Cvent and HeySummit both specialize in different areas. In this guide, we’ll go through the differences between both virtual event platforms and review each of them in terms of the following:

Features
Use cases
Pricing plans
What makes them special
Who it’s suitable for
User reviews

Now, let’s begin.

Cvent Summary

Cvent is an event management software that automates the event planning process. They provide a suite of solutions for hosting an online event, particularly for managers and event organizers in the hospitality industry.

Moreover, Cvent focuses on helping you increase the size of your conferences and optimize for higher ROI.

An Overview of Cvent’s Features

Venue Management: Everything you need to organize your venue in one place including attendee hubs, event registrations, virtual booths, and content and exhibitor management. Embed other forms of content into your events such as videos and word documents.
Attendee Engagement Tools: Deliver a branded virtual experience. Optimize your event with features such as polls and live Q&As. Cvent also has a mobile app to help drive engagement.
Lead Capturing Solutions: Acquire and nurture leads by using Cvent’s email marketing features, providing custom questions, and getting real-time data on event performance. ‍
Budgeting and Workflow: Simplify the event planning process with meeting request forms, budgeting features, and a portal where everything can be stored and accessed from one place. ‍
Reporting: Generate reports which highlight key data across each phase of the event attendee journey. Get insights into new opportunities and areas of improvement. ‍
Integrations: Integrate with other virtual tools and CRMs.

Examples of Ways to Use Cvent

Common Use Case 1

Event marketing companies are tasked with putting together an online event where people can network with one another. Often, the goal is to help an organization promote its brand, product, or service.

However, some of these events could involve a virtual summit that lasts a whole day. So to keep it engaging, Cvent enables you to fit in speaking sessions alongside 1-1 meeting opportunities for both attendees and sponsors. Interactive features like virtual roundtables would be useful too.

And rather than doing everything manually, adopt Cvent’s solutions by integrating them with your MarTech stack. Many other Cvent solutions can be adopted so that you can manage all types of events.

Common Use Case 2

For organizations that have a strong emphasis on technology, Cvent has a range of products to offer to optimize the attendee experience such as:

Event Enterprise Solution
Supplier Solutions
Transient
Onsite Solutions

Cvent enables you to host a virtual event that’s easy to navigate by providing products tailored to your needs. It’s also straightforward for attendees to navigate through your events thanks to the attendee hub.

At the end of each event, generate a report to assess data on engagement metrics.

Cvent Pricing

The Cvent pricing page doesn’t show an exact figure. You’ll have to contact them and request a custom quote.

But, it does show three types of plans available:

Products
Solutions
Total Programme

Cvent offers a free version according to this Capterra article, which also mentions that Cvent’s paid plans start from $2,950 per year.

So What Makes Cvent Special?

You’re given an arsenal of resources not just to create an online event, but to also manage it in a way that fits into your current workflow by integrating with your CRM and marketing tools.

With Cvent’s products, you can put together a virtual event that provides a smooth experience for attendees. The customer support team is dependable and responsive too.

Who is Cvent Suitable For?

It’s suitable for event marketing professionals and agencies alongside managers in a large company where collaboration across teams must be on point.

Cvent is your ideal platform if:

Events are a core part of your marketing strategy
You have a considerable budget to allocate
You want a solution that can integrate with your current CRM and marketing tools

Here’s What Cvent Users Have Said

Here’s a couple of Cvent customer reviews taken from G2 (a website that showcases user reviews).

“Cvent is reasonably easy to use and is a quality product. I like the branding capabilities and ability to register attendees, promote the event, and stream content. The reporting feature is beneficial and robust and allows me to produce custom reports to present to my stakeholders. It saves time being able to include emailing capabilities to attendees. The on-demand video capability has solved the problem of being able to deliver quality education at a time that is convenient to each attendee.”

- Sarah J.

“I love that all of our event registration information can be stored in one place that anyone in our team can access. This saves a lot of manpower hours in the pre-planning phase of events. Now with Flex we can create beautiful websites without digital and design knowledge. Helps us to create a very professional feel.”

- Justina H.

“Made our pivot to virtual possible. The virtual attendee hub was mostly automatically generated, and not bad-looking. Managing session information and production roles wasn't too hard to learn. Support team was always there to answer questions. We were pleasantly surprised by their virtual conference options and were happy that we could still hold our conference. They helped us with that forced transition.”

- John V.

"Awesome event management solution! A must have for event managers. Cvent offers many distinguishing features which make it simple for a user to manage an event for a whole life cycle. It covers all necessary components for registration tracking and reporting and is easy to navigate once you start. The best part is when you create a detailed build for a program in Cvent, you can clone it so that you can utilize the same unique setup you have in the past, and this saves so much time that can be spent on other event details."

- Anonymous User Review

HeySummit Summary

HeySummit is an all-in-one virtual event platform. Users can create online events in a few clicks without having any technical expertise. Their focus is on helping you build a community and monetize your passion by developing the most effective event marketing strategy.

From hosting an online event to promoting it, HeySummit provides users with all the tools required for driving more traffic and ticket sales.

An Overview of HeySummit’s Features

Attendee Registration Flow: Optimize the attendee and registration experience with personalized questions and fields. Use the data for audience segmentation and send custom email templates with automated email sequences.
Talk Management: Present speaker sessions through live videos or pre-recorded videos. Include other forms of content and rich descriptions.
Speaker Dashboard: Easily access your speaker dashboards to update your speaker bio and talk information. Incentives can also be included to encourage more registrations.
Speaker Directory: Use HeySummit’s directory to get in touch with over 1000 passionate speakers for a particular industry or topic. Filter your search to find the right speaker for your event.
Landing Page Builder: Build and customize your own landing pages using a drag-and-drop model. No coding skills are required. Include the standard and pre-built components to optimize your landing page for event signups.
Marketing Tools: HeySummit’s pre-registration feature enables you to capture leads while you’re working on the setup process. Additionally, HeySummit offers affiliate programs, custom email sequences, swipe copy, sponsorship management, as well as viral sharing to promote your event.
Revenue Tools: Select your preferred payment provider. Adjust ticket types, restrictions, and pricing tiers to help generate sustainable revenue.
Reporting: Generate reports including event performance metrics to assess what went well and what could be improved. Users can track KPIs from live attendance to audience engagement from their dashboard. ‍
Tool Integrations: Integrate HeySummit with the marketing tools and software you’re already using such as Google Analytics and Zoom.

Examples of Ways to Use HeySummit

Common Use Case 1

In this use case, we’re going to refer to Daniel.

Daniel is a solopreneur that amassed thousands of followers by sharing content that his audience finds valuable. Now although Daniel has an online community that supports his work, he wonders if he could turn his passion into a sustainable career.

Virtual summits came to mind but the issue was, how? He wanted a straightforward process to organize and promote a virtual event, which led him to HeySummit.

With HeySummit, Daniel had all the resources to host and promote an engaging event from within one place. Daniel weaved together different session formats seamlessly, used the chat features to allow speakers and attendees to interact with one another, and set up affiliate programs to maximize his marketing strategy.

The result? 3000 attendees and $26,000 in ticket sales.

Read Daniel’s full story here.

Common Use Case 2

Use HeySummit to optimize your lead-gen strategy by setting up the following:

Content restrictions
Ticket restrictions
Paywalls

Another way to generate leads is by using virtual summits to showcase your product or service.

Event managers can customize their events with HeySummit’s built-in features as well as create tailored landing pages and email templates. To put it simply, focus on putting together an online event that helps you use your content to acquire more leads.

Read the full story here.

HeySummit Pricing

HeySummit offers three pricing plans:

Starter plan: $33/mo
Growth plan: $99/mo
Success plan: $299/mo

They also offer a free 14-day trial.

So What Makes HeySummit Special?

HeySummit simplifies the entire process of organizing and marketing an online event. You’re supported each step of the way from start to finish to give attendees a warm, seamless experience.

Whether you’re operating alone or as a team, HeySummit has all the tools to optimize your events for business growth. Customer support is also highly reliable.

Who is HeySummit Suitable For?

It’s suitable for thought leaders, content creators, and solopreneurs as well as organizations of all sizes.

HeySummit is your ideal platform if:

You’re looking to develop an event marketing strategy
You want to nurture a community and grow your online presence
You’re searching for an intuitive platform that can integrate with the tools you’re already using
You’re focused on generating revenue from virtual events

Here’s What HeySummit Users Have Said

Here’s a couple of HeySummit’s customer reviews taken from G2 (a website that showcases user reviews).

"The most powerful virtual summit platform for course creators! I wanted a platform that had great flexibility in how I could deliver the actual speaker sessions, (live, pre-recorded as live, etc) in email capabilities, in having sponsors and in the design of the Summit site. I also needed to know that the experience for the attendees would be seamless and that they would enjoy the speaker sessions when they attended. Also, I wanted a platform where I could sell different kinds of tickets for the events and connect the ticketing to my Stripe account and easily sell "total access" type tickets for the replays after the actual event has ended. In other words, have the event continue to live online as an "evergreen" event and gain ongoing promotion for my online courses, for the products of the other speakers and for the sponsors.

And the support team! They are incredibly responsive and thoughtful and really care about my questions and technical needs! This is huge for me and it has been a great confirmation that I chose the best possible platform for my events.

And the development team too! So responsive and excellent. Here is a simple but profoundly important example. I must be able to post links for my speakers so that attendees can find their products and services after the event, and HeySummit has many ways to do this. In almost every way to include links inside HeySummit, when the person clicks the link, a new browser window will open. But I discovered just one place, inside the "speaker bio" that gave me the ability to hyperlink some text, but when it gets clicked on, it takes the person out of the summit site. So I emailed the support team and asked if they could change this so that when the hyperlinked text was clicked on, it would open a new browser window and the person would still have the Summit site open. Very quickly, the support team replied and told me they would give my note to the development team and then, very quickly, the development team added this as a new feature. GREAT! And when I went back and checked my hyperlinks on the bios, they all worked and they opened a new browser window so that I never left the summit. WOW!

I can count on the team at HeySummit to be so responsive and to care so much for all of the small details that ultimately help me produce a successful virtual summit.”

- Larry S.

“"A great solution for online events of any kind. The interface is pretty intuitive and the help section answered all my questions. I love the ease of setup and the ability to communicate with my speakers and participants directly through the platform. Online summits have a lot of moving parts, and manually keeping track of all the information and communication involved is a challenge. That's all handled right inside this platform and that's a game changer.”

- Julie.K

“HeySummit was nice to have everything needed for an event on one platform from speakers to attendees. Fairly easy to get set up once you figure it out. The learning curve was not terribly steep. We were able to use HeySummit in a very short turnaround with limited tech help. It is fairly intuitive but does take some time to get it all setup and figure what you are doing. It is great that everything is all on one platform and then the replay of live portions are there for people later. Easy to download CSV files to add attendees to your CRM.”

- Karrie B.

“Great team and product. Support is amazing and the product does what it's meant to do. A few features need improving but they are always working on these things. Conducting an online conference event is made easy."

‍- Anonymous User Review

Alternative Platforms for Capturing Leads at Virtual Events

Besides Cvent and HeySummit, there are other virtual event platforms to help you capture leads such as:

Airmeet
Hopin
vFairs

Or set everything up manually by building your own custom landing pages with a CMS. Then, use software like ConvertKit for running email campaigns and Stripe for managing payments. But the downside of this approach is that everything’s not in one place. Plus, it can be more expensive in terms of time and money.

The Endgame: Cvent or HeySummit?

Cvent has many products and solutions for corporations to manage an event without compromising their workflow. This makes it seamless for teams to operate on the same page.

Ideally, Cvent is for large companies optimizing for a high return on investment. In other words, a considerable budget is required.

On the other hand, HeySummit is the leader for creating virtual events from scratch with no headaches. Their focus is on helping you develop the most effective event marketing strategy as well as putting on impactful events that are optimized for generating more revenue.

Whether or not you:

Use a range of CRMs
Collaborate across multiple departments
Have little to no experience with event management

HeySummit has all the features you need to put on a show that wins the participation of attendees. ‍

Sign up here for a free 14-day trial.

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