How to monetize virtual events: 21 proven strategies (2026)

How to monetize virtual events: 21 proven ways

Virtual events can generate revenue in dozens of different ways.

But ticket sales are just the beginning.

The biggest profits come from combining multiple income streams. Some methods generate cash before your event even starts. Other strategies continue paying you months or years after your event ends.

Here are 21 proven ways to monetize your virtual events.

1. All-access pass / premium pass 🎟️

Let’s start with the most obvious way to profit from your virtual summit: selling all-access passes.

This is the product that forms naturally while you create your summit. It’s simply a package of all the summit interviews in one place, along with a few bonuses to sweeten the deal.

Attendees watch for free while each session is live. The pass is for everyone who wants to keep the recordings, watch at their own pace and get the extras.

This can bring in a lot of revenue, as my students and I have seen. Here’s the update I posted about my List Building School summit in September 2016: $104,811 in sales before the event even kicked off!

And the sales kept coming in once the summit started:

The same thing happened with my first summit, The Branding Summit. The first $97 pass sale came in on November 2, 2014, before I had even officially started promoting it.

One of my students, Jen Taylor, generated $100,027 with her Play Therapy Summit, from all-access passes alone.

2. Bundle offer 📦

A bundle packs products from several experts into 1 offer at a big discount. Your speakers each add a course, template or tool, and your attendees get it all for a fraction of the value.

People get far more for their money than with a pass alone, and every expert in the bundle has a reason to share it.

For my AI for Creators Summit, I offered the AI Super Bundle for Creators: $147, valued at $997.

The summit generated 6 figures in sales from the bundle and the upsells that came after it. Here’s what my phone looked like during the launch, in Stripe and PayPal:

Most of those orders are $97 or $144. The $144 ones are people who added the bump offer from the next section.

Brian Berni used the same idea for his Fiction Marketing Academy, with a super bundle for authors:

Examples of irresistible bundle offers:

• Courses from your speakers: each expert adds a course or workshop on the summit topic
• Tools and templates: prompts, swipe files, checklists and templates people can use right away
• Software deals: discounts or extended trials on tools your audience needs

3. Bump offers ➕

A bump offer is a small add-on right on the order form. People tick a box to add it before they pay, so it takes 1 click and no extra page.

Keep it cheap, closely related to what they’re buying, and easy to say yes to.

Examples of high-converting bump offers:

• AI Content Amplifier: $47, 90% off, on the order form for my AI Super Bundle
• Teacher Summits: Jared Romey’s Neurodiverse Action Guide for $18
• Fiction Marketing Academy: Brian Berni’s Amazon Ads Fast Track for $37
• Foundr Summit: a sourcing toolkit for $27 instead of $197
• Tennis Summit: Mehrban Iranshad’s Forehand Power Challenge for $27, normally $97

4. One-click upsells 🔄

A one-click upsell comes right after checkout. The buyer has already entered their payment details, so saying yes takes 1 click.

The best upsells help people get results faster with what they just bought.

For the AI for Creators Summit, I had 2 of them. Upsell #1 was the AI Profit Booster Bundle, $97 instead of $997:

Upsell #2 was Funnel Wizard Creator Edition, also $97:

Examples of upsells:

• A bigger bundle: more trainings on the same topic, like the AI Profit Booster Bundle
• A done-for-you tool: templates or software that save hours of work, like Funnel Wizard
• A trial of your membership: Foundr offers a 14-day trial for $1 that unlocks its summit recordings (more on this in #9)

5. Digital products 💻

If you already have products that fit your audience, a few weeks after your summit wraps up is the perfect time to promote them.

This is what I typically do after my summits. I pick summit topics that line up with the program I want to offer on the backend.

During the AI Creator Summit 2026, I launched AI Creator OS, a new live AI workshop every month, with a super early bird price.

After the summit finishes, I recommend spending a few weeks educating and building trust with your new audience before opening the doors or doing a hard sales push.

Another good example is Chandler Bolt of Self-Publishing School. The Self-Publishing Success Summit we did together brought in 25,000+ opt-ins, highly targeted leads for his products, from a starter kit to high-end coaching.

Another option if you don’t have a signature product yet is to pre-sell a pilot product.

This means you sell the idea to your audience first, to validate that it’s something they actually want and would pay for.

Once you have a few paying customers, you know it’s worth your time, and you can create the actual product with your first customers.

This is actually how Virtual Summit Mastery began. After my first summit, a lot of attendees reached out to say they were impressed with the event and would love to learn how to do it themselves.

So I did a small launch of a pilot program and came up with the first version of Virtual Summit Mastery. Later, I promoted it to my List Building School audience:

It went on to bring in $882,739 in gross sales from 1,483 customers in ThriveCart.

6. Event tickets 🎫

Another way to profit is to sell tickets. That can be a paid ticket to your virtual event, or a ticket to a live, in-person event you promote to your summit audience.

Mindvalley sells tickets to its Manifesting Summit, live from Miami:

Most successful summits use free registration and make their money on the pass, bundles and backend offers instead. Before you charge for tickets, weigh it up.

Selling paid tickets:

• Revenue before your event even starts
• More committed attendees who actually show up

• Fewer sign-ups, so a smaller email list
• Speakers and partners are less likely to share a paid event

For most summits, free registration plus a great pass brings in more.

7. Sponsorships 🤝

Another great way to bring in revenue is sponsorships from established brands in your industry.

It’s a win for them too: they get in front of 1,000s of engaged attendees.

Sponsors can get:

• Their logo on your summit pages and emails
• A sponsored session, or a mention in your sessions
• A booth in a virtual exhibitor hall
• A spot in your bonus bundle or on your thank-you page

For my AI for Creators Summit, sponsorships brought in $20,000+.

My student Blair Green set up an interactive exhibitor hall for her Elevate Pharmacy Summit to highlight her sponsors, since they were a core part of her summit business model. Here’s what it looked like:

Eric Yang confirmed a $50K platinum sponsor for his Crypto Summit before it started. That put him ahead from day 1, with a budget to test ads for 45 days before the summit.

Arik Levy landed his first official sponsor for the Shooters Summit: Lucas Oil Outdoor Line became the presenting sponsor.

And Jan Koch secured 2 paid sponsors for his WP Agency Summit before it started. They covered the cost of Virtual Summit Mastery plus his software and tools, and he had 3 sponsor places left, with HubSpot in talks for one of them.

8. Affiliate marketing 💰

Affiliate marketing works 2 ways with virtual events.

First, you can promote products from your speakers and partners to your summit audience, and earn a commission on every sale.

This is how I got started. I promoted Ramit Sethi’s programs as an affiliate, and made over $81,000 in commissions just from the payments shown here:

I also won his Zero to Launch sales contest and a $7,500 bonus prize:

After I became his #1 affiliate, Ramit invited me to lunch in LA with Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas:

I’ve been a top affiliate for Ryan Levesque too, and appeared on his launch leaderboards:

My students do this too. Marie Grace Berg made more commission from promoting an affiliate backend at the end of her summit than from her summit sales. And she didn’t have a signature product yet.

Devin Slavin shared his win after an affiliate contest too:

Second, you can recruit affiliates to promote your summit and your offers. During the AI Creator Summit 2026, my partners could earn 30 to 50% on every AI Creator OS customer they referred.

The money is just the beginning. When you perform well as an affiliate, influencers notice. More on that in how to build relationships with influencers. And to find the right partners, check out how to identify influencers.

9. Membership & subscriptions 🔒

Once again, you can use the content you already created for your summit in lots of different ways. Another clever strategy is to use it as the base for a membership site, so you earn recurring income.

This is perfect because you’ve already got 20+ videos (plus PDF action guides!) to offer new members from day 1, and you can slowly add to it.

It’s even possible to make virtual summits your core business model and include every summit in 1 members area. If you host summits often, this is a great way to keep retention rates high.

Foundr offers a 14-day Foundr+ trial for $1 right after people register for its summit. It unlocks the summit recordings, a Q&A and more:

The Professional Artist Summit sells its pass together with a membership in the Professional Artist Association: the first 3 months for $49 instead of $117, then a monthly, quarterly or yearly plan.

Its host, my student Miguel Mayher, launched his first summit with no list, and got 24,300 sign-ups, 6 figures in sales and high 5 figures in profit:

Brian Appleton, the host of the Insurance Agent Summit, built a recurring product on top of his summit too. His results: 3,500 sign-ups, 465 sales, $70K in revenue, $20K in sponsorships ($11K cash and $9K in trade), and $2K a month in recurring revenue.

10. Live learning 🎓

Recorded sessions are great. But a lot of people will pay more to learn live, with you and with each other.

After your summit, you can offer live workshops, a bootcamp or a cohort-based course on the topic your audience cared about most.

• You can charge more than for recorded content
• Real-time feedback helps people get results
• People go through it together, so more of them finish

AI Creator OS is exactly that: a new live AI workshop every month. And back in June 2016, my course Connect With Your Heroes was built around 4 live masterclasses.

Even during a free summit, live gives people a reason to show up. At the AI Creator Summit 2026, I hosted a live Q&A every day.

11. Coaching / consulting 🧠

A summit positions you as the go-to expert on your topic. Some attendees will want your help, 1-on-1.

You can offer coaching, consulting or a done-with-you package to your most engaged attendees and customers. You only need a few clients for it to pay off.

Today I work with companies and founders as an AI consultant, helping them build the AI operating system that knows their business, connects their tools and runs the work.

12. High-ticket program 💎

Not everyone will buy a high-ticket program. But you don’t need many buyers. For example, 10 clients at $5,000 bring in as much as 500 passes at $100.

A high-ticket program gives people more access to you and more support: a mastermind, done-with-you implementation, a certification or an in-person event.

Think of your summit as the start of a value ladder: a free ticket, then the pass, then a bundle or course, and at the top, your high-ticket program. That’s how Chandler Bolt’s summit leads moved from a starter kit all the way to high-end coaching.

The best buyers for it are people who already bought something smaller. So follow up with your pass buyers first.

13. Mastermind 👥

A mastermind brings a small group of people together to share ideas, hold each other accountable and grow together. Members pay to be in the room with you, and with each other.

Your summit is a great place to find them: your most engaged attendees, your pass buyers and even your speakers.

I’ve hosted masterminds and dinners in Cancun, Barcelona, Las Vegas, Austin, New York and other places around the world.

14. Content repurposing ♻️

Your summit sessions are content you can use again and again.

1 session can become podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, emails, social posts and even a book.

For my AI for Creators Summit, I published each session on YouTube as it went live, and kept them public. It grew a brand-new YouTube channel to over 2,000 subscribers in 1 week. After the AI Creator Summit 2026, the sessions went free on YouTube too.

Doesn’t giving it away kill your sales? Not in my experience. The AI for Creators Summit still made 6 figures from the bundle and upsells.

AI tools make repurposing fast now. Descript turns your recordings into clips, and Claude can draft a blog post, emails and social posts from a transcript.

You can also turn your summit into an evergreen event that keeps bringing in leads and sales long after it ends.

15. Software (SaaS) ⚙️

An interesting (and very smart) trend is software companies hosting summits to showcase the people who use their product, and get a ton of exposure at the same time.

Circle hosted the Creator Path Summit:

Teachable, the online course platform, hosted the Women Who Create Summit, on how to launch a profitable online course and business.

Rather than selling an all-access pass, the main aim was to introduce people to Teachable. The recordings were part of the bonus package for everyone who started a new Teachable plan during the summit.

No software of your own? You can still earn from it: partner with the tools your audience needs, as an affiliate or a sponsor.

16. Speaking 🎤

A virtual summit quickly positions you as a leader in your industry.

Once you’ve hosted a successful summit, you’ll be surprised how many people approach YOU with opportunities, because now they know who you are.

After my student Shadé Adu hosted her Build It. Brand It. Bank It. summit, she was seen as an authority in her industry, and people asked her to speak at their live events.

She tripled her email list, got 2 paid speaking gigs and turned her summit into a 5-city speaking tour and brunch. The ripple effect helped her have a multiple 5-figure launch.

It worked for me too. I’ve spoken at events for Ramit Sethi, Selena Soo, Ryan Levesque and many others, in cities like San Diego, Austin, Las Vegas, New York, London, Barcelona and Medellin.

17. Physical products 📚

One of the best things about a summit is that you end up with a ton of content from the experts in your field, which you can use in any way you like.

A neat way to use it is to turn the interviews into a book. Transcribe them, do a bit of editing, present it nicely and it’s ready to go!

That’s what my student Charlyn Keating did after The Appreneur Summit. She turned what her speakers shared into a book, so her audience could learn in an easy, digestible format.

A book can keep earning long after your summit is over.

I’m writing one too: my upcoming book Virtual Summit OS teaches the method behind every summit I’ve hosted since 2014.

18. Services (agency / done-for-you) 🛠️

Once you’ve hosted a successful summit, other businesses will want one too. And many of them would rather pay someone to do it for them.

You can offer summits as a done-for-you service: finding the speakers, building the pages, handling the promotion and delivering the event.

I partnered with Chandler Bolt on the Self-Publishing Success Summit. On September 15, 2015, after the summit, his company paid me $16,580.38:

My student Kristoffer Broholm hosts summits for clients too, and he learned a lesson you’ll want to copy.

19. Royalties 💸

When you host a summit for a client, don’t stop at a flat fee. Negotiate a percentage of the sales too.

That’s what Kristoffer shared after he wrapped a summit for a client. They expected 1,000 to 2,000 attendees, and ended with over 12,000:

With a royalty, you share in the upside when you overdeliver.

The same goes for other deals. When a partner licenses your summit recordings, or a publisher sells a book made from them, a royalty pays you for every sale.

20. Certification programs 🏆

If your summit teaches a skill people use at work, a certification can be a premium next step. People pay to prove they can do it, to clients or employers.

A good certification is earned, not just attended: graduates show real work, and you review it.

That’s how my Certified AI OS Consultant program works. It’s an AI OS Lab cohort: 8 weeks, 1 live class a week, and you earn it with a graded build and a live review with me.

21. Tips & donations 💵

Tips are the simplest way to make money from a free event. Some attendees will want to say thank you, even if they don’t buy anything.

Pet Summits adds a “buy the team a coffee” link to its thank-you page:

And 28 supporters have bought the team a coffee on its tip page:

It won’t replace pass sales, but it’s easy to add and costs you nothing.

Final thoughts on monetizing online events

Virtual events can transform how you monetize your expertise and grow your online business in 2026.

But only if you think beyond the all-access pass and ticket sales.

The 21 strategies in this guide range from premium passes and sponsorships to digital products, coaching and certifications that create ongoing revenue.

Here’s how to get started with monetizing virtual events:

The real money comes from consistent execution, not just knowing these strategies.

Your first online event doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to start generating revenue while you learn what resonates with your audience.

If you haven’t planned your event yet, start with my step-by-step guide on how to host a virtual summit. And my upcoming book Virtual Summit OS teaches the full method behind my summits, rebuilt so AI does most of the work.

Got questions, or want to share how you plan to monetize your event? DM me on X or Instagram. I’d love to hear from you.