Wie viel sollten Sie von einem Sponsor verlangen?

"How much should you charge a sponsor?" is one of the first questions every organizer types into a search bar, and one of the few that never gets a straight answer. That's not because nobody wants to tell you — it's because a sponsorship isn't a standardized product like a ticket or a t-shirt. Its value depends entirely on what you're offering, who's on the other side of the table, and what they'd otherwise have to pay to get the same reach.

There's no official price list — and that's fine

Search around and you'll find wildly different numbers, all stated with total confidence. Someone will tell you a logo on a banner is worth €5,000 a season; someone else will swap the exact same logo for a case of drinks. Both can be true, because they're describing completely different audiences, exclusivity terms and levels of visibility. A neighborhood five-a-side tournament with sixty spectators and a regional youth league final with two thousand are not the same offer, even though both get called "sponsorship." Treat every number you read — including the ones further down this page — as a starting point to adjust, never as a fixed rule.

What actually moves the price

Before you write a single price down, it helps to know which levers actually change it. Five things do most of the work:

• Audience size and quality — five hundred people who glance at a banner are worth less than eighty people who show up every week and actually match what the sponsor sells.
• Exclusivity — a sponsor who is the *only* logo at your event is buying attention nobody else is competing for, and that's worth paying more for than sharing space with nine others.
• Visibility channels — a name on one banner is a different offer than a name on shirts, in a newsletter, on social media, and read out over a microphone.
• Event frequency — one afternoon a year is a smaller offer than a name that appears at twenty sessions across a full season.
• Your track record — a first-time event with no history is a bigger risk for a sponsor than one that can show what happened last time: real photos, real numbers, a previous sponsor willing to vouch for you.

A practical way to build three tiers

Instead of guessing at one number, build two or three packages at different prices and let the sponsor pick. This alone tends to raise how many conversations turn into a yes — a business that can't justify your top price will often take your entry-level one instead of walking away entirely. We cover the full process of building the offer itself in how to create a sponsorship package; here's a rough frame purely for pricing it.

Pricing product and in-kind contributions

Not every sponsor pays in cash, and that's completely normal — see our full breakdown of cash vs. product sponsorship if you haven't yet. When you're putting a value on an in-kind offer, the simplest honest method is to ask what it would have cost you to buy the same thing yourself, at a normal price. If a caterer offers free food for forty people, that's worth roughly what you'd have paid for forty meals — not what the caterer charges a stranger for a full event package. Value it fairly in both directions: underselling it insults a genuine sponsor, and inflating it makes your numbers untrustworthy the moment anyone checks.

When a sponsor asks "can you go lower?"

This will happen to almost every organizer eventually, and it isn't a rejection — it's the start of a real negotiation. The mistake is treating it as a single yes-or-no question. Instead, treat it as a request for a different shape of deal, and come back with options rather than a flat discount on the same package.

• Offer a shorter commitment — one event instead of a full season — at a lower price, rather than the same package for less
• Reduce what's actually included, not just the number, so the value stays proportional to the price
• Suggest a smaller cash amount alongside a partial product or service contribution
• Ask what budget they're actually working with — sometimes "lower" means €400, not €50
• Offer a one-event trial at a reduced rate, with an honest conversation about the full price if they'd like to continue

When it's okay to just say no

Not every offer deserves a counter. If a business is asking for full exclusivity and prime placement at a price that barely covers your printing costs, saying no is a legitimate answer, not a failure to negotiate. A package that undervalues your event trains every future sponsor to expect the same discount. It's fine to say you'd love to work together at a different tier, or on a smaller version of the deal — a clear no protects the value of everything you build afterward, on Sponato or anywhere else.