Ever wondered if your award will hit its submission targets? Or how your program compares to industry standards?
This calculator provides real-world insights into award submission volumes, drawing from actual data across established programs to help you understand industry standards and set realistic expectations.
The results are based on genuine submission volumes from awards programs. Rather than industry estimates or guesswork, this data reflects the actual participation levels you can expect when running your own awards program.
What you can use it for
At the planning stage
Project realistic submission volumes and set achievable targets based on proven industry patterns.
Whilst submissions are open
Track your progress and avoid last-minute surprises about whether you’ll hit your targets.
Analyzing past awards
Understand how previous awards performed against typical industry benchmarks and identify what to improve for future programs.
How to Use This Information
This calculator helps you evaluate your current program performance and marketing effectiveness. Understanding how your numbers compare to similar programs helps you:
- Assess whether your marketing and outreach efforts are working
- Identify if you’re on track to meet or exceed industry benchmarks
- Spot opportunities to boost submissions before your deadline
- Evaluate your program’s market positioning and appeal
- Make data-driven decisions about extending deadlines or increasing promotion
Remember: Submission volume reflects multiple factors including your marketing reach, program reputation, entry requirements, and timing. Use these comparisons to gauge your performance and identify areas for improvement based on industry averages (for information on data provenance and methodology please refer to the bottom of this page).
Submission Projection Calculator
Predict your final submission count based on historical award patterns
Data & Process Transparency
The data used to build this calculator is based on all completed opportunities run on Zealous with a minimum of 200 entries. The dataset was processed across our lifetime up to the end of July 2025.
The algorithm considers the average growth for set periods of time to predict how far along you may be in your own journey. As predictions are based on averages these can vary wildly from case-to-case, and depend heavily on your own process, industry and marketing your offering effectively. These results cannot be relied on as factual numbers of the future, but as an industry benchmarking tool to help you better plan the future of your program.
Guy Armitage is the founder of Zealous and author of “Everyone is Creative“. He is on a mission to amplify the world’s creative potential.
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