Congressio

Overview

Congressio brings conference submissions, peer review, decisions, scheduling and attendee registration together for organizers of academic and non-academic events. It suits teams that want to manage the scholarly workflow alongside ticketing and virtual sessions. Its free plan is a practical starting point, but its event, submission and seat caps—and its limited ticket-payment currencies—matter.

Key features

Congressio’s form builder combines conditional logic, file uploads and co-author invitations in a drag-and-drop interface. That gives organizers flexibility to collect different information for different submissions without coding. Multiple submission types, author revisions and poster handling support a range of conference workflows.

Review tools cover automatic reviewer assignment, deadlines, conflict-of-interest detection, scoring, custom workflows and double-blind review. Together, these address much of the process from submission through decision, while review analytics become an advanced feature on Professional.

Organizers can publish a public program with attendee agendas and iCal and PDF exports. Ticketing supports tiered sales through Stripe, discount codes, add-ons, VAT invoices and refunds. QR passes work with Apple and Google Wallet and can be scanned at check-in; access zones can be restricted by ticket tier or capacity. Those features tie registration to on-site access, though online ticket payments are limited to EUR, GBP and USD.

Virtual events include live and on-demand streaming, recordings, an e-poster gallery, Q&A and polls. Integrations include ORCID, institutional single sign-on, API keys and webhooks. Congressio says data is kept in the European Union and card details are handled by Stripe rather than stored in its systems. Support typically replies within one business day, with urgent requests prioritized during an active event.

Pricing

The free plan costs nothing and includes one active event, 100 submissions, three team seats, forms, review, decisions, a program and email. It covers a small event’s core workflow, but the caps leave little room for multiple events or a larger organizing team.

Standard costs $49 a month and raises the allowance to five active events, 1,000 submissions and 15 team seats. It adds custom event branding, email campaigns and reminders, making it the more suitable tier for recurring events that still fit within defined quotas.

Professional costs $149 a month and includes unlimited active events, submissions and team seats, plus advanced review analytics, custom event branding and priority support. It is the clearest fit for organizations with substantial or variable event volume; its higher monthly price is harder to justify when the Standard limits are sufficient.

Enterprise has custom pricing and includes everything in Professional, plus SSO / SAML, custom limits, custom contracts and invoicing, and dedicated support. A 14-day trial is available. The free plan has explicit caps; the paid plans replace those with tier-specific quotas or unlimited usage, and Enterprise allows custom limits.

Platforms

Congressio is available on the web and through an API. Its interface is available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Who it's for

Congressio is a strong fit for conference teams that want submissions, reviewing, programming, registration and virtual sessions in one platform, especially when Stripe ticketing and QR-based access are useful. Its stated audience includes both academic and non-academic conferences. Teams that need to charge attendees in currencies other than EUR, GBP or USD should look elsewhere for payment processing.

Pros and cons

• Pros: The submission, review and decision workflow sits alongside program, registration and virtual-event tools, reducing the need to coordinate separate conference functions.
• Pros: Double-blind review, conflict checks, reviewer assignment and author revisions support a structured scholarly process.
• Pros: Apple and Google Wallet passes, QR check-in and ticket-based access zones connect ticket sales with event entry.
• Cons: The free plan is limited to one active event, 100 submissions and three team seats, so it can constrain even a modestly expanding conference.
• Cons: Online ticket payments support only EUR, GBP and USD, excluding organizers who need to charge in other currencies.
• Cons: Standard and Professional are monthly subscriptions at 49.00 USD and 149.00 USD respectively; teams that need more than the free caps must budget for an ongoing paid plan.

Alternatives

Event Abstract Management Software is the broader category to browse when you want to compare tools for this particular workflow.

Sciencesconf is worth considering for scientific events if a free service for organizers is the priority; event-creation requests require validation, and it is intended primarily for scientific events.

Indico is a free, open-source option for teams that want self-hosting or broader platform support, including Android and iOS, rather than Congressio’s paid tiers.

Microsoft CMT is a free web-based alternative for managing academic conferences.

EasyChair may suit organizers with smaller submission volumes who can work within its free tier of 20 submissions or pay $3.90, paid once for its Professional plan, which allows up to 60 submissions.

SimplyConf is an alternative for teams that value self-hosting or want a free core plan with unlimited events, submissions and users.

Oxford Abstracts offers a free Basic plan with unlimited submissions, collection, review and decisions, ticketing, reviewer tracking, and customizable forms and emails; consider it when those abstract-management capabilities are the priority.

HotCRP is a free option for ACM- or USENIX-sponsored conferences, journals and workshops.

ConfTool may fit smaller non-commercial events that qualify for its free license on request: the Standard license is limited to 150 participants, local installation and no support.

Verdict

Choose Congressio if your conference team wants one workflow for submissions, review, programming, attendee registration and virtual sessions, and the free caps or paid quotas match your scale. Its combination of review controls, ticketing and event-access tools is the main reason to choose it. Look elsewhere if you need online ticket payments in a currency outside EUR, GBP or USD, or if the free plan’s event and team limits are too restrictive.