Event management company alternative
What an event management company does for 10 to 15% of your budget. From £79 a month.
An event management company brings contacts, a coordinator and an invoice that grows with your spend. Comtev brings the same legwork as software: venues found and held, suppliers quoted and negotiated over WhatsApp, SMS, email and voice, flights and rooms priced, one live budget and a sign-off your finance team can see. Keep the agency for the day itself, if you want one at all.
Free to start, plans from £79 a month. No percentage of anything.
- £79
- a month for Starter, against 10 to 15% of the budget. Free to start
- Minutes
- from brief to venue shortlist
- 4 channels
- for supplier comms: WhatsApp, SMS, email and voice
- 1 budget
- venue, suppliers, travel and approvals together
A UK event management company plans and delivers corporate events for a fee that is usually a percentage of the budget or a day rate, so a £100,000 event can carry £10,000 to £15,000 in management fees before anything is booked. Comtev is the AI alternative for the planning phase. It finds and holds the venue, requests and negotiates supplier quotes, prices travel per named traveller, builds the budget and routes spend to a named approver, on a plan from £79 a month. Teams that want on-site delivery still hire it, for the day rather than the months.
The agency's first fortnight, back in an hour.
- 01
Brief Comtev instead of writing an RFP.
Type what you would have told the agency. Comtev asks the questions a good account manager would, then starts.
- 02
Options arrive the same day.
Venue shortlist ranked and availability requested. Caterers, AV and photographers contacted. Flights and rooms priced from your attendees' cities.
- 03
See the negotiated numbers, not a mark-up.
Comtev pushes suppliers on rate and terms and shows you the result. There is no margin on a supplier's price because Comtev takes no commission.
- 04
Approve and deliver.
Freeze a proposal, get the yes, confirm the bookings. Bring in an on-site team for the day if the event needs one. They get a finished plan, not a brief.
An event management company, and Comtev, side by side.
| Topic | Event management company | Comtev |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | 10 to 15% of the budget, or a day rate | A plan from £79 a month, free to start |
| Time to first options | Discovery call, proposal, then one to two weeks | Minutes |
| Venue sourcing | Preferred venues and relationships | Open-market search, ranked to your brief, no commission |
| Supplier quotes | Requested and chased by a coordinator | Requested over four channels, chased and negotiated automatically, compared side by side |
| Travel and rooms | Often a separate travel company | Flights per traveller and room blocks in the same budget, booked after approval |
| Budget visibility | A spreadsheet at the weekly check-in | Live: committed, forecast, headroom and variance |
| Approvals | An email thread | A named approver with a ceiling, on Slack or email, logged on the event |
| On the day | Their strength | QR passes and door-staff check-in. Bring a human for the room |
Fee ranges come from the UK cost guide linked below, which names its sources. If your agency charges differently, use their number. The comparison still holds.
What changes when the legwork is software.
Every plan has the tools below. Nothing here is a roadmap.
- No RFP, no pitch deck, no waitingThe brief is the RFP. Options start arriving the same day, and you can change the brief without starting a new procurement.01
- Comms you can read without being in themEvery supplier conversation sits on the event, by channel and by supplier. There is an audit trail, which procurement will like.02
- Scenarios instead of revised proposalsFinance wants a leaner version? Build a scenario, swap the venue, and the budget rebuilds. Send both.03
- Stakeholders chased for youApprovals, questions, content requests and date holds go out over Slack and email, get chased, get re-routed to a delegate and escalate. You see who the bottleneck is.04
- Automation for the recurring eventsQuarterly all-hands, monthly client dinners: set a flow once and Comtev runs the follow-ups, with approval before anything spends money.05
Free to start. Plans from £79 a month. No commission from venues or suppliers.
Open a free account and run your first event. Starter, Team and Business add AI credits, active events and team members. Venues and suppliers pay nothing, so the shortlist and the negotiation only have one customer.
See pricingQuestions people ask before a demo.
Something else? Ask us
Is Comtev an event management company?
No. It is software with an AI that does the planning legwork an agency would bill for. It does not send staff to your event. Many teams pair it with an on-site crew for delivery.
How much does an event management company charge in the UK?
Published benchmarks put full-service agency fees in the region of 10 to 15% of the event budget, or a day rate for smaller jobs. Our cost guide lists the sources.
What can't it do that an agency can?
Run the room on the day, manage a crew, or carry the liability for production. It also does not have a decade of personal relationships with a particular venue, although it will ask that venue the same questions in minutes.
Can an agency use Comtev too?
Yes. Agencies and freelance planners use it to do the sourcing and budgeting for their clients faster, and share the frozen proposal with the client for sign-off.
Is anything booked without my approval?
No. Spend routes to a named approver with a ceiling. Flights and hotel rooms are booked in-app after the yes. Venue and supplier bookings are confirmed with the supplier on your behalf after the yes.
What does a plan include?
Everything on this page: venue sourcing and booking, supplier quotes and negotiation, travel pricing, the budget, approvals, stakeholder chasing, the guest list and check-in. The free plan covers one active event. Starter, Team and Business add AI credits, active events and team members, and Enterprise is on request.
Send us the brief you were going to send the agency.
We will run it live on the demo. You will see the first shortlist and the first negotiated quote before you decide anything.