How Much Should I Charge for My Speaking Fees?

This is the number one question I get about the speaking business..."How much should I charge?" Most speakers are so desperate to get in front of the group, they're very willing to under charge for their time and effort. Then you hear of crazy speaking fees like Neil Gaiman's $45,000 speaking fee to speak at a library of all things.

So, where do you fit in to the professional speaker pricing chain?

There are a few questions you need to ask yourself when coming up with pricing:

• What is your daily value? If I was to hire you for a full day to come teach me what you know, what would you charge? Most service professionals value their days somewhere around $2500 if that gives you any bench mark to work with.
• How much time will it really take you to perform this speaking gig? If you get called to fly to India, for example, to do a 3-hour workshop, you're still going to be away from your family and out of the country for the better part of a week. So, would you quote for 3-hours? No. You would quote at least half-time for travel days and all expenses paid of course.
• What do I hope to get out of this speaking gig? If speaking is purely a lead generator for you, then free appearances are more acceptable, especially if the gig is local and/or if the organizer is a non-profit organization. If you sell product from the stage, there are actually many ways the money question could go and is deserving of another blog post. Let's just say once you get good at selling from the stage, you can demand payment up front for the speaking gig and then offer to pay back the payment in commissions to the host. More on that later.

Putting all three of these together, it's suddenly not so crazy to think how Bill Clinton can command $80,000 or more per speaking gig and why Neil's fee doesn't seem quite so large either when you consider his schedule. New speakers, however, have to prove their value. Start low to get the gigs and raise your rates as your message becomes of higher value and your name becomes more well-known. Writing a book will help too and check out this post if you're curious why every speaker should write a book.

To sum it up, what you charge for your speaking is all about the value you bring to your audience. Increase your value and you'll increase your audience sizes and the amount of payment you can command.