one with badge scanning) are priced by each organizer, either as a buy-out or a revenue share with Grip. There are no published dollar rates, and the figure you pay, if any, depends entirely on the show. Well-reviewed (4.6/5 on G2, 4.8/5 on Capterra) and well-funded ($14.5M raised), but irrelevant to an exhibitor shopping for a tool to bring to any event.
Relationship context tools: BoothIQ, Orvo, ConferenceCRM
The newest category, tools that prioritize capturing what happened in a conversation, not just who was there.
BoothIQ. Pricing verified directly from getboothiq.com/pricing, June 2026.
- Free (individual): AI badge and card scanning, voice-to-text notes, AI conversation summaries, follow-up email drafts, contact enrichment, CSV export. No credit card required.
- Teams: $499/month for unlimited users and unlimited events. Adds shared workspace, event ROI tracking, rep performance analytics. CRM sync is not included at this tier; it is Enterprise only.
- Enterprise: Contact sales. Adds CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce), custom fields, API access, SSO.
BoothIQ’s free individual tier is the most generous starting point in this market: scanning, voice notes, AI summaries, and follow-up drafting at no cost. The key limitation is that CRM sync requires Enterprise pricing, which is not published. The Teams plan at $499/month gives you everything except that sync. iOS native; Android via web app.
Orvo. $15/month for individuals, $30/month for teams up to 5 users, with a 14-day free trial. Voice memo capture: record a 30-second memo after a conversation and Orvo transcribes it and links it to a contact. No badge scanning, no CRM sync, no team size beyond 5. Best for individual professionals who primarily need conversation notes. Independent third-party reviews of Orvo were not found during research; verify claims directly before purchasing.
ConferenceCRM
This is our product. Read this section with appropriate skepticism.
- Pricing: $20 in free credits to start (no credit card), then $49/month for your whole team, unlimited seats, with a monthly usage allowance built in. CRM sync (Salesforce, HubSpot) is included, not gated behind an enterprise call.
- The cost we will not hide: ConferenceCRM runs inside Claude via an MCP connector, so it needs an active Claude subscription. When you compare our $49 to a per-seat tool, add Claude’s cost to make it fair. If your team is already on Claude, that is sunk cost. If not, factor it in.
- It is usage-based under the hood. Every capture and live research step is real Claude usage, so the $49 includes a usage allowance rather than a hollow promise of “unlimited.” A typical team stays comfortably inside it; only very heavy use adds cost, and that is passed through at roughly what it costs us. We show exactly what that means for a 10-person team below. (No independent reviews of us exist yet, so verify our claims for yourself.)
Pricing at a glance
Verified against each vendor’s own page, June 2026. “Entry price” is the cheapest plan that scans a badge; the hidden-cost column is what the sticker price leaves out.
| Tool | Model | Entry price (scanning) | Team price | Free tier | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ConferenceCRM | Flat + usage | $49/mo | $49/mo, unlimited seats | $20 credit | Needs Claude; usage allowance included, heavy use at cost |
| Blinq | Per-user/mo | $9.99/mo (Premium) | $6.99/user/mo, 5-seat min | Yes, no scanning | CRM sync is Business+; RI billed as extra credits |
| Popl | Usage-based | Quote only | Custom | 14-day trial | No published rate; demo required |
| BoothIQ | Flat team | Free (individual) | $499/mo, unlimited | Yes, full individual | CRM sync is Enterprise-only (unpublished) |
| Captello | Per-event | $500/event | $500+/event | No | +$700–$1,200/event for badge API kits |
| Momencio | Annual + seats | ~$6,000/yr (reported) | 5-seat minimum | No | Figure is competitor-sourced; verify |
| Orvo | Per-user/mo | n/a (no scanning) | $30/mo, max 5 users | 14-day trial | No badge scanning, no CRM sync |
| iCapture (Cvent) | Enterprise | Quote only | Custom | No | ~$8,000/yr estimates are competitor-sourced |
| Grip | Organizer-set | n/a to exhibitors | Set by event | No | Can’t buy as an exhibitor; price varies by show |
What a 10-person team actually pays (CRM sync included)
List prices mislead because the cheap tier rarely includes CRM sync. Here is the real monthly cost for a 10-person team that needs scanning and sync, the configuration most exhibitors actually buy.
| Tool | Monthly cost (10 seats, sync included) |
|---|---|
| ConferenceCRM | $49 + your Claude sub (usage scales only at high volume) |
| Blinq Business (annual) | ~$50/mo + Relationship Intelligence credits |
| Blinq Business (monthly) | ~$70/mo + Relationship Intelligence credits |
| Orvo Business | $30/mo, but caps at 5 users and has no CRM sync |
| Popl | Usage-based, contact sales for a quote |
| BoothIQ | $499/mo Teams gets you 10 seats, but sync needs Enterprise (quote) |
| Captello | $500+ per event, so cost scales with how many shows you run |
The pattern: flat-rate tools (ConferenceCRM, BoothIQ Teams) stay cheap as the team grows; per-user tools (Blinq) creep up; per-event tools (Captello) depend entirely on how many shows you work; and the pure usage-based and enterprise options (Popl, iCapture) will not even tell you the number until you book a call. (We are usage-based too — but we bundle it into the flat $49 and publish our overflow rate; see below.)
What our usage actually costs a 10-person team
Time to practice what we preach. ConferenceCRM is usage-based: it runs on Claude, so every contact you capture and research is real API usage, and the bill does grow with how heavily you use it. Here is the model, with nothing hidden.
| Base plan — 10 people, unlimited seats | $49/mo |
| Usage included in that $49 | A baseline allowance for everyday capture + AI research |
| Usage beyond the allowance | Passed through at roughly cost: about $0.05 per Claude API call — $50 per 1,000 |
| Per contact | A capture-and-research is a handful of calls, so a few cents each |
Why tell you this at all? Because a tool that does live AI research on every contact is genuinely using compute, and “unlimited” would be a lie. So we meter it honestly: a flat $49 with a usage allowance baked in, and real volume billed at roughly cost — about $0.05 a Claude call, $50 per 1,000 — not a per-seat tax. A small team barely touches it; a high-volume booth crew will see usage scale, and even then it is passed through at cost, not marked up.
Is any of this worth it?
A price only means something next to what it returns — and in this category, the expensive part is not the software, it is being in the room at all.
- The average cost to staff a single trade-show booth is about $10,861.
- Roughly 80% of trade-show leads are never followed up on at all.
- 35–50% of deals go to whoever responds first.
Put those together and the math is lopsided. Every tool in this guide — even BoothIQ at $499/mo or Captello at $500 a show — is under 5% of what one booth already cost you. So the real question is not “which is cheapest,” it is which one actually gets every contact captured, researched, and followed up before the window closes. Recover a single deal that would otherwise have died in a drawer and any tool here has paid for itself for a year.
That is the honest lens to judge all of these on, ours included: not cost per seat, but cost per contact you actually convert. (Figures from CEIR, UFI, and InsideSales; full citations in our companion guide.)
The cheapest tool for your situation
Strictly on cost, here is where the money points. (For which tool is best on features and fit, that is a different question, answered in the best conference lead capture tools in 2026.)
Lowest cost for one person: BoothIQ’s free individual tier. Scanning, voice notes, AI summaries, and follow-up drafts at $0. Nothing else gives you that much for free.
Lowest cost for a small team that needs CRM sync: ConferenceCRM at $49/month flat (if you are already paying for Claude) or Blinq Business at roughly $50/month annually for the same 10 seats (if you are not, and want a standalone app). Below five people, Blinq’s per-seat math can edge ahead; above five, the flat rate pulls away.
Lowest cost if you run only one or two shows a year: Captello’s per-event model can beat a yearly subscription, as long as you account for the badge-API kit fee on top.
Most predictable cost as you scale headcount: the flat-rate plans (ConferenceCRM, BoothIQ Teams). Per-user and per-event pricing both grow with you; a flat plan does not.
When cost cannot be known up front: Popl, iCapture, Momencio, and Grip all require a sales conversation or are set by the event organizer. Budget time for a quote, not just dollars.
Whatever you pick, the spend only pays off if you actually follow up. That is the part most teams drop, and it is covered in how to follow up after a conference.
What we couldn’t verify
In the interest of being straight with you:
- ConferenceCRM’s real-world performance, no independent reviews exist. Our own claims about live web research have not been validated outside our marketing.
- Momencio and iCapture pricing, both estimates come from a Blinq comparison article. Blinq is a competitor. Verify directly.
- Blinq’s Relationship Intelligence credit costs, the per-credit pricing is not published. For high-usage teams, this could be material.
- Grip’s published pricing, no dollar figures exist publicly. The AEC Basic/Pro exhibitor tiers were released Q3 2025 but pricing is set by each organizer. Contact Grip or an event organizer running Grip to understand costs.
- ConferenceCRM’s exact usage allowance, we have laid out the model (flat $49 with bundled usage, overflow at roughly $0.05 per Claude API call, or $50 per 1,000) but do not publish a hard line for where the allowance ends, because real usage varies by team. Ask us and we will tell you what to expect for yours.
- Swapcard’s 75% digital-touchpoints claim, this comes from Swapcard’s own research, not an independent source.
Verify pricing directly with any vendor before purchasing.
Sources
Listed in order of independence, most independent first. All sources verified live as of June 2026. Where a source is written by a competing vendor, that is flagged inline. Verify current pricing directly on each vendor’s official page before purchasing.
- EventTechLive (Feb 2026), third-party trade publication, most independent source in this report. eventtechlive.com
- Blinq pricing page, verified June 2026. blinq.me/pricing
- Blinq Relationship Intelligence announcement, verified June 2026. blinq.me/blog
- Blinq comparison article (competitor-written, treat pricing estimates with caution). blinq.me/blog
- Popl pricing page, verified June 2026. popl.co/pages/pricing
- BoothIQ pricing page, verified June 2026. getboothiq.com/pricing
- Cvent iCapture product page. cvent.com
- Captello via Prospeo (Prospeo is a competing tool, treat framing accordingly). prospeo.io
- Swapcard via Capterra, single source, not verified from Swapcard directly. capterra.com
- Orvo blog (Orvo’s own site). getorvo.com
- Grip website, verified June 2026. Homepage, lead retrieval product page, and AEC pricing roadmap page. grip.events · lead generation · AEC roadmap
- TechCrunch (Feb 2021), Grip Series A funding article by Mike Butcher. Source for $13M Series A, Kennet Partners, total $14.5M raised, founding year 2016, Reed Exhibitions and Messe Frankfurt as early clients. techcrunch.com
- G2, Grip Events reviews page, verified June 2026. 15 reviews, 4.6/5. g2.com
- Capterra, Grip reviews page, verified June 2026. 6 reviews, 4.8/5. capterra.com
- ConferenceCRM homepage (our product). conferencecrm.com
Published by bundleIQ, the company behind ConferenceCRM. We have tried to be accurate and fair. Verify all pricing directly with vendors before making any purchasing decision. June 2026.