Four ways to put a trivia night in your venue, priced by what they really cost over a year and by who ends up doing the work. No table of features here, just the decision.
A hosted trivia company buys you a trained person and takes the work away, which is worth real money if nobody on your rota wants the microphone; Quizado costs a fraction of that and gives you the night, the branding and the data, but only if somebody in the building is willing to stand up and host it.
Rates vary a lot by market and by night of the week, and most companies quote rather than publish. Treat this table as a shape for the decision, not as a price list. Ask two local companies what they charge for your night before you decide anything.
| Option | Typical cost | Who does the work | What you control | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosted trivia company | Varies by market, and most companies quote instead of publishing a rate. Check their site for current pricing, and ask two local companies for a quote. | They do. Questions, host, kit, scoring and usually some promotion | The date, the room and the bar. Little else | A venue with no spare staff and a budget for entertainment |
| Freelance quizmaster | A fee per night, set by the host and the market, plus whatever software they use. Ask two local hosts for a quote | They host and usually bring the questions; you book and pay them | The format and the branding, if you agree it up front | A venue that wants a personality without a franchise contract |
| Software, staff hosts | The software plan, plus the shift hours of somebody already on the rota | Your bartender or supervisor hosts; the app does the scoring | Everything: questions, branding, timing, prizes, team data | A venue with one confident member of staff |
| Software, you host | The software plan only. Quizado starts free and the paid plans are on the pricing page | You do, from a laptop, tablet or phone behind the bar | Everything, including the two hours of your own evening | An owner-operator testing whether the night works at all |
A hosted night is a recurring cost with no quiet setting. Fifty-two weeks of the same fee is a serious line in a venue budget, and it does not shrink in January.
Software is a flat monthly plan that costs the same in a slow month. Quizado starts free, so a test run costs nothing at all.
When the quiz carries somebody else name, teams follow the quiz. If the company moves the night to the bar down the road, some of your regulars go with it.
Run it yourself and the night is your product. Your logo on the screen, your league table, your team list in your account.
Companies allocate hosts across many venues, so you get the night they can staff. Moving to a different evening, or adding a second one, means waiting for their rota.
Software runs whenever you open it. Add a Sunday, move to Thursday, run two in a week, without asking anyone.
This is the real reason venues hire companies, and it is a good one. Software cannot read a room, land a joke or calm a table that is arguing about a scoring decision.
Be honest about it. If nobody will host, hire. If somebody is willing, the app removes the admin and leaves them only the talking.
A booked host who calls in sick leaves a venue with a full diary, an advertised night and no quiz. The replacement, if there is one, does not know your room.
When the night lives in your own account, anyone you have trained can pick up the same game and run it from behind the bar.
Team names, attendance and results sit on the company platform. When the agreement ends, the history of your own night ends with it.
Leagues and seasons keep the record in your account across weeks. They start on Trivia Pro, and Hospitality Group covers up to three venues.
Van de grond af aan gebouwd voor moderne bar trivia en live evenementen.
The person at the front presses one control at a time. Scoring, timing and the leaderboard are handled, so a bartender with no stage experience can get through a night.
Guests scan the code on the TV and play in the phone browser. Nothing to install, nothing to hand out, nothing to collect at the end.
In a Buzzer Race round the host console locks the first buzz it receives and puts that team on the display. The screen answers the question, which is the single best tool a new host can have.
Free and premium question packs on every plan. From Trivia Pro you can write your own question sets, and monthly AI credits turn a topic into a Bar Trivia round when you want something local.
A season table gives teams a reason to come back next week, which is most of what a hosted company is really selling you. Leagues and seasons start on Trivia Pro.
Trivia Pro puts your own logo on the display and the player screens, so the night is advertised as yours and not as a franchise. Custom fonts, colors and white-label are on Hospitality Group.
It is not questions. Questions are cheap and always have been. What a company sells is a trained person who turns up on time, works the room, keeps the pace up and settles disputes without involving your manager. The larger companies pair that host with their own digital answering system and a network of venues, and they quote a venue rather than publishing a rate.
The second thing they sell is a crowd that already exists. An established quiz brand has teams who follow it, a listings page that people search, and marketing that does not come out of your budget. For a venue starting from nothing on a dead Tuesday, that is worth paying for, and it is the strongest argument for hiring rather than buying software.
The trade is control. The night runs to their format, carries their name, and the team data lives on their platform. Some agreements also restrict how close another quiz can be to yours. None of that is unreasonable, but it should be priced in. Ask what happens to the teams if you end the agreement, and ask it before you sign rather than a year later.
Do this on paper before you talk to anybody. Take the weekly fee you have been quoted and multiply by the number of weeks you will actually run. Most companies and freelance hosts do not publish a rate, so check their site for current pricing and then ask for a quote for your night. Your local rate is the only one that matters, which is exactly why you should get two.
Now do the software column. A flat monthly plan, times twelve, plus the cost of the staff hours if you are paying somebody extra to host. If the host is already on shift, that column is just the subscription. Quizado starts free and its paid plans are on the pricing page; we do not quote prices in prose because they change.
The gap between the two columns is what you are paying for a person and a brand. Set it against covers. If a hosted night brings twenty extra people who each spend the price of two drinks and a starter, the fee looks cheap. If it brings eight, it does not. That is a question about your room, not about trivia, and nobody selling either option can answer it for you.
There is a third option that neither side advertises: keep the software in-house and pay a person only for the hosting. You book a freelance quizmaster for the evening, they run your game on your account, and the teams, the branding and the league table stay with the venue. If that host leaves, the night does not.
It also lowers the bar for the person you hire. When the app handles scoring, timing and the leaderboard, you are hiring somebody to talk to a room rather than to run a production. That widens the pool from professional quizmasters to any confident bartender, local comedian or regular who has been asking for a go at it.
A sensible sequence is to run four weeks yourself on the free plan, see whether anyone turns up, then decide. If the room fills and your staff enjoy it, keep it in-house. If it fills and hosting is a burden, hire a host for the same night. If nobody comes, you have spent nothing and you can call a hosted company knowing exactly what you need from them.
There are venues where paying for a host is clearly the right call.
These are the four reasons venues bring the night in-house.
Ring two local trivia companies and ask for their rate for your night, their notice period and what happens to the teams if you stop. You need those numbers to make any decision.
Use the free plan, keep the same night and time, and put a QR code on the table tents. Four weeks tells you whether the room wants a quiz at all.
If the crowd came and hosting was the strain, hire a freelance host on your own account. If the crowd never came, spend the money on the company that brings one.
Freelance hosts read this page too, usually to work out what to charge. The useful part for you is the software column: if you bring your own tool, you keep the questions, the format and the team history, and a venue is buying you rather than a platform.
Quizado works that way. Run your own account across the bars you cover, keep a league table per venue, and build a themed round in minutes. The free plan is enough to audition for a room with the free question packs. Your own question sets, monthly AI credits and leagues start on Trivia Pro, and Hospitality Group covers up to three venues.
Quizado cannot host. It will not read a room, will not hold a microphone, will not bring an existing crowd through the door and will not promote your night for you. It also needs an internet connection at the host position and on player phones, and it does not print answer sheets. A hosted trivia company solves all of that by sending a professional, and for some venues that is worth every penny of the fee.
New to running a night in-house? Start with the bar trivia software overview, then look at the trivia host app if you would rather run everything from a phone or laptop behind the bar.
Start free with the built-in packs, put the QR code on the TV and see how the room reacts. Writing your own question sets starts on Trivia Pro.
Shopping around? Here is how Quizado lines up against the rest of the market.
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