We’re cheap, and that’s a problem

Taco Verdonschot

October 14, 2025

Last week, there was a discussion in the Dutch WP Slack around WordCamp ticket pricing. WordCamp The Netherlands has sold out its regular tickets and now only offers microsponsor tickets at 270 euros. Some considered that too much for a WordCamp. And yes, I know, the Dutch are known for being cheap, but so are WordCamps.

For the longest time, WordCamps could not charge more than 20-25 USD (or its local equivalent) per day. This resulted in a community used to paying just 50 bucks for a 2-day conference.

I’ll argue that this made sense in the early days, when WordCamps were merely 50-person barcamps where DIY website builders, developers, and hobbyists could meet. Nowadays, many WordCamps are full-blown professional conferences with hundreds or even thousands of attendees.

Why having low ticket prices is great

And don’t get me wrong. I love being able to go to a professional conference for just 50 euros. I get all the value of multiple days of talks, workshops, and side events. I get to talk to foreign brands in their sponsor booths. And all that for the price of a single luxury lunch.

It’s great, because we’re giving attendees extreme value. And anyone can attend. Even if you’re a hobby WordPress user who doesn’t make money with your site, 50 euros is still quite affordable. The financial barrier to entry is very low. And in that sense, the conferences are very inclusive.

That inclusivity is worth protecting, but we need to be able to sustain it.

Where the current model breaks

Important to know is that this inclusivity comes at a hidden cost. Because in the end, someone has to pay the bill. And in the case of WordCamps, that’s the sponsors. Depending on the event, their contribution ranges from 250 euros to 80,000 euros. At WordCamp Europe 2023, sponsors brought 955,000 euros to the table.

For comparison, ticket sales only made them 124,500 euros. That means less than 12% of the total budget came from ticket sales. In other words, sponsors paid for 88% of the conference.

What’s the problem?

In short, with WordPress’s growth plateauing, the ecosystem may not be growing fast enough to support the same level of sponsorship. And that means it will get harder to find sponsors for our events.

Currently, we’re not paying speakers and volunteers anything (but a free ticket). We’re not paying organizers for their time and expenses. And with ever-increasing prices for food, venues, labor, and everything else all around the world, it’s virtually impossible to lower our event costs. And that means we need to raise enough money if we want to continue to organize our events.

A comparison

We’re not the only community organizing events. To understand how unusual WordCamp pricing really is, let’s look at how other web and open-source conferences price their events. So, what do their ticket prices look like?

Conference	Location & Dates (2025)	Ticket (Native)	Approx. Price in EUR	Cost per day (≈)
WordCamp Europe	Basel, Jun 5–7 (3 days)	€50 (General)	€50	€17/day
JoomlaDay D-A-CH	Bad Krozingen, Nov 14–15 (2 days)	€169	€169	€85/day
CloudFest Germany	Rust, DE, Mar 17–20 (4 days)	€499 (Standard)	€499	€125/day
DrupalCon Europe	Vienna, Oct 14–17 (4 days)	€775 – €1,165	€775 – €1,165	€194–€291/day
CloudFest USA	Austin, TX, Jun 3–5 (3 days)	$899	≈ €774	€258/day
TYPO3 Conference (T3CON25)	Germany, dates vary (3 days)	€599 (Full pass)	€599	€200/day
Spotlight by Semrush	Amsterdam, Oct 29 (1 day)	€290	€290	€290/day
brightonSEO (UK)	Brighton, Oct 23–24 (2 days)	£530 + VAT	≈ €614 + VAT	€307/day (+VAT)
Ahrefs Evolve 2025	San Diego, Oct 14–15 (2 days)	$899	≈ €776	€388/day
INBOUND by HubSpot	Boston, Sep 3–5 (3 days)	$1,699 – $1,999	≈ €1,461 – €1,719	€487–€573/day
MozCon (New York)	Nov 6 (1 day)	$649	≈ €561	€561/day
SMX Munich	Munich, Mar 18–19 (2 days)	€1,199	€1,199	€600/day
Friends of Search	Amsterdam, Mar 13 (1 day)	€659.45	€659	€659/day

^{Comparison of WordPress, marketing, and tech conferences in 2025 with locations, dates, and ticket prices.}

Context for the comparison table

Ticket prices and conference details were collected between October 10 and 14, 2025, from each event’s official website or primary ticketing platform. When prices were listed in non-euro currencies, they were converted to euros using the mid-market rate on October 14, 2025 (€1 = $1.16 USD = £0.86 GBP). All conversions were rounded to the nearest euro for clarity.

Unless otherwise noted, prices reflect general admission (GA) or equivalent full-access passes and exclude VAT or local sales tax.

For conferences with multiple ticket tiers (e.g., early-bird, regular, late), the standard or most commonly available tier was used. When a conference offered 1-day tickets, the cost per day was calculated directly; for multi-day events, prices were divided by the number of main conference days, excluding optional workshops or pre-event socials.

This comparison aims to illustrate relative affordability and sustainability trends across major open-source and web industry conferences rather than serve as an exhaustive pricing index.

I’m not saying we should raise our ticket prices from 17 euros per day to 659. But even just looking at our “open source family”, JoomlaDays, DrupalCons, and TYPO3Cons are at a very different price point.

Now what?

Now that we know our event pricing isn’t sustainable, and we’re at the lowest price point of all, we have to change something. And it’s possible. The sold-out WordCamp The Netherlands did it already by selling their regular tickets at 100 euros and microsponsor tickets at 270 euros.

Consider the value WordCamps are bringing, in terms of gained knowledge and expanding your professional network, for example. What is that worth to your business?

With that in mind, I wonder: what would you consider a reasonable price for a WordCamp ticket?

6 responses to “We’re cheap, and that’s a problem”

Ramon Fincken

October 15, 2025

Nice comparison table. A few addendums about WP vs Drupal (WordCamp / DrupalCamp/Jam )

Attendees WordCamp Europe vs DrupalCon Europe about 3000 vs 1000
Attendees WordCamp NL vs Drupaljam about 300 vs 350
Small sponsorbooth WCE vs DC pricing 2750 vs 4800
Small Sponsorbooth WordCamp NL vs Drupaljam 2500 vs 1750

Volunteers any WordCamp -> Free ticket
Volunteers DrupalCon -> NO free ticket
All WordCamps are run by volunteers ( correct me if I am wrong )
DrupalCon -> run by a commercial organisation ( kuonitumlare ) , the same each year, they have the trademark to run the events

I have sponsored many times using various labels ( ManagedWPhosting Halvar Pingops ). Personally when I look at pricing for sponsoring WordCamp NL compared to WordCamp Europe, I think, when looking at the amount of persons visiting the event that the pricing for sponsors is too high. On the other hand , almost each year a discussion pops up about the 50 euros – 75 euro tickets. Yes it should be at least 125 or double that, but yes you will also lose a portion of the audience. It also relates to the type of talks.

Reply
1. Taco Verdonschot
  
  October 15, 2025
  
  I agree that there are many more factors we can take into account when comparing events. To keep it easier to understand, I now solely focused on ticket pricing.
  
  I’d love to see (or maybe do) a full comparison some day!
  
  Reply
Rhys

October 15, 2025

It’s something I’ve felt and agree with that the cheap and cheerfulness of WordCamps (as fun as they are) feels unsustainable. I look at the UK for example and any attempts to get a WordCamp London off the ground again post COVID was difficult.

Hopefully with events like Loopconf, Cloudfest and Pressonomics pushing the boat out, you can begin to turn the tide that WordPress events are cheap.

There is a place for them, but being able to run for $20 ticket with lunch is totally unsustainable in Europe.

Reply
1. Taco Verdonschot
  
  October 17, 2025
  
  I’m not sure “outside” events are able to force a change there. If anything, I’m afraid they’re held back ‘because they are so expensive’ according to many in our community.
  
  Reply
Chris

October 16, 2025

I personally think that if you as a hobbyist are that passioned about WordPress you can afford 100eur/day tickets. In terms of professional attendees mostly tickets are paid by the company and if the company can’t afford 100eur/day tickets they surely should have another focus instead of planing to go to a conference.

So yeah, rising the ticket price is fine by me and I think the lowest (!) 3-figures are still inclusive enough.

However: As for comparing to the other conferences one has to keep the location in mind as well. New York, Munich or Rust (even though a small town, the conference is at a theme park…) are very expensive cities. That’s one reason why for example WCDE23 took place in Gerolstein instead of Munich, which was the first pick: The venues were so expensive and the forced low ticket price made financing quiet impossible as the rest had to be collected from sponsors.

Some things just cost money and we have to deal with it.

Reply
1. Taco Verdonschot
  
  October 17, 2025
  
  Most hobbies cost money. And if you want to learn and get better at it, you’ll have to spend some. I mean, if your hobby was playing a sport, you’d probably also be paying for classes, equipment, etc.
  
  For companies, it’s all about ROI. If the value you’re getting out of the event is more than 100 euro/day, that’s what they’re willing to spend. And I think that’s something we’ll have to keep in mind as organizers. How do we make sure people get value from attending?
  
  Obviously, putting an ROI on ‘expanding your network’ is very hard. But creating a mix of beginner-, mid-, and advanced-level talks in various fields is something we can control when putting together a schedule.
  
  And yes, we can pick the cheaper locations to cut costs. But that only works if the cheaper location is equally easy to get to, and/or stay at, for your target audience. Otherwise, you might be hurting your conference’s attendance numbers, which in the long run negatively affects your sponsor attendance too.
  
  Reply