Trade show, SDR, ads or business round: what each qualified meeting really costs, counting your time. With your company's numbers.
Example with the default values
Cost of one qualified meeting. Swap in your company's numbers just below.
Cost per meeting: comparison
October 22, 2026
Monthly plan and rounds per month from the Monthly Participant plan, as in the platform's current catalog. Meetings per round is an estimate.
A trade show costs 21 times more per meeting than a business round, counting your time.
Compares the cost of getting to a meeting, not of closing a deal. Each channel plays a different role; your time counts for the trade show (8 hours per day away) and for the round.
| Channel | Total cost | Meetings |
|---|---|---|
| Trade show or in-person eventper event | R$6,900.00 | 8 |
| Cold outreach with an SDRper month | R$4,500.00 | 10 |
| Adsper month | R$2,000.00 | 6 |
| Online business roundper month | R$949.90 | 24 |
Assumptions
Hour: R$150.00. Trade show: registration R$3,000.00, travel R$1,500.00, 2 days, 8 meetings. SDR: R$4,500.00 per month, 10 meetings. Ads: R$2,000.00 per month, 6 meetings. Round: plan R$49.90, 2 rounds of 3 hours, 12 meetings per round (estimate).
Next step: knowing what each meeting costs is half the math. The other half is charging a price that covers that cost and still leaves a profit.
Work out my selling priceHave your first meetings for free: your first round is on us
Your company's first business round is on us, with just your CNPJ (Brazilian company tax ID). Choose an open round and enter the CNPJ on its page.
Your first round is on us. Choose an open round and enter your company's CNPJ: rodadadenegocios.org/en/eventos
Run the numbers again at rodadadenegocios.org/en/ferramentas/calculadora-custo-por-reuniao
The calculator compares the cost of getting to a meeting, not of closing a deal. No channel is bad: each one fits a moment in the life of a company.
A trade show puts your product in front of many people in a few days, and that has value: you can show it, let people touch it, run a demo. The cost, however, goes beyond the booth. Add travel, lodging and, above all, the days the owner spends away from the company. At a two-day show, eight truly qualified meetings is already a good result; the rest are exchanged business cards that rarely turn into a conversation.
An SDR, the professional who calls and sends messages to book meetings, works a defined list with discipline. It works when the company knows exactly who it wants to reach and has enough volume to keep that person busy. The cost is fixed: salary and payroll taxes every month, with results that take a few months to show while the SDR learns the product.
Ads reach people who are already looking for what you sell, and they scale fast. In business-to-business sales, the challenge is qualification: many contacts arrive with no budget, no urgency or no decision power. The cost per meeting depends on how many leads turn into a real conversation, a number that is usually lower than the ad dashboard suggests.
In an online business round, the platform arranges short video meetings between companies that have stated what they offer and what they are looking for. In a few hours, without leaving the office, you talk to several companies chosen for their fit. The cost is the monthly plan plus the time spent in the rounds. It does not replace the other channels: it is the cheapest way to have many first conversations.
Because the meeting is what every channel delivers in a comparable way. How many meetings turn into customers depends on your product, your price and how you run the conversation, and that holds for any channel. The calculator shows what it costs to get to the table; what happens next is up to you.
Because it is the most expensive resource a small company has. Two days at a trade show are two days without serving customers, selling or running the business. Ignoring time makes in-person channels look cheaper than they are.
They are starting references, not market averages. Replace them with your company's numbers: what your hour is worth, what the last trade show cost, how many meetings it produced. The result only holds for you with your own numbers.
It is an estimate: it depends on how many companies take part and how long each meeting lasts. Adjust it to what you expect. The plan price comes from the platform's current catalog.
No. Each channel has a role: the trade show shows the product live, ads bring in people who are already searching, the SDR works a defined list. The business round is the cheapest way to have many qualified first conversations in little time, and it usually works best alongside the others.
Yes. Fill it in with the company's or the association's numbers and use Print or save as PDF: you get a one-page comparison, with the table and the assumptions, ready to take to the meeting.
Your company's first business round is on us, with just the CNPJ (Brazilian company tax ID). See in practice how many meetings it brings.