A digital advent calendar costs the software, the prizes, some time and the promotion you put behind it. With Scratcher, calendars are part of the Professional plan at €699 per month excluding VAT, and you can build and test yours first in a free 14-day trial. Prizes are usually the biggest variable: a few hundred euros in small daily prizes and discount codes, or much more if you add a big grand prize.
When people look up an online Christmas calendar price, they often find either a software price with nothing else, or a quote from an agency with no breakdown. Neither tells you what you'll actually spend. This article goes through each cost, shows an example budget and explains what drives the price of a custom-built calendar.
The Four Costs of a Digital Advent Calendar
Every calendar, big or small, has the same four cost types:
- Software: the platform you build and run the calendar on.
- Prizes: what people can win behind the doors and in the final draw.
- Time: planning, design, writing door content and handling winners.
- Promotion: getting people to the calendar and bringing them back every day.
1. Software
On Scratcher, the Christmas calendar with 24 doors and the 4-door advent calendar are special formats. They are included in the Professional plan at €699 per month excluding VAT. The monthly price is the same whether you pay monthly or yearly. Special formats can also be added to another plan as an add-on, with the price on request.
Professional includes unlimited campaigns, 1.5 million sessions a year, unlimited leads, the email module, your own web address and custom CSS. Live chat and email support from real people and personal onboarding are part of every plan. You'll find the full list on our pricing page.
You can start with a free 14-day trial, no credit card needed, and build the whole calendar before you decide.
What's included that you would otherwise pay for separately:
- Hosting, on landing pages, as a pop-up or embedded on your own site
- Prize logic: instant wins, discount codes, daily draws and a grand prize draw
- Fair play settings, such as one entry per email address, reCAPTCHA and blocking of throwaway email addresses
- Consent checkboxes and sending sign-ups to your email tool or CRM
2. Prizes
Prizes are where budgets differ most. You decide how much to spend, and the choice is usually between two models, or a mix.
Many small daily prizes
A new chance to win every day is what brings people back. Daily prizes can be modest: a product, a gift card, free shipping. With instant win prizes, you set how many of each prize there are and the odds, so you know the maximum cost in advance.
One grand prize
A single big prize, drawn among everyone who took part, gives the calendar a headline. The cost is fixed no matter how many people enter, which makes it easy to budget.
Discount codes cost margin, not cash
Discount codes are the cheapest prize to hand out. You don't pay anything up front. You give up some margin on the orders where the code is used, and those are orders you might not have had otherwise. You upload your own unique codes, and the platform hands one out to each winner.
Most calendars combine all three: a discount code or small prize most days, a few bigger prizes along the way and one grand prize on 24 December.
3. Time
A calendar used to be a weeks-long project. With templates and Rex, the built-in AI assistant, it takes hours. Rex builds a design from your website with your logo, colors and fonts, writes the door texts and translates them, and writes your social posts.
Where the time goes:
- Choosing the prizes and getting them ready
- Writing or checking 24 doors of content, such as quiz questions or offers
- Writing your terms and consent texts, and having them reviewed
- Testing on mobile before launch
- Contacting winners during December
The prize logic and draws run by themselves, so December itself is light work.
4. Promotion
A calendar only works if people find it. Common channels, roughly from cheapest to most expensive:
- Your newsletter and SMS list: free to send, and a reminder on day 1 and a few times during December keeps people coming back.
- Your website: a pop-up or banner on your homepage costs nothing extra.
- Organic social media: posts on your own channels.
- In store: QR codes on posters or receipts.
- Paid ads: the only promotion cost that scales with your budget.
A calendar is a long campaign, so promotion is spread over 24 days rather than one launch.
Example Budget
Here is an example for a 24-door Christmas calendar. The software price is our real public price. The prize and ad amounts are an example we've chosen to show the maths. Your numbers will differ.
| Item | Example | Cost (excl. VAT) |
|---|---|---|
| Software | Scratcher Professional, one month | €699 (real price) |
| Daily prizes | 23 prizes worth €40 each (example) | €920 |
| Grand prize | One prize drawn on 24 December (example) | €1,000 |
| Discount codes | A code for everyone who doesn't win | No cash cost, margin only |
| Promotion | Newsletter, website pop-up, organic social | €0 |
| Paid ads | Social ads during December (example) | €1,000 |
| Total cash cost | €3,619 |
Plus your own time: with a template and Rex, plan for a day or two of work spread across planning, content and testing. If you already use the Professional plan for other campaigns, the software is already covered, since it includes unlimited campaigns.
Plan the doors, prizes and budget with the free Christmas calendar planner, and check how long the prize stock lasts with the prize simulator.
A Cheaper, Lighter Option: the 4-Door Advent Calendar
If 24 doors feel like too much, our advent calendar format has 4 doors, one for each Advent Sunday. The software is the same plan, but everything else shrinks:
- 4 prizes instead of 24
- 4 doors of content to write instead of 24
- 4 promotion pushes instead of daily reminders
It suits smaller teams, tighter prize budgets and brands that want a weekly rhythm instead of a daily one.
What a Custom-Built or Agency Calendar Involves
Some companies have an agency or developer build a calendar from scratch. That can make sense for a one-off concept nobody else has. The price depends on what's in the scope, so ask for each of these to be listed in the quote:
- Concept and design: custom illustrations and animations take the most time.
- Development: building the doors, games and sign-up flow, and making it work on every device.
- Prize logic: instant wins, odds, quantities, daily draws and unique discount codes.
- Fair play: stopping people from entering many times with different addresses.
- Data and consent: consent texts, storing data securely and sending sign-ups to your email tool.
- Hosting and traffic peaks: December traffic can spike when a newsletter goes out.
- Translations: each extra language adds work.
- Reuse: whether you can run it again next year, or pay again.
A platform covers most of these out of the box. An agency still has a role for concept, creative and media buying, and many agencies build on a platform rather than from code.
What You Get for the Money
A calendar brings people back day after day. In Toyota's Christmas calendar, participants opened 450,375 doors and played on an average of 18 of the 24 days. Running a calendar for your own staff instead? Read our guide to a digital advent calendar for employees. For planning tips, see our online Christmas calendar guide and our Christmas campaign ideas.
FAQ
Is there a cheaper plan for calendars?
Calendars are included in the Professional plan at €699 per month excluding VAT. They can also be added to another plan as an add-on, with the price on request.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes. The free 14-day trial needs no credit card, and you can build and test your calendar in it.
Are prizes included in the price?
No. You choose and pay for your own prizes. Discount codes don't cost cash up front, only margin when used.
Is a 4-door advent calendar cheaper?
The software plan is the same, but you need fewer prizes, less content and less promotion, so the total is usually lower.
Plan Your Calendar Budget Now
The best calendars are ready well before 1 December. Start a free 14-day trial and build yours, or book a meeting if you want to talk through prizes and budget with us first.
