Pop-up to custom build, with the whole show-services stack priced in
Floor space runs ~$30-$60/sq ft at regional shows and $100-$150+ at flagship nationals. Drayage bills by weight, typically $75-$130 per cwt — $500-$1,500 for a 10x10. I&D runs $75-$125 per installer-hour; pop-ups often skip it entirely.
| Booth type | Pricing basis | 10x10 (100 sq ft) | 20x20 (400 sq ft) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pop-up / portable kit | Flat kit price | $1,500 – $5,000 | 2-4 kits + counters, ~$5k-$15k |
| Modular rental | $55 – $150 per sq ft | $5,500 – $15,000 | $22,000 – $60,000 |
| Custom rental | $125 – $325+ per sq ft | $12,500 – $32,500 | $50,000 – $130,000 |
| Custom build (purchase) | $200 – $325+ per sq ft | often $300+ (small footprint) | $80,000 – $130,000+ |
| Floor space (per show) | $30 – $60 regional; $100 – $150+ flagship | $3,000 – $15,000 | $12,000 – $60,000 |
Bands are 2025-26 industry pricing from exhibit houses and general contractors (GES and peers publish budgeting guidance). Custom quotes move with materials, AV integration, and how hard your design fights physics — treat these as budgeting ranges, then get three quotes.
First-time exhibitors budget the booth and get ambushed by everything around it. The structure is real money, but so are the square footage you rent, the weight your crates ship, the union crew that bolts it together, the electricity and cleaning the venue charges, and the flights and rooms your staff burns. This calculator prices all six lines at once, in low/typical/high bands, so the number you take to finance is the number you'll actually spend.
Booth structure: pop-ups price as a flat kit; rentals and builds multiply rate per square foot × width × depth, banded $55-$150 modular, $125-$325 custom rental, $200-$325 custom build. The stack: space = rate × square feet; travel = staff × days × per-person-day; plus your shipping/drayage, labor, and services lines. Total = booth + stack, at each band. The result card also shows all-in cost per square foot and what share of the budget the booth itself represents.
Pick your booth type and footprint, then adjust the stack: swap in your show's actual space rate from the exhibit prospectus (it's published), your exhibit house's drayage estimate, and your real travel headcount. The low band assumes a regional show and a lean kit; the high band assumes flagship pricing with full services. Your show lives somewhere between.
10x10 modular rental, defaults: booth at $100/sq ft typical = $10,000 (band $5,500-$15,000). Floor space $60/sq ft = $6,000. Shipping and drayage $750, I&D labor $700, show services $500, travel 2 staff × 3 days × $400 = $2,400. All-in typical: $20,350, with the low/high bands running $11,600 to $31,200. Note the share line: the booth is 49% of the typical budget — half your money is everything else.
Flip the same footprint to a custom rental at $175/sq ft typical and the booth jumps to $17,500, all-in $27,850. Flip to the pop-up kit, zero out the I&D labor pop-ups don't need, and you're at $12,650 all-in — which is why the "rent or buy" question answers itself by show count: the $3,000 kit pays back in two shows against modular rental fees, but it stops fitting the moment you need a conference room and a demo wall.
The booth itself runs $1,500-$5,000 as a pop-up kit, $5,500-$15,000 as a modular rental ($55-$150 per square foot), and $12,500-$32,500+ as a custom rental ($125-$325 per square foot). But the all-in show bill also carries floor space (often $10,000-$15,000 at flagship shows), shipping and drayage, labor, utilities, and travel — a typical 10x10 participation budgets out around $20,000 all-in.
Modular booth rentals run $55-$150 per square foot and custom-flavored rentals run $125-$325+ per square foot. A 10x10 modular rental lands at $5,500-$15,000; a 20x20 runs $22,000-$60,000 modular or $50,000-$130,000 custom. Rental pricing usually includes setup drawings and sometimes graphics; confirm what's in the number before comparing quotes.
Custom builds run roughly $200-$325+ per square foot — smaller booths often exceed $300 per square foot because fixed design and engineering costs spread over less floor. That's $80,000-$130,000+ for a 20x20 island and well into six figures for a 40x40. Exhibit houses quote custom work individually; treat any per-square-foot figure as a budgeting band, not a price.
Drayage is material handling: the show contractor (GES, Freeman, or similar) moves your crated booth from the loading dock to your booth space and back out. It's billed by weight — typically $75-$130 per hundredweight (cwt) — plus special charges for things like carpet or suspended items. A 10x10 exhibit commonly runs $500-$1,500; ignoring drayage is the classic first-show budgeting mistake.
Rent when you exhibit fewer than three or four times a year, when your footprint changes show to show, or when you're testing a market — there's no storage, refurbishment, or disposal. Buy when the calendar is dense: a $3,000 pop-up pays for itself in two or three shows against rental fees, and a custom build amortizes over 3-5 years of reuse if branding stays stable.
Budget the booth structure plus five more lines: floor space, shipping and drayage, install-and-dismantle labor, show services (electricity, cleaning, AV, lead retrieval), and staff travel. The booth itself is often under half the total — plan the whole stack, and add a 10% contingency for show-site surprises like extra electrical drops or rush labor.