How many submissions does it take to get a conference slot? The maths from practice

In our submissions for clients, one acceptance takes submissions to around five conferences on average, which is just under 15 decided abstracts. An abstract is the short description of a planned talk that a programme committee reads, the group that decides on a conference's line-up. It is submitted in a call for papers, the public announcement through which a conference collects talk proposals. Using our two rates, around 7 per cent per abstract and up to 19 per cent per conference, this article works out how many submissions make an acceptance likely and how much work a year with four to six talks involves.

How high is the acceptance rate per abstract and per conference?

In our submissions for clients, acceptance per abstract is around 7 per cent and acceptance per conference up to 19 per cent. Stage Starter has submitted 2,189 abstracts for clients, of which 1,374 have been decided: 94 were accepted and 1,280 rejected. Dividing the 1,374 decided abstracts by the 94 accepted ones gives 14.6, just under 15 abstracts per acceptance.

The second rate measures the conference rather than the individual abstract. We often submit several abstracts to one conference, and a single accepted abstract is enough for a yes. Of 433 decided conferences, 83 said yes, which gives us up to 19 per cent acceptances per conference, while 5 per cent at most is typical in the market at this volume of submissions. Mathematically, just under one in five conferences we submit to says yes.

On the reference date, 815 of the 2,189 abstracts were still awaiting a decision, because many conferences reply only weeks or months after the call closes. The 7 per cent is based on the decided abstracts, and we count open cases only once a reply is in. How the figures are made up and how they compare with other values is covered in more detail in How high is the acceptance rate for a call for papers?

How many abstracts do I need to submit to make an acceptance likely?

After twenty decided abstracts, the chance of at least one acceptance is around 77 per cent, and after ten conferences around 88 per cent. The average of just under 15 abstracts per acceptance tells you how often it works on average and nothing about the order: the first acceptance can come with the second abstract or only with the fortieth. For planning, the useful question is how large the chance of at least one acceptance is after a given number of submissions. With n attempts at a rate p it is 1 − (1 − p)^n, which rises with every further attempt while the increase gets smaller.

If you work with 7 per cent and assume, for simplicity, that each abstract has its own chance independent of the rest, the probability of at least one acceptance is around 52 per cent after ten abstracts, around 77 per cent after twenty and around 89 per cent after thirty. At conference level, with 19 per cent, it is around 47 per cent after three conferences, around 65 per cent after five and around 88 per cent after ten. At the typical market rate of 5 per cent per conference, ten conferences would reach only around 40 per cent.

The conference calculation is the more reliable one, because several abstracts at the same conference go before the same committee and are not independent attempts. A topic that fits no programme fails with every committee, and the twentieth abstract does not change that either. The calculation describes probabilities, and the programme committee decides on every single submission.

What determines the rate: fit, sector and abstract

Fit between topic and audience has the greatest effect. The 7 per cent is an average across many topics and conferences, and individual submissions sit above or below it. A programme committee puts together a programme for a particular audience, and a talk whose topic does not concern that audience has little prospect even with a good abstract. That is why conference research comes before every submission, to establish where your topic is in demand.

In the technology and software world, many conferences advertise their speaking slots publicly, and there a submission operation works by volume. Association and industry conferences more often fill their programmes by invitation and personal approach, and there we write to the programme leads directly in your name, ten to fifteen a week once the conference list is in place.

The abstract also shapes the rate. The committee compares title and description with many other proposals for a few slots, and an abstract that states the benefit for the audience clearly does better in that comparison. How programme committees select and how a call runs from announcement to acceptance is described in the call for papers guide.

How much work a year of submissions involves

On paper, 60 to 90 decided abstracts are enough for four to six talks, but an operation aimed at acceptances works with considerably more. Many conferences reply late or not at all, and with each round the operation learns which abstracts land with which committees. A volume-based submission operation therefore reaches at least a hundred submissions to around twenty conferences in the first month and at least fifty a month after that. Sending alone takes one working day per fifteen to twenty submissions when the abstracts are finished and standardised. Anyone who tailors each submission to one conference manages four to six a day and gets a higher rate per submission in return.

Before that comes the work this calculation leaves out. The talk topic has to be shaped, the abstracts and bio have to be written and the conferences have to be found. Our database holds around 22,700 conferences, and on the reference date around 1,500 of them had a call for papers open. Only research establishes which ones suit your topic, and because deadlines shift and new calls appear, it has to be kept up to date continuously.

In our conference database, an average of 81 days lies between submission deadline and conference start, and the reply falls within that span. The submissions are therefore spread across the whole year, and following up with conferences that do not respond comes on top.

Stage Starter takes this work off your hands: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit it, then follow up and accompany you to the stage. You contribute your expertise and approve the talk and abstracts once before the start, and after that not every submission lands on your desk. How many working days a year of doing it yourself takes is worked out in Submit yourself or hire a speaker agency.

What does an acceptance cost: your own work, a bought slot or an agency?

Doing it yourself, an acceptance costs you working days, a bought slot quickly costs €10,000 or more, and with Stage Starter the whole operation starts from €990 net per month. With pay to speak, an organiser sells the speaking slot, usually as part of a sponsorship package, and that quickly costs €10,000 or more for a single speaking slot. No acceptance rate is involved, because the slot is bought, and sponsored sessions are often not marked as such in the programme. Paid slots are discussed in detail in Sponsored talks and pay to speak.

Collaboration with Stage Starter starts from €990 net per month, which over twelve months comes to €11,880 net for a whole year of submissions. For that, every step from research to follow-up is with us. If you would like a written plan first, you begin with the Speaker Audit from €2,000 net, which is credited when you book the agency.