How much to charge as an event planner.
To price event planning, estimate the hours across the whole project (discovery, vendor sourcing, design, logistics, the event day and wrap-up), multiply by your hourly income, then add costs and a buffer for scope growth. Planners commonly sell a flat fee, an hourly rate, or a share of the event budget, with a retainer up front.
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Planning is mostly invisible work.
Clients see the event day. You also spend weeks on calls, emails, vendor research, site visits, timelines, budgets and fixing problems. Track your hours on a recent event, including every message, and use that as your baseline.
- Time by phase: discovery, vendor sourcing, design, logistics, rehearsal, the event itself and wrap-up.
- Staff and assistants for the event day, and your own time before and after it.
- Software, a business phone, mileage, parking, printing and sample purchases.
- Insurance, contracts review and licenses, and the cost of being on call near the event date.
- Card and platform fees, taxes, and the weeks between events when you are not billing.
Flat fee, hourly, percentage or day-of only.
- Flat fee by package: full planning, partial planning and day-of coordination, each with a defined list of what is included.
- Hourly: suits consulting, small events and projects where scope is unclear. Set a minimum number of hours.
- Percentage of budget: ties your fee to the size of the event, but make sure it still covers a small, complicated event.
- Day-of coordination: a lower tier with a fixed number of planning calls, a timeline, a rehearsal and event-day hours.
- Retainer plus hours: a monthly retainer for ongoing work such as a series of corporate events.
Scope, size and how much you hold.
- Guest count and the number of vendors and locations you coordinate.
- Scope: whether you source vendors, design the layout, manage the budget and handle the rehearsal.
- Lead time: a short timeline compresses the work, so a rush event should price higher.
- Event type: weddings with cultural traditions, corporate events with approvals and multi-day events each carry different workload.
- Travel and destination: time away, lodging and a longer day.
A retainer and a scope that holds.
Take a retainer at signing and schedule the rest at milestones, so you are never finishing a project with most of the fee unpaid. Write what is in scope, how many revisions and calls are included, and what an extra hour costs. Out-of-scope requests then become a conversation instead of a quiet loss. The deposit calculator shows an example split.
Raise prices when your calendar fills, when the work grows more complex, or when you add services. Change the package fee for new clients first, and review each past event to see whether the hours matched the fee.
- Worked example in the calculator: enter [Planning, vendor and admin hours] plus [Event-day hours] and [Your hourly income], add [Assistants, software and travel], then choose [Profit margin]. The result is a flat-fee package price.
- Compare it to a percentage of the budget. If the percentage is lower, the flat fee protects you.
Show tiers, quote the rest.
Publish your packages with what each includes and a starting price, and say that custom scope needs a quote. Clients who understand the tiers arrive with a better question.
- A storefront page with your planning packages and a booking link.
- Customers request a date and pay a deposit online.
- Card payments add a service fee for the customer on top of your price.
Common questions.
How much should I charge as an event planner?
Estimate the hours across the whole project, multiply by the income you want per hour, add costs and a buffer for scope changes, then compare with a flat package. Track hours on each event to improve the estimate.
Should event planners charge hourly or a flat fee?
A flat fee by package is easier for clients to approve and rewards your efficiency. Hourly suits consulting and uncertain scope.
How do I price day-of coordination?
Count the planning calls, timeline work, rehearsal and event-day hours, then add the cost of any assistants. Define the number of calls included.
Should I take a percentage of the event budget?
It scales with event size, but it can underpay small, complex events. Check it against your estimated hours before you adopt it.
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