Best event registration software for organizers

How this list is ranked

• Weighted for organizers who run in-person events with exhibitors: registration is more useful when it shares a record with check-in, badges and the floor.
• How cost scales counts. Per-ticket and per-attendee models grow with turnout; a flat per-event price does not, and that is stated for each vendor without quoting competitor figures.
• Simple public ticketing is a different job, and the vendors that do it best are credited in their entries.
• Map D publishes this list and ranks itself first, which is a conflict of interest. What makes that defensible is the weighting being stated rather than implied — and every entry here, including ours, carries its limitations in the same words and the same styling.

1. 1

   Map D

   Organizers whose event revenue comes off the show floor

   Strengths

   • Floor plan, booth and sponsorship sales, exhibitor portal and reporting run off one event record, and ticketing, registration, badging and lead retrieval join that same record when your show adds them.
   • Pricing is published: $1,500, $2,500 or $2,750 per event, listed on the pricing page, so a budget can be sized without a sales call.
   • Per event rather than per seat — adding organizers or exhibitors does not change the plan price, and no booth, exhibitor or attendee cap is published on any plan.
   • Roughly 800 organizers run about 6,000 events a year on Map D, which has processed more than $250M in booth and sponsorship sales and drawn over 800,000 booths.

   See what Map D does with a floor plan

   Limitations

   • No venue sourcing and no room-block contracting. Map D links attendees to your hotel booking page, but if your program is built around sourcing venues and holding room nights, this is the wrong tool and Cvent is not.
   • No venue booking or building operations. Map D runs the show inside a venue, not the venue.
   • If your event has no sellable floor — a pure conference, a training programme — most of what you would be paying for goes unused.
   • Ticketing and registration, with badge printing and onsite check-in, and lead retrieval are add-ons quoted to your event portfolio rather than part of the published per-event plans.
2. 2

   Eventbrite

   Public, ticketed events and free events with no exhibit floor

   Strengths

   • Free events are free to publish, with no limit on how many, according to its pricing page.
   • Reserved seating: tickets for specific, assigned seats, sold from an interactive venue map.
   • A free organizer app that scans QR codes on tickets, tracks attendance in real time and can take payments onsite.
   • Rates are published on its own pricing page.

   Limitations

   • On paid events it charges a per-ticket service fee plus a payment-processing charge, so cost scales with tickets sold.
   • Its event management software page does not list a floor plan, booth sales or exhibitor management, so a show that sells exhibit space would need other tools alongside it.
3. 3

   Eventleaf

   Small events and registration-heavy conferences with little or no exhibit floor

   Strengths

   • A free tier for small events, which is useful for a first event or a very small show.
   • Deep registration functionality: an event website builder, multiple registration paths, discounts, invoicing, waitlists and abstract and speaker submission.
   • Badge printing and a lead-retrieval app for scanning attendee badges.

   Limitations

   • Paid tiers are priced per attendee, so cost grows with turnout, and its top tier is quote-only.
   • Built around registration and content management more than around selling booth inventory off a live floor plan.
4. 4

   EventMobi

   Registration- and content-driven events that want one vendor for the whole attendee stack

   Strengths

   • A broad all-in-one bundle: event website, registration, badge printing, check-in, mobile app and lead capture.
   • Interactive event maps and a lead capture product that organizers can resell to exhibitors.
   • Publishes starting prices for per-event and annual use, which is rarer in this category than it should be.

   Limitations

   • The published figures are a floor: it states that cost scales with attendee count, selected products and add-ons.
   • The bundle is oriented around the attendee experience; selling exhibit space off a live floor plan is not the centre of the product.
5. 5

   Whova

   Conference-first events where the attendee app is the core experience

   Strengths

   • A conference mobile app with personalized agendas, real-time updates and networking features.
   • Lead retrieval built into the same app exhibitors and attendees already have: QR code scanning, lead tagging and CRM export.
   • A self-service exhibitor hub with booth profiles, staff management, retrieved leads and outreach campaigns.
   • Gamification tools such as passport contests, leaderboards and trivia to drive traffic to booths.

   Limitations

   • Rates are not published. The pricing page asks for your event format, duration and attendance, then offers a demo or trial.
   • Positioned around the conference experience, so a show whose revenue is booth inventory sold off a live floor plan is a secondary use case.
6. 6

   PheedLoop

   Organizers who want to buy only the modules they need, including virtual and hybrid

   Strengths

   • Genuinely modular: add and pay for only the modules an event needs, such as call for proposals, exhibitor applications, maps, housing and the mobile app.
   • Native virtual and hybrid capability, including a virtual event portal and video booths.
   • Self-serve booth selection and payment in its Sponsor & Exhibitor Application System, with conflict detection to prevent a booth being sold twice.
   • Publishes a detailed rate table on its own site.

   Limitations

   • Modules such as the floor plan, registration and lead retrieval are priced separately, so the total depends on which you combine and on attendee and exhibitor counts.
   • The main pricing page still directs you to a custom-quote form for a full total.

Frequently asked questions