Build a defendable budget by tying spend to meeting outcomes, not activity volume. Every year, IR teams scramble to justify their access program budgets to Finance—conferences, NDRs, platforms, travel—and every year, CFOs push back because the ROI isn’t clear. Stop defending your budget based on “number of meetings held” and start tying every dollar to outcomes that matter: acceptance rates, meeting quality, next-step conversion, and shareholder impact.
What You’ll Achieve
- A line-item budget model for conferences, NDRs, platforms, and travel
- ROI math that your CFO will accept and approve
- Scenario planning that shows trade-offs between conservative and aggressive calendars
Understand Your Cost Structure
IR access programs have three cost layers: fixed costs that don’t change with meeting volume, variable costs that scale with activity, and internal time costs that are often ignored but very real.
Fixed costs: platforms, subscriptions, and base services. These costs don’t change whether you hold 50 meetings or 500. Examples include your corporate access platform subscription ($20K–$100K annually depending on features and scale), CRM or IRRM system ($15K–$75K), video conferencing licenses ($5K–$15K), and retainer fees for bankers or IR consultants ($50K–$200K). Fixed costs should be allocated to your annual budget and amortized across expected meeting volume to calculate per-meeting overhead.
Variable costs: conferences, travel, and production. These scale with activity. Conference sponsorships and meeting slots range from $10K for regional events to $100K+ for marquee conferences like JPM Healthcare or Goldman Tech. NDR travel (flights, hotels, meals, ground transport) runs $1,500–$3,000 per city per executive. Analyst day production (venue, AV, catering, materials) can cost $50K–$200K depending on format and attendee count. Virtual events have lower variable costs—platform fees for webinars or large virtual conferences typically run $2K–$10K per event.
Internal time costs: the hidden expense. Your CFO’s time, your IR team’s coordination hours, and executive prep sessions all have opportunity costs. If your CFO spends two days on an NDR, that’s two days not closing the quarter or planning capital allocation. If your IR coordinator spends 20 hours organizing a conference, that’s 20 hours not analyzing shareholder data or prepping earnings materials. Calculate these costs by multiplying hours by loaded compensation rates (salary plus benefits plus overhead, typically 1.5–2x base salary). A two-day NDR might consume 40 CFO hours ($15K–$25K in opportunity cost) plus 60 IR team hours ($5K–$10K). Include these in your total cost model so you can see the full economic picture.
Build an ROI Model
CFOs approve budgets that show return on investment. Your ROI model should connect spending to measurable outcomes at two levels: cost per confirmed meeting and cost per qualified next step.
Cost per confirmed 1:1 meeting. Divide your total program cost by the number of confirmed meetings. For example, if you spend $250K annually (fixed + variable + internal time) and hold 400 confirmed meetings, your cost per meeting is $625. Compare this to industry benchmarks: $400–$800 for well-run programs, $1,000+ for inefficient programs. If your cost is above benchmark, dig into where the money goes—are you over-spending on low-yield conferences, traveling to too many cities for too few meetings, or using expensive platforms with features you don’t need?
Cost per qualified next step. Not all meetings are equal—what matters is whether they lead to meaningful outcomes. Define a qualified next step: a follow-up diligence call, updated financial models, coverage initiation, position increase, or other actions that indicate genuine investor interest. Track your next-step conversion rate (typically 25–40% for good programs) and divide total cost by the number of qualified next steps. If you spend $250K and generate 120 qualified next steps, your cost per outcome is roughly $2,100. This is the metric CFOs understand—it shows what you’re paying to move investors through the pipeline.
Tie outcomes to shareholder impact. The ultimate ROI is changes in your shareholder base: new institutional holders, increased ownership from existing holders, improved analyst coverage, or sentiment shifts that support valuation. Track these quarterly and connect them back to your access program. If you can show that a $250K annual investment led to three new top-20 holders with a combined $150M in AUM, the ROI case is obvious. If you can’t draw those connections, your CFO will question whether the program is working.
Scenario Planning: Conservative vs Aggressive
Your CFO will ask “What if we cut the budget by 20%?” or “What would it take to expand coverage in Europe?” Have answers ready with scenario models that show trade-offs.
Conservative scenario: Minimum viable program. What’s the smallest budget that keeps you in the game? Typically this means attending only the two or three must-attend conferences for your sector ($50K–$100K), running one or two virtual NDR weeks instead of multi-city roadshows ($10K–$20K), and using a basic meeting coordination tool ($20K–$40K). Total: $80K–$160K. You’ll hold 150–250 meetings, mostly virtual, with limited executive travel. Acceptance rates may be lower because you’re not offering in-person access. Use this scenario to show what you lose if the budget gets cut: fewer meetings with top-tier investors, less face time for executives, and potentially slower progress on coverage or holder development.
Base scenario: Current state. This is your existing budget and meeting volume. Document current spend, meeting count, acceptance rates, and outcomes so you have a baseline for comparison. If your current program costs $250K and delivers 400 meetings with a 30% next-step rate, that’s your benchmark. Use this as the reference point when modeling changes.
Aggressive scenario: Expanded reach. What would it cost to double your meeting volume or expand into new geographies? This might include adding three or four more conferences ($100K–$150K), running quarterly in-person NDRs in key cities ($60K–$100K for four trips), upgrading to an enterprise-tier platform with advanced analytics ($80K–$120K), and adding a second IR team member to handle coordination ($150K–$200K loaded cost). Total: $640K–$820K. You could hold 700–900 meetings, with stronger in-person presence and better data on investor engagement. Use this scenario to show what you gain with more investment: faster coverage expansion, deeper holder relationships, and better ROI per dollar spent (economies of scale kick in at higher volumes).
Build Your Approval Packet
Your CFO and board don’t want a 40-page budget deck. They want a one-page summary that shows the ask, the ROI, the risks, and the alternatives.
One-page summary structure:
- The ask: Total budget request ($250K for base scenario) broken into fixed ($100K), variable ($100K), and internal time ($50K).
- Expected outcomes: 400 confirmed meetings, 120 qualified next steps, targeted improvements in shareholder metrics (e.g., add five new institutional holders, increase top-20 ownership by 200 basis points).
- ROI metrics: $625 per meeting, $2,100 per qualified next step. Comparison to prior year and industry benchmarks.
- Risk factors: What could go wrong? Lower-than-expected acceptance rates, executive availability constraints, platform implementation delays. How you’ll mitigate each risk.
- Alternatives considered: Show you’ve done the work. “We considered cutting conferences by 50% (saves $50K but reduces meeting volume by 30%) and going all-virtual (saves $80K in travel but lowers engagement quality by 20%). We believe the base scenario optimizes cost and impact.”
Supporting materials: Keep a backup appendix with detailed line items, vendor quotes, multi-year trend data, and meeting quality scores. Your CFO may not read it, but having it ready shows rigor and lets you answer detailed questions without scrambling.
Timing your request: Don’t wait until budget season is locked. Start conversations in Q3 for next year’s budget. Share quarterly ROI updates so your CFO sees the program is working and isn’t surprised by the annual ask. If you only talk about budget once a year during the approval cycle, you’ve already lost.
Get the Budget Model
Request a demo to see how WeConvene tracks cost per meeting and cost per outcome automatically—so you can build defendable budgets backed by real ROI data, not guesswork.