Your meeting app works three days a year
Most medical societies rent a new app for every annual meeting. The meeting produces their best content and member data of the year, and almost none of it stays with them.
Your annual meeting puts clinicians, faculty and sponsors in the same rooms for a few days. It produces your best content of the year and your best data about members. Then the meeting ends, and the rented app goes quiet until the next one.
The check-ins, polls, ratings and credit claims stay with the vendor. Next year you rebuild the app, and when the contract ends you own none of it.
Members learn between meetings now
In 2025, 65% of learner interactions in accredited CME came from on-demand courses (ACCME Data Report, 2026). Members study on their phones, in the weeks when your app has nothing in it.
Fewer than half of association members, 44%, say they use their association's mobile app frequently (Forj, 2025).
Sponsors fund a year and see three days
Accredited CME providers reported $847M in advertising and exhibit income in 2025, more than the $842M they received in commercial support (ACCME, same report). Much of that money comes from sponsors who fund a year and get a report from one meeting. That makes every renewal a harder conversation.
An app that runs all year gives them 52 weeks of results to look at.
What you get when you own it
During the meeting, the app carries the agenda, faculty, posters and polls. Between meetings it carries recordings, courses and CME credit, and each meeting adds to the same member record.
The code, the member data and the app store listings are in your society's name. You can see who comes back and what they study, and plan next year's program from it.
Dermsquared made the switch
Dermsquared runs dermatology conferences and education, and it used to rent its conference app year by year. Since September, its members have used an app Dermsquared owns, all year round.
Support tickets are down 80%, and more than 2,400 attendees use the app at each conference. The Dermsquared case study has the details.
If you're still under contract
App vendors are usually signed about nine months before a meeting, so the decision comes earlier than most teams expect. You can start beside your current vendor by hearing from members and getting your data ready. The new app launches when the contract ends.
There's more on our page for medical societies and associations.
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