Pricing your services in any industry can be difficult, but it can seem especially daunting in the wedding industry! If you’re working on pricing your wedding planning services, it’s easy to get lost in suggestions online, competitor’s pricing, and even comments from your own clients. Instead of making it complicated, it all comes down to how you plan on running your business. To help you understand what that means, we’ve got the top 5 questions to ask when pricing your wedding planning services.
How much do you want to make in a year?
Whether you’re just starting to set prices or reevaluating the ones you’re already charging, this is a great benchmark for how to set pricing that works for you. By having an annual revenue number in mind, you can start to narrow down what each wedding should bring in for you. If you’ve already set a price that’s not getting you to that annual number, it might be time for an increase!
What is your investment per wedding?
Owning a business and providing services isn’t cheap! You’ll need to tally up all your costs for each wedding planned to help you decide if the price you charge your clients is even worth the amount of work you’re putting in! Whether the costs are marketing, web design, or even hours worked, add those numbers up and subtract them to get your profit – is that number where you want it to be to make your business viable? If not, time to price higher!
What do you want to offer?
You don’t need to lowball your pricing if you can tack on additional value to your services! Instead of focusing on just the standard wedding planning, can you offer extras like consulting, a more involved experience for your client, or a “white glove” version of your service to make a higher cost seem reasonable to a couple? Sometimes just marketing your services better can add to the overall experience, which leads to couples making larger investments.
How do you compare to your competitors?
Take inventory of the wedding planners in your area by using a Vendor Marketplace like The Knot offers – are your prices much higher, or far lower than theirs? Competitors can be a great gauge of the market in your area. You can create a benchmark by deciding if you have more or less experience, if you offer a better overall service, or if you bring that extra something to the table that your competitors are lacking. However, staying somewhat close in range is the best call to ensure you’re not losing business to a cheaper competitor.
Who is your ideal client?
By answering this question, you can tailor your prices to the experience your ideal client will expect. For example, if you want to work with a DIY bride on a budget, you don’t want to be charging white glove service prices. And on the other hand, if you’re looking to work with higher end couples, pricing your services at a higher cost will bring in that higher budget clientele.
As we’ve mentioned before, there’s no one size fits all answer to pricing your wedding planning services. However, by answering these questions, or using a workbook like this one, you can start to narrow down on numbers that are tailored to the needs of you and your business, and will help you start to make a real profit! Know your worth and charge accordingly!
