What an Entry Actually Costs

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Deciding which programmes to enter matters more than how well you write the entries, and the decision requires a figure that almost nobody calculates.

The five costs

One. The fee, where there is one. Visible, and frequently the smallest item. For a practical reference outside the awards context, see how Microsoft Teams tracks activity.

Two. The hours. A serious entry is days rather than hours once evidence is gathered, references chased and the thing edited — and the hours belong to whoever is already busiest, which is usually the person who could otherwise be earning. For independent background reading, see Psychology Today, included here as background rather than as an endorsement.

Three. Other people's time. The accountant who supplies figures, the customer who writes a reference, the colleague who reads a draft. Real, and spent on your behalf.

Four. Attendance. Many programmes hold a ceremony, tickets are not free, and travel and a night away compound it. A shortlisted entrant who does not attend has paid for a line on a website.

Five. What else those days would have done. The opportunity, which is the largest term and the one omitted from every comparison.

The arithmetic

Add the five. Divide by what winning would be worth.

Which requires answering what winning is worth, and the honest answer for many programmes is: a logo, a line in a proposal, and a conversation opener.

For some it is more — a grant with money attached, a programme whose winners are genuinely sought out, an award that a specific customer respects. Those exist and are worth identifying specifically rather than assuming.

Where the value is vague, the entry is a marketing purchase, and it should be compared against other marketing purchases rather than against nothing.

The decision this changes

Entering fewer programmes properly.

Three entries written in a rush score worse than one written well, and cost more in total.

Which is the practical conclusion of the whole site: the failures are administrative and evidential, both of which are functions of time, and time spread across three entries produces three thin ones.

Pick one or two. Enter them properly. Keep the evidence base, which makes next year's entries considerably cheaper.

The cost that recurs

Winning is not the end of the spending.

Logo licences, plaques, additional tickets, the photographs, and in some programmes an expectation of participation in the following year.

Ask what winning costs before entering, which is a fair question and which several programmes answer clearly.

Where the answer is substantial, it belongs in the arithmetic above — and where it is the whole business model, that is a different matter.

Where the cost is genuinely low

Programmes with no fee, short forms and no ceremony.

They exist, particularly those run by trade bodies and public organisations, and they are frequently overlooked because they are less visible than the ones with marketing budgets.

A short form is not a lesser award. It is a programme that decided the entry burden should be small, and the ratio of value to cost is occasionally the best available.

Entry writers

A trade exists, and it is legitimate work.

Consultancies write entries for a fee, and they are frequently good at it — they know the criteria, they have written hundreds, and they extract evidence a business would not have thought to supply.

Two things to weigh.

The cost is substantial and belongs in the arithmetic above rather than beside it.

And they cannot supply what you do not have. An entry writer with no figures to work from writes a better-phrased version of the same weak entry — the evidence base is yours or it does not exist.

This site does not recommend anybody, and notes that much of the published material on awards comes from this trade, which is an interest worth knowing when reading it.

The second year is cheaper

Substantially, and it changes the calculation.

The evidence folder exists, the answers can be updated rather than written, and the administrative list is known.

Which means a programme entered twice costs much less than twice one entry — and argues for choosing programmes you would enter repeatedly rather than scattering across whatever appears.

Where you lose the first year, the second entry is both cheaper and better, which is the argument for entering again.

Counting the hours honestly

Log them for one entry.

Reading criteria, gathering evidence, drafting, chasing references, editing, submitting — noted roughly, as they happen.

Most people are surprised, and the figure is the input to every subsequent decision about which programmes to enter.

Do it once. The same reasoning as any unmeasured cost: a number changes behaviour where an impression does not.

Where the cost is worth it regardless of winning

Two cases, and they are the honest defence of entering.

The evidence base. Writing an entry forces a business to assemble figures, outcomes and testimonials it did not have in one place — and that folder is useful for proposals, for pricing and for the next entry, whatever the result.

And the review itself. Answering "what changed because of this work, and how do you know" is a question most organisations never ask themselves.

Neither justifies entering a programme you cannot win. Both mean the days are not wasted when you do not.

The programmes worth the cost

Identified by what they lead to rather than by prestige.

A grant with money attached — the value is the money and the arithmetic is straightforward.

A programme whose winners are approached afterwards, which is checkable by asking one past winner what actually happened.

And one a specific customer or funder respects, which you can establish by asking them rather than guessing.

Everything else is visibility, which has a value and is worth costing as marketing rather than as achievement.

The short version

• Five costs: the fee, your hours, other people's time, attendance, and what those days would otherwise have done
• The fee is usually the smallest and the opportunity cost is the largest and least counted
• Divide the total by what winning is actually worth, which for many programmes is a logo and a conversation opener
• Where the value is vague, the entry is a marketing purchase and should be compared against other marketing purchases
• Three rushed entries score worse than one done properly and cost more in total
• Ask what winning costs before entering, since logo licences, plaques and tickets recur after the decision