How to set your speaking fee (with a free calculator)
It’s one of the most common questions I’m asked by clients: how much should I charge to speak?
For those who are legitimate experts in their fields but don’t earn their living as a professional speaker, setting a fee for speaking outside their organization is understandably difficult.
Price too low and the perceived value of your expertise is diminished.
Price too high and your proposal might be declined.
If you know the amount that’s been budgeted for speaker fees, it’s simple. But speakers don’t usually have access to that information, so we need to account for some variables to arrive at a reasonable starting point for negotiating the fee. We’ll view this from two angles: the event side and the speaker side.
Speaker fees: from the event side
As mentioned above, there’s no way for a speaker to know how much money the event has set aside for speaker fees. Limited research exists on public speaking as an industry and the studies and reports that have been done generally only document the fees charged by those whose chief source of income is speaking. For those who fall outside that category but still need to propose a fee, I recommend asking the organizer about the range of fees they’ve paid in the last three years for similar work. Do that in the same conversation that the date, location, session length, and topic are addressed. In general, corporations will have the most funding, followed by government or military and professional associations. Higher education and non-profits will have moderate budgets. Schools and faith-based institutions will have the least money to work with. Bear in mind that the organizer’s job is to manage their funds while putting on a valuable event; don’t be offended by their need to control costs.
Speaker fees: from the speaker side
Your job is to manage your own resources. Your fee cannot be arbitrary—a figure you simply think sounds nice to earn. It must be backed by both value and a business case that accounts for your industry/expertise and your speaking experience. To arrive at a base figure to anchor your negotiations, I’ve created a worksheet; you can download my free Speaking Fee Calculator here.
After establishing the true economic value of your fee, ask yourself if that amount is worth it to you. If it’s not, it’s okay to pass on that specific opportunity or delay speaking for a period of time. For example, I stopped speaking at weekend conferences when doing so caused me to miss something I valued deeply and for which I could not be compensated: my kids’ track and cross country meets. Once they graduated from high school, I opened my doors for that type of engagement again. There can be other such “intangible” factors in your equation (perhaps the health impact of jetlag or dietary considerations). These might increase your fee nominally but should be considered/added only after the economic value is derived. The resulting amount becomes your target fee.
When the event budget is lower than your target fee, look for other ways to recognize or augment the value of the gig (e.g., sale of other materials, enrolling new clients, building your reputation in a new geographical area). If it still isn’t worth it to you, it’s okay to pass on the opportunity. The reason for conducting this exercise is to appraise the fit of taking a gig—knowing when to decline and when to accept and for what fee.
When to speak for free
I don’t advocate for haphazardly accepting unpaid speaking gigs. Rather, I recognize two circumstances in which pro bono speaking is both strategic and viable (so long as the speaker recognizes their material opportunity costs):
- It is strategically and deliberately built into your business model (e.g. you speak for free to open a funnel and acquire new clients or customers).
- It is a cause you care deeply about and have chosen to advocate for it through unpaid speaking.
Final word on speaking fees
While my Speaking Fee Calculator uses real math, setting your fee isn’t a hard science. It involves the art of relationships and the skill of negotiating. By working through the exercise of finding your target fee, you’ll be equipped to appraise speaking opportunities with a clear benchmark and will know which ones—economically speaking—are a good fit. And you’ll have the numbers to validate your fee.