What a simulation costs a corporate buyer, and what drives the price

Ask three providers to quote for the same brief — one day, forty people, a leadership theme — and the numbers can sit a factor of ten apart. Buyers reasonably conclude that the market is arbitrary and start negotiating on the only axis they can see, which is the day rate.

It is not arbitrary. Five things move the price, they move it in different directions, and most of them are decided by the brief rather than by the provider. Knowing which is which is the difference between negotiating and being negotiated with.

One: how the price is metered

The first question is not how much, it is per what. There are three common answers and they behave completely differently as your group grows.

Per participant. Common for digital and platform-based simulations, because the platform meters real usage. Scales linearly: doubling the group doubles the cost. Predictable, and expensive at large numbers.

Per session. Common for physical and facilitated formats. A fixed fee regardless of whether thirty or forty-five people are in the room. The cost per head falls as the group grows, which is why a provider quoting per session will have a maximum group size in the contract — that ceiling is where their cost structure breaks.

Per facilitator day. Usually a consultancy dressed as a simulation. Nothing wrong with it, but you are buying a person's time, so the economics of the room have no effect on what you pay.

A single brief priced three ways produces three very different numbers, and that alone explains a large share of the spread. Before comparing quotes, convert them all to cost per participant at your actual group size. Several will change places.

Two: group size, and the non-linear bit

Cost per head falls with group size right up to the point where the format breaks, and then it jumps.

Most facilitated simulations run comfortably to about thirty people with one facilitator. Between thirty and sixty you typically need a second, and above that the facilitator count rises roughly with every additional thirty participants — though large-format designs built for scale behave differently, because the cost of adding teams is materially lower than the cost of adding facilitators.

The practical consequence is that the worst number you can bring to a quote is one just past a threshold. Forty-two people will frequently cost the same as sixty, because both need the same second facilitator and the same room setup. If your group is near a boundary, ask where the boundaries are. Most providers will tell you, and the answer is often worth more than a discount.

Three: format, which sets the floor

Digital titles have close to zero marginal cost per session. The platform exists, the licence exists, and running it for the eleventh time this month costs the provider very little. That is why digital pricing is usually the lowest per head and why it scales cleanly.

Physical titles have real unit costs. Components, print, boxes, replacements for the pieces that go missing, and shipping — which is where buyers are most often surprised. Shipping a kit to Nairobi is not the same line item as shipping it to Lisbon, and for a one-off session it can be a visible fraction of the total. If a physical format is genuinely right for the brief, ask whether a facilitator travelling with the kit is cheaper than freight. Often it is.

Immersive and large-format sessions carry setup cost: the room, the build, the staging, and usually a day on site beforehand. That cost is largely fixed, which is exactly why these formats are priced for large groups. Running a five-hundred-person design for sixty people is possible and it is terrible value.

Four: the facilitator ratio, and who the facilitator is

Two variables hide here and buyers usually only see the first.

The ratio is arithmetic — how many facilitators for your group, as above.

Who those facilitators are is the larger effect. A certified facilitator delivering a licensed simulation to a proven design costs less than a senior consultant who will be in the room because their name is on the proposal. Both can be the right purchase. But if the value you are buying is the design and the debrief structure, you are paying a premium for seniority that the session may not need.

This is worth asking about directly: who will actually be in the room, and what is their role after the session ends? A provider whose answer is "a certified facilitator, and the reporting comes from the design" is not offering you less. They are offering you something more repeatable, which matters if you intend to run this again for the next three cohorts.

Five: customisation, the one you control

The steepest, most avoidable cost. Customisation runs on a spectrum and the price does not rise smoothly along it.

• Branding and language. Your logo, your terms, the session in the language of the room. Usually inexpensive and almost always worth it.
• Contextualising the debrief. The scenarios stay as designed; the debrief connects explicitly to your restructure, your merger, your quality problem. This is the highest-return customisation available and it is mostly facilitator preparation time.
• Rewriting the scenarios. Your industry, your products, your named business units inside the game. Expensive, because it means redesigning and re-testing a balanced system. It also frequently makes the session worse — participants defend their real-world positions instead of playing, and the distance that lets people see their own behaviour disappears.

Buyers ask for the third and need the second. If a provider talks you out of full scenario rewriting, that is usually competence rather than laziness.

What to ask for in a quote

Five lines, and any provider who cannot produce them quickly is quoting from feel rather than from structure:

1. The metering basis, and the cost per participant at the group size we actually have
2. The facilitator count, and what happens to the price at ten more and ten fewer people
3. Materials and shipping, itemised separately from delivery
4. What is included in preparation, and what is billed
5. What we receive after the session, and whether it is a certificate or a report

The fifth line is where quotes separate most sharply, and it is the one most often left out of the comparison.

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HDX licenses its catalogue to training providers, who set their own prices in their own markets — which is why there is no price list on this site. If you are buying a session, tell us what the room needs. If you are a provider, the commercial model is here.