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.

1. The ultimate guide to setting
your speaking fees

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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?)

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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

18. 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?

19. 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.

20. 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