How Much A Snapchat Geofilter Costs At The Oscars & 5 Other Big Events

Brands can buy a Snapchat geofilter to put around the White House on Super Tuesday.

Earlier this week, Snapchat made it possible for anyone to pay to offer images that the mobile app’s users can include in the photos or videos they post to Snapchat when they’re in a predefined location. These on-demand geofilters are primarily intended for normal people and small businesses. Someone could buy one as a fun gag for their wedding or birthday party. And a business like a local pet store could put one around their store or a nearby dog park.

But these geofilters can also be a way for brands to get in front of a lot of people attending major live events, such as the Academy Awards or tech festival South by Southwest. Below are some examples of places marketers can run geofilters around during some of this month’s and next month’s biggest events and how much those campaigns would cost.

Snapchat’s tool for buying geofilters only offers dates until the end of March, so Marketing Land wasn’t able to see how much it might cost to advertise during other live events, like Disneyland on Star Wars Day in May, Boston Harbor on the Fourth of July or Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

But just because these locations may be available around these events now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. Snapchat limits the number of geofilters — including unpaid community geofilters — to seven per area, according to a Snapchat spokesman. He declined to comment on whether prices fluctuate in accordance with demand or whether some locations are priced higher than others.

Update: It’s also possible that some of these events may not be available for on-demand geofilter campaigns. Snapchat won’t allow on-demand geofilters to appear in areas where Live Stories — which can include ads — are running or where brands are running a chain of Sponsored Geofilter campaigns in multiple locations (like McDonald’s restaurants), and the company may restrict them around high-traffic areas and events, according to the Snapchat spokesman.

The Academy Awards

Location: Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California
Date: February 28
Duration: 6 hours
Price: $130.26

Super Tuesday

Location: The White House in Washington, DC
Date: March 1
Duration: 24 hours
Price: $2,731.49

Justin Bieber’s First Concert of His 2016 World Tour

Location: Key Arena in Seattle, Washington
Date: March 9
Duration: 5 hours
Price: $132.34

Kobe Bryant’s Last Game Against LeBron James

Location: Staples Center in Los Angeles, California
Date: March 10
Duration: 3 hours
Price: $63.69

South by Southwest Interactive

Location: Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas
Dates: March 11–15
Duration: 120 hours
Price: $1,643.03

Spring Break

Location: Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas
Dates: March 12–20 (when at least 239 colleges will be on spring break)
Duration: 216 hours
Price: $2,653.97

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Location: Fifth Avenue in New York, NY, starting outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and extending up to 80th Street
Date: March 17
Duration: 6 hours
Price: $260.65

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands' early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo's and Google's search designs and examine the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.