Free Calculators for Competition Operators
Model a competition's economics before you commit to a prize — profit, pricing, instant win budgets, marketing ROI and live sales pace.
Competition Profit Calculator
Model revenue, payment fees, prize cost and margin for a competition before you launch it.
Reach for it when: Before you commit to a prize — it tells you the sell-through you have to hit before the draw makes money.
Open calculatorTicket Pricing Calculator
Work backwards from your prize cost and target margin to the ticket price you need to charge.
Reach for it when: The prize is decided and the price isn't. Work backwards from prize cost and target margin instead of copying a competitor's price point.
Open calculatorInstant Win Allocation Calculator
Work out how many instant win prizes you can seed into a competition before they eat the margin.
Reach for it when: You want instant wins to lift conversion but not eat the margin, and need to see both the cost and the player-facing odds your pot produces.
Open calculatorCompetition Marketing ROI Calculator
Turn ad spend, click costs and conversion rate into cost per acquisition and the return you need to break even.
Reach for it when: Before you put spend behind a draw — it converts click costs and conversion rate into a CPA you can hold against your margin per order.
Open calculatorTicket Sales Velocity Calculator
Project whether a live competition will sell out before the draw from its current daily sales rate.
Reach for it when: Mid-flight, when a live draw feels slow and you need to know whether it will fill in time to act while intervention is still cheap.
Open calculatorFrom prize idea to a draw that pays for itself
A competition's margin is decided before it launches, in the gap between the prize you commit to and the sell-through you actually get. These five calculators follow that sequence.
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1
Competition Profit Calculator
Start with the downside. Ticket cap, price, prize cost and fees give you the projected margin — but the number to write down is the break-even sell-through, because a draw that clears 25% margin at a sell-out can lose money at 60% sold.
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2
Ticket Pricing Calculator
If the margin does not work, price is usually the lever. This runs the same maths backwards: prize cost, realistic sell-through and target margin in, minimum viable ticket price out. Sense-check the result against what comparable prizes are selling for across the market.
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3
Instant Win Allocation Calculator
Instant wins buy conversion, and they are paid for out of the same margin. Size the pot deliberately and check the player-facing odds it produces, rather than adding prizes until the grid looks generous.
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4
Competition Marketing ROI Calculator
Paid traffic has to be cheaper than the margin it brings in. Click cost and conversion rate become a cost per acquisition you can hold against margin per order — and against the ROAS you need just to break even on a first purchase.
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5
Ticket Sales Velocity Calculator
Once the draw is live, the daily sales rate tells you whether it will fill before the draw date. Catching a shortfall in week one is far cheaper to fix than discovering it the night before.
Reading the results honestly
- Model the sell-through you actually average, not the cap. Optimistic sell-through is the single most common reason a competition that looked profitable in a spreadsheet did not end up that way.
- Straight-line velocity projections are a floor, not a forecast. Most draws sell in a U-shape — a launch spike, a slow middle, then a surge in the final 48 hours as scarcity bites — so treat an early shortfall as a signal rather than a verdict.
- These are single-competition models. They do not account for VAT position, refunds, repeat purchase or the customer lifetime value that justifies running some draws at break-even to acquire buyers.
- None of this is legal or financial advice. Prize draw structure, free entry routes and the skill question are the parts to get professional advice on.
Find Competitions tracks live ticket sales, pricing and sell-through across the UK competition market — see how your numbers compare to operators like you.