The True Cost Calculator

What does your gala actually cost?

Most budgets show the invoices. They don't show the staff hours, the volunteer hours, or the platform's cut. This does. Adjust the numbers below — everything updates live.

Your event

Revenue

Gross event revenue $150,000

Attendance 200

Average ticket price $250Used only to show ticket revenue in the math breakdown — gross revenue above already includes auction, sponsor, and fund-a-need dollars.

Hard costs

Venue, catering & production $60,000

Labor — the part most budgets skip

Staff hours across the team 400 hrs

Blended staff hourly value $35/hr

Volunteer hours 300 hrs

Volunteer hourly value $33.49/hrIndependent Sector's published national estimate of the value of volunteer time. Override it if you have your own figure.

What you pay today

Current platform annual fee $2,995

Current platform take rate 5.0%

Payment processing 3.0%

True all-in cost

$99,042

Hard costs, platform & processing fees, staff time, and volunteer time — every real cost of putting this event on, not just the invoices.

Net raised, true economics

$50,958

Net raised, cash-only

$75,005

Cost to raise a dollar

$0.66

Trade-press benchmarks put typical galas at $0.30–$0.70 per dollar raised before staff time, sliding toward roughly $0.65-plus (about 1.5:1) once the full staff cost is counted. Source →

The invisible line item

$24,047

Staff time ($14,000) plus volunteer time ($10,047) — the cost almost no gala budget puts in front of a board.

Show the math

Request a founding pilot

The point of this calculator

What if your platform only earned when this number improved?

EventRaise's event rails are free. The membership and the marketplace only make money when they measurably raise your net or lower your cost to raise a dollar. Run the numbers, then talk to us about a founding pilot.

Request a founding pilot

Fall pilot cohort · Limited

Request a founding pilot

Twenty conversations, five pilot commitments, one fall gala season. Tell us about your event and we'll reach out personally — no sales team, no queue.

Your name

Organization

Your role

Event type

Approximate event size

We'll only use this to reach out about the pilot. No mailing lists, no spam, no sales calls you didn't ask for. Your calculator result comes with it, so we already know your numbers.

Request received.

Thank you. We'll reach out personally within a few business days, with your True Cost result already in hand.