Create an Event Planner Invoice Example for Planning with Ease

Event planner invoice example for Planning

how to Bild for your event planning Services that's what we're going to be talking about today hi event planners I'm Chelsea from event planning.com so today I want to talk about five ways that you can build your client for your event planning Services the first one is hourly rate and that is exactly how it sounds so I want you to pick a number that you feel comfortable charging for each hour of work that you complete you'll add up all the hours and you'll build a client after event now you want to pick a number that equals out to how much experience you have in the event planning industry so if you're just starting out I would say somewhere around $25 an hour is a good start but as you get more experience you can charge more and more some of the highest and biggest names in event planning can charge upwards of $100 an hour and even more than that so start small you can always work your way up the thing I like about an hourly rate is that your clients know what they're getting for their money it's easily you know right out in front of them they can see how many hours you worked and how much you put in into their event what I don't like is that you charge after the event which can sometimes get a little bit of sticky and you don't want the client to run through your numbers with a fine tooth comb and try to find discrepancies in hours worked and how much work you put into the event the next one I'm going to talk about is a flat fee this one is definitely my favorite and preferred so I'll put a star next to it flat free is great because upfront you can give them a number and I like to collect 50 % of that number upon them signing the contract the other 50% I like to collect 2 weeks before the event so that makes sure that you have all the money that you're owed upfront before the event goes so it's hard to pick a flat fee number right but I want you to think about what the actual number of hours you're going to work on the event and how much you're going to put into it a general rule of thumb is to think about the client's budget and take around 15% of that you also want to think about how much money you're going to be spending in gas and if you have to get a hotel or hire other planners so put all of those things into the number that you create number three is to charge a vendor commission this one is not very common and one that I don't necessarily recommend that you use the benefit to doing a vendor commission is that you don't charge the client very much or sometimes nothing at all so what you'll do is you'll actually charge the vendors a commission on every vendor that you book so say you book a catering company for your client you'll have that catering company pay you for the services now what can be problematic with this is that a lot of clients might look at it and think that you only picked certain vendors based on the commissions so this is one that I don't recommend using all the time but in specific circumstances it can work number four is charging a percentage of the total event okay so a percentage of the vent is similar to the flat fee in the sense that you're going to get a flat sum of money but the difference is you're going to be charging after the event for this the thing that I find a little bit problematic with this is that a client might think that you might be trying to escalate prices or not trying to get them discounts because you want the event money to be so high but again this can be really a good option for you um especially in corporate settings and the fifth is day of coordinator this option has becoming more and more po popular because it's a lot less expensive so a day of coordinator isn't going to have anything to do with the actual booking of the vendors so you're basically going to be hired for day of now that doesn't mean that you just come in on the day and help set up everything you're actually working on the project for two weeks or maybe even up to a month because you'll be the person that's coordinating with the events with the vendors and having uh running the schedule and making a schedule for the day of you'll also be in charge of setting up on the day of the event and breaking down down and making sure everything runs as smoothly as possible whether that's hiring other people to work underneath you or handling anything that a normal event planner would handle the day of the event so a day of coordinator I usually would say can charge an hourly rate or a flat fee whatever you feel more comfortable with but again I think flat fee is usually the most transparent and best way to have your client feel comfortable and you feel comfortable with the number agreed upon before the event so what you have to consider is that you'll probably be working 8 to 10 maybe 12 hours on the day of the event but you'll also be working those two weeks or a month leading up to the event that could be an extra 20 or 30 hours depending on what it is that the client wants from you so take all of that into consideration when you charge for your flat fee now all of these options are definitely viable and they all used in special circumstances again my favorite is the flat fee but I've also used hourly rate and day of coordinator plenty of times things to remember that when you're charging uh there's three things that it really depends on first is the type of event social events are are what they are you know it's wedding planning and it's event planning for birthday parties or retirement parties corporate events can usually charge 30% more and this is an industry standard that everybody is going to be okay with the second thing that you have to consider is location if you live in a major city you can command a higher price whereas smaller towns usually event planning services are marked for a lower price and the third thing is your experience you want to start out with a number that you feel comfortable getting but you also have to know that if you don't have much experience every event that you book helps to gain experience and build your clientele so you can book more work if you start at a smaller number you can always grow so the more experience that you have the better you get you can charge higher and higher price tags before you know it you'll have people knocking down your door to book you for every weekend so start small and work your way up I hope you enjoyed this video for more information visit . event planning.com and please make sure to like our YouTube channel