Likelihood to Recommend Bizzabo is really well suited for large-scale hybrid events. In this day and age, it's imperative to have a software that can successfully accommodate virtual and in-person attendees. Bizzabo blends these experiences extremely well. It is also great when event agendas are complex and need customizations - Bizzabo offers flexibility and has options for tracking session attendance. Bizzabo does not work well for smaller events with in-person only registrations. The risk of the equipment not working is high and, for smaller events, not worth the stress!
Read full review Well suited for organizations with large fundraising programs or many recurring donors, especially those who have the staffing to devote to reporting and fundraising data analysis. Variety of payment options is good for mobile-first or younger audiences who may be taking more frequent advantage of payment methods like Venmo and Apple Pay. Most useful if it is used in tandem as an event registration/event hosting platform (Classy Event Registration or Classy Live) as attendee data and fundraising is kept in a single place. Less appropriate for smaller organizations, or folks that will not be doing crowdfunding/peer-to-peer/events. There are other platforms that do standard donation pages well that have fewer bells and whistles but are accordingly cheaper.
Read full review Pros Bizzabo makes setting up registration for an event very simple. You can make it more complex if you require that, but if you only need to capture basics and payment, it is easy to set up. Making a custom event website is also very easy. There are a lot of widgets build in with content you might need, such as Speakers. While it takes a little bit of use to figure out how it works, once you know the basics, creating a multi page website with all your event info is super easy. Creating custom ticket types and promo codes is full of options and it’s easy to allow many different options for purchasing tickets. From expiring ticket types to tracking promo codes, you can allow people to buy tickets with unlimited options (early bird, sponsor discounts, etc.) Read full review The Classy platform is easy to use, both for the staff and our volunteer fundraisers It's easy to build a great looking fundraising page Classy support (particularly chat and phone) are attentive and responsive. Every one there is smart and nice! Read full review Cons Our attendees complained about having to login every time to view content You cannot be in the system working on the backend while a colleague is. We have found that the work doesn't save. The email system is hard to format within Bizzabo Staff would sometimes get kicked out of interact rooms. It would be nice to add virtual backgrounds in this space. Reports were missing data and it took two weeks to get corrected When recording a session, you have to go back and download it, and then upload it. This process should be easier. Read full review Campaigns lack customization options which can be limiting- while you can add code to make some changes, there is a basic framework that you can't always override. Slow to roll out some donor payment options like Venmo. Not inexpensive price point and on an annual contract, so the software is definitely an investment. Read full review Usability Bizzabo is extremely user friendly. The website builder is very simple to use and can creative some astounding looking websites, with no technical know how. The setup of the account, adding users, managing events and user access to events, as well as creating events from scratch or from existing "templates" (actually just standard events that we set a far off date from and copy as a template) is very simple, but powerful as you can pick and choose exactly what to copy over. It is also a very user friendly platform for the attendees and speakers (both for virtual events and physical events for speakers as the speaker, and partner, portal is very simple to use and can be custom created for the exact specifications you need).
Read full review VERY easy to use, but lacks flexibility. But very easy to learn and master, even for someone with technical skills. They offer live chat which is a great help for on-demand support. At higher call volumes, you may wait 10 minutes, but I’ve never waited for more than that and the support if 90% of the time very helpful.
Read full review Reliability and Availability It's always working as intended.
Read full review Performance It's glichy
Read full review Support Rating Support is always quick to respond. However, some issues are out of their hand, and in these cases, it is a laborious process to then submit a suggestion for how to improve the product. However, where they can rectify an issue, support has gone above and beyond to deliver and do so efficiently and in a friendly manner.
Read full review Classy's team was very helpful as we transitioned over, and helped us get everything set up quite easily. The few times we've had issues or questions, their online chat feature has been a quick way to get answers. On Giving Tuesday last year, the site went down, but Classy was quick with communication to its clients and had the problem resolved in about an hour. I know that if we have any problems or questions, the company and its team will be responsive and helpful. That makes a difference to me and our small team. We don't have time to troubleshoot or stay on hold for a long time waiting for support.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Bizzabo is definitely a great choice for your event tool. I don't find it as robust as Cvent, but I do find it more useful than an
Eventbrite . We selected Bizzabo because of our initial support team, but they eventually moved on, which started our problems with Bizzabo. It gives us more data than
Eventbrite , which we appreciate.
Read full review I have not used any other platforms like Classy. Given I came into this organization after Classy was already chosen, I was pleased with how easy it was to learn the platform and how user-friendly the entire thing is. Although I haven't used any other platforms like it, I would highly recommend it.
Read full review Scalability It's spreadsheet heavy and has to be exact. The devil is in the details and if you miss a detail you have to fix it and redo it with all the changes that need to be made manually.
Read full review Return on Investment Since we have only used Bizzabo for a year we are still learning and figuring out the nuances of it but I would say that one thing it has done is impressed our current clients which makes them want to continue to work with us. We hope to use Bizzabo as a tool to recruit more clients i the future It has cut a third party out of the system as we have our own dedicated platform to use and do not have to rely on a separate agency to use a different platform. Read full review This has been nothing but positive. We use the basic version so there is no fee associated with it other than a percentage of each transaction. So everything that comes in is added revenue where the only investment is staff time, but there is no monetary investment. Read full review ScreenShots