A few months after SaaStr AI Annual 2026, someone asked on LinkedIn how many leads sponsors got from the event. Steve Burton, CMO of Aurasell, answered in one line:
“Don’t count leads, but we booked 85 meetings on the calendar.”
That’s the right way to measure an event. A badge scan is a maybe. A customer meeting on the calendar with a buyer who chose to spend 30 minutes with you is pipeline you can forecast.
Here’s what Aurasell did, what the rest of the top sponsors did, and what you should plan for if you’re putting SaaStr AI Annual 2027 in your budget.
Aurasell Booked 85 Customer Meetings From One Event
Aurasell sells an AI-native CRM. That puts them in one of the most crowded categories on the floor, sharing a room with Salesforce, Lightfield, and a dozen AI sales tools all chasing the same CROs.
They still walked out with 85 customer meetings booked.
For context: a good outbound SDR books 10 to 15 qualified meetings a month. Aurasell got the equivalent of six to eight months of one SDR’s output in a single event, and every one of those buyers had already seen the product at the booth.
1,046 Leads Put Aurasell #3 on Our 2026 Leaderboard
Steve doesn’t count leads. We do, because we publish them.
Aurasell finished #3 on the 2026 sponsor leaderboard with 1,046 leads, behind only Replit (1,423) and Lightfield (1,062), and ahead of Salesforce (1,027).
Put the two numbers together and roughly 8% of Aurasell’s leads turned into a booked customer meeting. That ratio is the one to model when you plan your own event. Leads tell you how much traffic you’ll get. Customer meetings tell you how much pipeline you’ll get.
The top nine sponsors at SaaStr AI Annual 2026:
- Replit: 1,423 leads
- Lightfield: 1,062 leads
- Aurasell: 1,046 leads
- Salesforce: 1,027 leads
- Rippling: 921 leads
- OpenRouter: 915 leads
- Google for Startups: 817 leads
- Vivun: 793 leads
- Lovable: 605 leads
Those nine pulled 8,609 leads between them, an average of 957 each.
One Company Switched to Aurasell Five Days After the Booth
Aurasell’s head of event marketing called theirs the busiest booth on the show floor. Their founding SDR posted that one company switched to Aurasell five days after first meeting them at the booth.
Five days from first conversation to switching CRMs. CRM replacements usually take a quarter or more of evaluation. That compresses when the buyer is a founder or CRO standing at your booth, sees the product working, and has the authority to make the call on the spot.
That’s the room at SaaStr AI Annual. The people walking the floor run $5M to $100M+ ARR companies and sign for the tools themselves.
85 Customer Meetings Is $3M+ in Pipeline
The buyers in those 85 meetings are CEOs and CROs at scaling companies evaluating a system of record. These aren’t $10K deals. Run it at enterprise-ish numbers:
- 85 customer meetings
- 40% become a real opportunity: 34 opportunities
- At a $100K average deal: $3.4M in pipeline
- 30% win rate: ~10 new customers and $1M+ in new ARR
- On 3-year terms with expansion: $3M+ in contract value
From one event. And a CRM is about the stickiest product in B2B. A customer won in May 2026 is likely still a customer in 2032.
Compare that to the cost of a sponsorship and it’s one of the highest-return line items in a marketing budget. It’s also why the top sponsors keep coming back.
We see the same pattern in our own funnel. Our inbound agent booked 614 qualified sponsor meetings in one Annual cycle at an ~$85K average ticket size. Customer meetings are the unit that drives revenue, and an event that produces 85 of them in a few days does the work of a small SDR team for most of a year.
Aurasell Wasn’t the Only Sponsor That Closed
Monaco: Sam Blond, ex-CRO of Brex, said Monaco closed four five-figure deals sourced from SaaStr AI Annual in under three weeks. The highest-ROI event they had measured. They came back as a Diamond sponsor.
Artisan: By Artisan’s own numbers from a prior SaaStr event, 634 qualified leads, $249K in ARR closed on-site, $2M in pipeline delivered or influenced, and $1M+ closed in the months after.
Replit: #1 on the leaderboard by 361 leads, and a returning Diamond sponsor.
All of these come from the sponsors themselves or from our leaderboard. Ask us for references and call them.
How the Top Sponsors Filled Their Calendars
Looking at who did best in 2026, three things showed up over and over.
They booked customer meetings before the event opened. The top finishers used our “Who Do You Want to Meet” matchmaking app in the weeks before the event, so day one started with a full calendar. A pre-booked 30 minutes with a VP Sales who picked you in the app converts very differently from a badge scan at 4pm on day two.
They staffed the booth with closers. Aurasell’s booth produced a switch in five days because the people at the booth could run a real demo and talk pricing. A booth staffed only with marketing collects scans. A booth with AEs and SEs books customer meetings.
They combined booth and stage. Artisan’s live AI BDR demo on the main stage drove traffic straight to the floor. Sponsors with a speaking slot, a workshop, or a summit presence pulled more from the same booth footprint.
A May Event Closes Inside Your 2027 Fiscal Year
A customer meeting booked May 11-12 has two full quarters to close for most companies. A $20K to $100K deal with a 60 to 120 day cycle lands in Q3. Larger deals land in Q4.
That timing matters when your CFO asks what the event returned. Spring events get measured in the same year you paid for them. Fall events usually don’t.
What We’re Building for 2027: 3,000+ Scheduled Customer Meetings
SaaStr AI Annual 2027 is May 11-12, 2027 at the San Mateo County Event Center in the SF Bay Area. The plan:
- 10,000+ attendees: founders, CEOs, CROs, CMOs, CCOs, and VCs
- 3,000+ scheduled 1-on-1 meetings through the matchmaking app
- 200+ speakers from leading B2B and AI companies
- 100+ deep-dive workshops on AI-native GTM
- Dedicated CRO, CMO, and CCO Summits
- A full week of side events across the Bay Area
The matchmaking app opens weeks before the event. Sponsors who sign early get the longest runway to fill their calendars, plus first pick on stage time, summit slots, and booth location.
Book Early, Start Booking Customer Meetings When the App Opens
Aurasell walked out with 85 customer meetings and $3M+ in potential pipeline. The sponsors at the top of the 2026 leaderboard are already in for 2027 or in conversations now.
If you want 85+ customer meetings on your calendar next May, the work starts now: lock the slot before Q1 budgets close, staff your booth with people who can close, and start booking in the app the day it opens.
