The ultimate guide to setting your speaking fees

You feel great.

You’ve just waltzed off the stage to roaring applause,

and the event organizer hands you a check for $2K

for a half hour presentation: you have the perfect job!

You get to excite audiences about something

you are passionate about, and the $2K feels like

a lot of money for a few minutes on stage.

But then, by the end of the year, you are coming up

financially short. For some reason there doesn’t seem

to be enough money to keep this going.

What is going on here?

We don’t want to burst the bubble of good post-stage

feelings, but this is an issue many new and mid-level

speakers deal with: how do you figure out your fee

in a way that covers your needs and leaves you with

enough money to build your business?

While $2,000 might seem like a decent

paycheck for being on stage for half an

hour, once you factor in your costs you

will be left with a very small fraction of it.

Often, new speakers don’t take into

account the additional costs

of maintaining their business.

What happens if you hit a dry spell with no

bookings for a few weeks?

Have you included your benefits and taxes?

What if you or someone close get sick and you

need to take a few weeks off?

What if you want to do some pro bono sessions?

In this guide we explore how to factor these costs into your fee, how

to research events to find the right fee for the event, when to offer

discounts, and when you should, or should not, speak for free.

What you need to figure out is your baseline fee:

how much you will need per session for your

business to succeed.

Start with how much money you would need

to be comfortable in a year (an approximate salary)

then reverse engineer it.

Let’s say you made $70,000 last year doing

45 speaking engagements.This would make

your average session rate $1,550.

Finding your baseline fee

Here are just a few things to take into consideration:

Your tax rate

(for example: 20%)1

Benefits for you and your family

(for example: 25%)2

Speaker bureau or agency fees

(for example: 20%)3

Booking agents’ fee / Assistant’s salary

(for example: 10%)4

There goes 75% of the fee, leaving you with $388.

This would work out to a yearly income of $17,460.

Is this enough for you to live on, let alone market

and build your business?

Instead, work out a rate per session that has

the additional costs built in, leaving you withan

appropriate amount of funds. Once you have this,

use it as the minimum fee you will speak for.

The minimum fee is not a session rate that you blindly

stick to. Instead, look at each speaking and training

engagement on an individual basis.

You need to ask yourself:

What can the event afford?

What is fair based on how much the event is bringing

in and the value you offer?

From your minimum fee, adjust the fee appropriately.

What can you offer? The value for them

Instead of a set fee, look at creating individual fees for

each event you speak at.

Some events can afford to pay their speakers more,

and some cannot, so you need to adjust accordingly.

But how do you figure out what they can afford? You

could simply ask them, but nine times out of ten, they

will underquote.

Instead, do your own research, and ballpark an

appropriate figure.

The best place to start is with the information you can

easily assess: the ticket prices and sponsorship.

You are looking at a gross budget of roughly $470,000.

Now, of course, that doesn’t mean they have $470,000

to spend on speakers.

Cut that in half for the venue ($235,000) Then in half again

for all the additional costs: (everything from coffee to ads)

you are looking at roughly a $117,500 speaker budget.

Let’s say that they have 10 different speakers: this works

out to roughly $11,750 per speaker.

For example:

500 attendees at $300 each: $150,000

10 top-tier sponsors at $10,000 each: $100,000

15 middle-tier sponsors at $8,000 each: $120,000

20 low-tier advertisers at $5,000 each: $100,000

But not all speakers are equal — more experienced, keynote

celebrity speakers will get paid more, and lesser known,

less influential speakers will get paid less.

So, where do you fit on this scale? You can get a rough idea

of this based on how many tickets your presence will sell.

If you are popular and have a dedicated audience you know will

show up, and if, when you share the event on social media,

people will click the link and buy a ticket, (for the above example,

39 tickets will cover your fee) then you can feel comfortable

quoting the $11,750 or more — however if you are not very well

known, or this is a new audience for you, you will probably have

to be satisfied with a smaller cut of the speakers’ budget.

There are also additional things you can offer

(aside from your presentation) that you can use to bolster your fee.

Businesses and organizations of all kinds set up tier pricing systems

(even here at SpeakerHub!) because they are extremely effective.

Adding to your fee and setting up a tier system

Here are a few reasons to consider setting up a tier pricing system:

They help you make more money effectively.

Want some evidence? Check out this pricing example

from The Economist. It’s all about the contrast. Multiple

tiers help “anchor” event organizers into paying more.

Don’t forget that event organizers will pay up to their

budget. If they are willing to pay $10,000 but you only

charge $1,000, you are losing out on $9,000.

1

They help you expand to suit a wider audience.

The different price points can show you have

offerings for all types of events, to suit their needs

and budgets. Plus, everyone likes to see a menu

of available options.

2

They help you to explain the value of your services and validate your prices.

By allowing them to pick the appropriate

services for their event, you will create

a sense of maximized value.

They know what they are getting because

they choose it based on what they need.

3

They help you get repeat bookings.

The lower priced tiers can substantially help you

get a foot in the door at an organization.

After working with you once, the event organizer,

when hiring you again, will often move up to your

higher tier packages.

4

So how do you decide on your price points and what to include in each tier? The three steps below will help.

What are your “base” offerings

Figure out what the base offerings are that you want to include for every tier

Step 1

Here is an example:

1-hour consultation with the organizer on how

to customize the talk to their specific audience

A 30-minute talk (remember: this figure

will change based on the event)

Slides customized with the event’s logo

Step 2

To make this list, start by going back

to the reasons they want to hire you.

It’s because you have knowledge and

you have influence. And from these

two categories, you can get creative.

Start by thinking about what

the event organizer wants.

Now divide this list into the categories based on high-level, mid-level, or low-level.

Come up with a list of everything else that you could offer.

Here are some ideas:

Can you offer to do an additional Q&A or to be a panelist in a discussion?

Can you offer 1-on-1 consultations at the event for a few key attendees?

Could you put the organizers in contact with potential sponsors?

Will you be there for the entire event, including the coffee breaks and after party for networking?

Do you have a report, PDF, or white paper you could offer to the audience for free?

Do you have a book you could offer for free or at a deep discount?

Can you offer training sessions or workshops?

Will you promote the event on social media? How many posts? Will it include multimedia, like a video? Will you post before, during and after the event?

Can you use your influence to put them into contact with other experts who could speak or conduct training at the event?

Do you have access to a mailing list where you could promote the event? (Either your own, or for example, maybe you have a close contact with the CEO of an organization whose audience would be interested in attending the event?)

Step 3

The final step is to add the base pricing for each

tier, list the benefits and put them into packages.

You could also sell each service separately as

add-ons to your speaking fee.

Set the prices for each individual add-on, and create packages.

What’s in it for you? Discounting and speaking for free

Sometimes an event will help you access a

completely new audience, promote your

organization or service, and increase your

influence.

While many event organizers throw around the

word “exposure” ad nauseum, sometimes having

access to that new and ideal audience can make a

huge difference to your business, and ultimately,

your bottom line.

In this case, you could look at waiving certain fees

or discounting your speaking fee. The benefit for

you will be immense, and with the right audience

you will make the money back in no time.

Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say you are the CEO of a startup based in California. You

have been making some waves around the United States, and

building your local and national audience, but it would be very

beneficial for you to break into the European Market.

An organizer from London Tech Week heard you speak a few

months ago and has emailed you to find out if you might be

available for their upcoming conference.

The exposure you would get could help bring you the new,

European client base that will help you bring your business

to the international level.

If you know your cost of customer acquisition, and you know

the likely response rate from an audience, you could discount

your speaking fee by your projection of new customer

acquisition from the event.

Your speaking fee baseline is $25,000, and you

are going to speak to an audience of 1,500 people.

From your last event, you know that around 10%

of the audience will turn into paying clients, and normally,

your cost of acquisition is around $100 per client.

This means you will probably end up saving $15,000

in new client acquisition costs, meaning you could

reasonably discount your speaking fee by 40%.

What’s in it for you? Discounting and speaking for free

Sometimes an event’s audience is so valuable in terms

of influence and new client acquisition, that you can waive

your speaking fee entirely, even covering your own travel

and expenses — this is often the case with large-scale,

international events like the TED Conference, TechCrunch

Disrupt, World Business Forum, SXSW, or The World

Economic Forum...just getting on the stage will instantly

increase your influence and gain you new clients.

But often, much smaller events will still

ask you to speak without compensation.

Speaking for free

Many speakers ask us:

Should I, or shouldn’t I, speak for free?

If an event does not check at least one of these

boxes, then politely decline.

Here is a quick checklist to help you determine whether speaking at an event for free is worth it:

You are testing brand new content, and want

to try it out in front of a live audience.

They are offering you something of equal value

to your speaking fee that will add to your

bottom line.

For example: They will buy 1000 copies

of your book, or you are certain you will make

the fee back with new client acquisitions.

They are offering you something of equal or higher

value to your speaking fee that doesn’t actually add

to your bottom line, but still has the same value to you.

For example: A paid trip to Hawaii for you and your

partner, or perhaps you will be rubbing shoulders with

the top industry thought leaders, celebrities, and

experts, which could help raise your profile.

You genuinely care about the cause or organization,

and you want to be involved regardless of the cost.

For example: It is a pro bono talk to raise funds for

a charity you care about.

Want to find out more about speaking fees? We have some additional resources for you.

A guide to negotiating your speaking fee

How to develop multiple revenue streams as a speaker

How much should you charge? 15 tips for figuring

out your speaking fee

Should you speak for free?

Money for nothing and speak for free?

10 Tips to succeed as a professional speaker

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/guide-negotiating-your-speaking-fee

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/how-develop-multiple-revenue-streams-speaker

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/how-much-should-you-charge-15-tips-figuring-out-your-speaking-fee

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/how-much-should-you-charge-15-tips-figuring-out-your-speaking-fee

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/should-you-speak-free

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/money-nothing-and-speak-free-10-tips-succeed-professional-speaker

https://speakerhub.com/skillcamp/money-nothing-and-speak-free-10-tips-succeed-professional-speaker