Teams shopping event lead capture are often replacing the organizer's rental scanner or a tool that only works at one vendor's shows. Many prices sit behind a sales call. These are the nine tools worth a look, ranked, with links to the full comparisons.
Disclosure: I'm one of the people building Tendro. The criteria are below, so you can re-rank for your own calendar. For the category basics, start with the event lead capture guide.
What are the best event lead capture alternatives in 2026?
Pick by calendar: Tendro is $499 per event for the whole team with no contract, BoothIQ bills by the month, and Captello suits booth games.
The ranking uses four criteria: a public price, buying one event at a time, the whole booth team under one price, and native sync to both HubSpot and Salesforce. Tendro meets all four.
| Rank | Tool | Best for | Price | Commitment | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tendro | Multi-show calendars, rotating booth staff | $499 per event, unlimited team members (public) | None. Pay per show | From the team behind Socio, the event platform Cisco acquired as Webex Events |
| 2 | BoothIQ | A monthly on/off switch | $999 per month Team (public) | Month to month | CRM sync only on quote-priced Enterprise |
| 3 | Captello | Booth games and meeting management | One-event lead capture license from $500 (its comparison pages); broader platform by quote | Quote | Some services use $1 purchase credits; HubSpot connector $3,000 a year |
| 4 | Vendelux | HubSpot teams that want free | Free scanner | None | Salesforce sync "coming soon" |
| 5 | Blinq | Teams already rolling out Blinq cards | $9.99 per full-credit lead, plus seats at $6.99 a month or $4.99 a month billed annually, 5-card minimum (public) | Monthly or annual seats | Lead charges grow with your best show |
| 6 | iCapture (Cvent) | 15+ enterprise shows inside Cvent | From about $8,000 a year (reported) | Annual | Tied to Cvent's roadmap |
| 7 | Mobly | Year-round programs on an annual agreement | Not published | Mostly annual, renews automatically | Pulse follow-up is a paid add-on |
| 8 | Popl | Teams that hand out NFC tap cards | Quote-only | Quote | No published team price |
| 9 | Cvent LeadCapture | Calendars that are almost all Cvent shows | $249 per license (2026 order form) | Per show | Works only at Cvent-managed shows |
Linq is covered separately below, since it now sells messaging APIs.
How does Tendro compare to the other tools?
Tendro is $499 per event for the whole team, no contract, HubSpot and Salesforce sync included, at most shows with no organizer integration.
Tendro comes from the team behind Socio, the event platform Cisco acquired and renamed Webex Events.
On most major trade shows the badge code is an opaque registration ID, like a license plate that only the organizer's contracted system can resolve. Tendro reads the printed badge face, business cards and notes with OCR, then enriches each lead, so there is no organizer API to license. Open QR codes parse directly. It works offline and syncs on reconnect. On a live connection each lead reaches HubSpot or Salesforce in under 10 seconds, with the rep's answers to your qualifying questions and their voice note on one record. Marketo, Pardot, Pipedrive or Zoho connect on request, and any other CRM with a public API gets a connector built on request.
Follow-up starts at the booth. The rep previews a short recap email with their digital card and sends it now, in ten minutes, or never. Recaps go to printed or verified addresses.
The price is on the pricing page: $499 per event with unlimited team members, bought at self-serve checkout with no sales call. Calendars of 10 or more shows get volume pricing on a short call, and the free desk trial needs no card.
Pick Tendro if your calendar mixes organizers, your booth staff rotates, or you want a price you can paste into a budget line today.
Is BoothIQ a good event lead capture option?
BoothIQ Team is $999 a month and can be paused up to three months or canceled. HubSpot and Salesforce sync needs an Enterprise quote.
Team covers unlimited seats and events, and a free Individual tier covers solo use (https://getboothiq.com/pricing). BoothIQ's FAQ says "Individual and Team plans use CSV export, which works with any CRM." It built its first proof of concept in June 2025. One show in a month costs $999 on Team against $499 on Tendro; two cost $999 against $998. Full read at BoothIQ alternatives.
Pick BoothIQ if several shows share each paid month and CRM sync can wait for an Enterprise quote.
Should you consider Captello for event lead capture?
Captello suits booths built around games and meetings. Its one-event lead capture license starts at $500; broader platform pricing is by quote.
Captello bundles lead capture with booth gamification, meeting management and analytics. Its comparison pages say "Captello publishes a one-event Premium Lead Capture license from $500." There is no pricing page. Certain services use purchase credits ("One Purchase Credit is equal to $1USD"), including enrichment lookups when no event-based enrichment license applies, and its HubSpot Marketplace listing prices the HubSpot Connector at $3,000 a year (https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/apps/captello-lead-capture-1227360). Test the capture flow with the staff who will actually work your booth.
Pick Captello if the booth is an activation stage and you want games and capture on one contract.
Is Vendelux's free scanner a real option?
For HubSpot teams. The scanner is free with HubSpot sync, but its Salesforce connection is still "coming soon".
Vendelux's main business is an event intelligence platform. Its lead scanner is new (the iOS app first shipped on September 8, 2026), and the scanner page says "The scanner is completely free and always will be" (https://vendelux.com/lead-scanner). The store listing reads "HubSpot live, Salesforce coming soon" (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vendelux-lead-scanner/id6798884802).
Pick Vendelux if you're on HubSpot and free outweighs everything else.
Head-to-head: Tendro vs Vendelux.
Is Blinq a good event lead capture option?
Blinq fits teams already on Blinq cards. Pay-as-you-go, five monthly seats plus 47 full-credit leads cost more than Tendro's $499.
Blinq sells digital business cards and adds event lead capture on top. At its published pay-as-you-go prices (https://blinq.me/pricing), each lead costs $9.99 as one full credit, or 0.75 of a credit when Blinq adds no email or phone. Card seats run $6.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed annually, with a 5-card minimum. Five monthly seats and 47 full-credit leads at one show come to $504.48, past Tendro's $499 for the whole team, and each further lead adds $9.99. Duplicates, trial usage and negotiated packages change the comparison.
Pick Blinq if your company already runs on Blinq cards and your booths see a few dozen leads a show.
Head-to-head: Tendro vs Blinq.
What happened to iCapture after Cvent acquired it?
iCapture is now Cvent iCapture. icapture.com redirects to cvent.com, and its HubSpot listing shows Essentials at $8,000 a year.
iCapture has deep badge-provider coverage, 130+ providers pulling registration data where the organizer allows it, and its roadmap now runs through Cvent. Before Tendro's volume pricing, the reported $8,000 equals about sixteen $499 events, and calendars of ten or more shows get a lower per-event rate. Full read at iCapture alternatives.
Pick iCapture if you run 15+ shows, live inside Cvent, and your procurement expects a sales cycle anyway.
Head-to-head: Tendro vs iCapture.
How does Mobly compare on event lead capture?
Mobly publishes no price. Most packages are annual, its terms renew them automatically with fees non-refundable, and Pulse costs extra.
getmobly.com/pricing returns a 404, and Mobly's own copy says "Most packages are annual agreements, priced by the features your team needs." Most plans include unlimited lead capture and unlimited users per org. The one public benchmark is Vendr's median of $14,795 a year, and it rests on seven documents from a single buyer (https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/mobly). Mobly's standard terms renew automatically, and "All Fees paid are non-refundable" (https://www.getmobly.com/termsofuse). Pulse, its follow-up sequencer, is "a paid add-on" (https://help.getmobly.com/help-center/getting-started/mobly-products-primer), and its help docs call email "the only fully-supported channel today" (https://help.getmobly.com/help-center/pulse/understanding-sequences). Full read at Mobly alternatives.
Pick Mobly if you exhibit year-round and want one annual agreement with follow-up add-ons.
Head-to-head: Tendro vs Mobly.
Is Popl a good event lead capture tool for B2B teams?
Popl fits teams that hand out NFC tap cards. Team pricing is quote-only, so there is no published number to budget against.
Popl repositioned in 2025 from digital business cards to in-person lead capture. Reps tap NFC cards in hallway conversations and scan badges at the booth. Its own docs say "Scanning only the QR code will not work" (https://support.popl.co/en/articles/10185562-the-universal-badge-scanner-tutorial): it reads the badge face and enriches, the same mechanism Tendro uses. Full read at Popl alternatives.
Pick Popl if tap cards are part of how your team exchanges contact info.
Head-to-head: Tendro vs Popl.
Is Cvent LeadCapture still worth it in 2026?
Only if your calendar is almost all Cvent-managed shows, where it resolves the registration record. Everywhere else it does not work at all.
At a Cvent-managed event it is the organizer's contracted system, so it returns the actual registration record. Off those floors it does nothing, so a mixed calendar carries two capture budget lines. Cvent's site shows no price, but a 2026 Cvent order form prints $249 for one license, $499 for a three-pack and $149 per extra license (order form). Full read at Cvent LeadCapture alternatives.
Pick Cvent LeadCapture if almost your whole calendar is Cvent-managed.
What should Linq users switch to?
Linq now sells iMessage and RCS APIs for AI agents. Card users can move to Blinq or Popl; booth teams need event lead capture.
TechCrunch reported Linq's $20M Series A on February 2, 2026, and described its origin as "a digital business card that doubled as a lead capture tool for sales teams" (https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/linq-raises-20m-to-enable-ai-assistants-to-live-within-messaging-apps/). The card app is still on the App Store, renamed "The Digital Business Card App." Teams that scanned badges on Linq can pick from the table above. Full read, including what to export before you leave, at Linq alternatives.
How much does event lead capture software cost?
Tendro is $499 per event for the whole team and BoothIQ Team is $999 a month. Organizer rental scanners run $400 to $700 per device per show.
Three tools in the table have a public pricing page: Tendro, BoothIQ and Blinq. Vendelux's scanner is free. Captello has no pricing page, but its comparison pages print a one-event license from $500. Cvent's site shows no price, but organizer order forms print $249 per LeadCapture license. iCapture's HubSpot Marketplace listing shows Essentials at $8,000 a year, with pricing dated 2025, and Mobly and Popl quote.
The rental anchor comes from 2025-26 exhibitor order forms: $400 to $700 per device per event, up to about $735 onsite (https://www.aaos.org/globalassets/aaos-annual-meeting/exhibit-and-sponsor/exhibitor-service-manual/lead_retrieval_order_form.pdf). Renting one device for each of five reps at ten shows comes to $20,000 to $35,000. The pricing models breakdown maps each pricing unit.
How do you choose an event lead capture tool?
Count your shows, scanning reps and expected leads, then check your CRM. Seasonal calendars with full booth teams favor per-event pricing.
- Pricing unit. Per event (Tendro, Captello's one-event license, Cvent LeadCapture) scales with your calendar. Monthly (BoothIQ) scales with active months. Annual (Mobly, iCapture) charges for the dead months. Per lead (Blinq) scales with your best show.
- Coverage. Count Cvent-managed shows as a share of your calendar. Cvent LeadCapture covers only those; a tool that reads the printed badge covers the rest.
- CRM. List every system that touches event leads and check whether sync sits in the price, behind a quote or behind a connector fee. Then test each candidate in your own instance: scan a contact that already exists and watch whether it merges or forks.
- Follow-up. Decide whether the rep sends a recap from the booth or your CRM sequences take over, and check whether that costs extra.
The desk test costs nothing. Tendro's free trial lets you scan a stack of old badges and business cards, no card, no show, and judge the enrichment on your own leads. Your first event switches on live HubSpot or Salesforce sync for the whole team. Start the free trial.