A price on a game page might buy one event licence, one mobile mission, one player’s access, or a key for a pair. Those amounts cannot be compared by placing them in one column labelled “price per person.” First name what is being purchased.
A complete budget has separate lines
| Line | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Game purchase | Actual permitted units multiplied by the actual quoted unit price. |
| Printing | Total printed sides multiplied by your cost per printed side. |
| Supplies | Only the materials you expect to buy for this evening. |
| Other costs and tax | Known amounts, with missing amounts left blank rather than set to zero. |
| Average per attendee | A planning display—not a ticket price or permission to charge. |
The calculator in evening budget calculator follows that structure. It does not import a shopping cart, decide tax applicability, convert currencies, or determine licence permissions. A displayed subtotal is explicitly incomplete while optional cost fields remain unprovided.
Nine participants: three teams of three
Consider an original synthetic quotation of $12 per team, with teams required to contain two to four people. Nine participants can form three groups of three. If you also expect sixty printed sides at eight cents each and $5 in supplies, the known subtotal is $45.80 before an unentered tax amount.
The cheapest feasible count is three teams because two teams cannot hold nine people under that rule. Balance the groups so nobody is left alone. For an exactly-two-person rule, five participants cannot be partitioned into complete pairs; buying three keys would not make the fifth person a two-person team. The calculator reports that impossibility rather than inventing a companion.
Paper sides are not sheets of paper
A double-sided sheet contains two printed sides. Decide how your printer or print shop charges and use the matching count. Do not change required printing orientation, scaling or assembly merely to lower the cost: the game’s instructions control what is usable. Our example numbers are assumptions, not a claim about a supplier packet’s exact page count.
Published prices are not all-in invoices
The two selected paid Escape Team mobile missions are advertised at $2.99 each, while the three Murder Mystery Games records are listed per game licence. The actual edition and checkout still matter. Enchambered’s captured paid pages contain conflicting displayed amounts, so those records have no numeric price preset here. S06 · S08 · S11 · S12 · S13 · S03 · S04 · S05
This avoids two common errors: dividing a total licence into a fictional product, or treating an unavailable price as free. Enter your actual checkout quote for a cash estimate. Preserve included charges so you do not add them a second time.
Keep the budget separate from the invitation
Tell participants the actual activity and equipment requirements. Keep a per-person average as private planning information where the licence does not permit charging. The ordinary Murder Mystery Games terms expressly restrict admission charges; the existence of a calculator does not change them. S15
Use Can you replay a mystery? Separate the solution from the licence for repeat-use questions. Once the numbers and permissions are clear, the budget should become the least mysterious part of the evening.