How much does a guest speaker charge?
Having facilitated thousands of connections between guest speakers and businesses, clubs, schools, associations, and more, the team at Pickstar have pulled together their insights into this budget guide to help you answer one of our most frequently asked questions:
How much does a guest speaker charge?
The answer...
The short answer is a guest speaker fee can be anywhere from nothing, right up to $100k for certain guest speaking engagements.
But there are so many factors impacting that cost.
Maybe you’ve got a budget you’re working with, or maybe you just want to know a rough estimate for a guest speaker fee to help formulate your budget.
Below are some of the main factors that impact how much a guest speaker will cost you.
Experience
A guest speaker with 20 years of experience may demand a larger fee than a speaker earlier in their career. However, this may be balanced out by a relatively new, but highly topical or in demand guest speaker.
Knowledge
Expertise = $$$.
A speaker who is a thought leader in a particular field will cost more than a less credentialed speaker. Similarly, a sporting veteran will likely charge more for their time than a younger player. The more stories and the more knowledge a speaker has to share, the more you'll have to fork out.
Organisation type
This one comes down to both budget size and demographic type.
Where a public school might only have small sum that they can set aside to hire a guest speaker, a large corporate company could likely spend much more. However, in some circumstances, speakers may adjust their fee in order to cater for budget restrictions for certain organisations such as charities.
Audience size
The rule of the bigger the audience size, the bigger the budget typically tends to apply, but is also dependent on the organisation type.
Length of presentation
Similarly, a longer presentation will usually demand a larger budget. This is because speakers who present for a larger amount of time tend to be industry experts with an unparalleled level of knowledge.
Travel and accomodation expenses
As many initial booking fees do not factor in travel costs, you will need to review speakers who are easily commutable to your location - or you can negotiate this within their booking fee to make things a lot easier.
As a general rule, if the person has to travel more than 100km, and it involves a flight/train, or requires accommodation, you should be covering the cost for the guest speaker.
Please be aware, some speakers will expect business class or similar. Just make sure this is covered upfront in your discussions and brief.
The numbers.
This is what you came here for, so let’s get down to it.
Typically, we find a starting fee for guest speakers is around $1,000, but this figure can go upwards of $25k for speakers who are highly knowledgeable, well known and are presenting to a large audience.
From experience at Pickstar, the following is a guide for Australian guest speaker fees, based on roughly 30-60 minutes of guest speaking, excluding flights and accommodation:
$1,000-$2,500
A quality speaker with a solid knowledge of their topic, talking about personal experiences. An example might be a former sports star talking about their challenges with mental health and how they overcame these challenges.
$2,500-$6,000
A well-known speaker with several years of experience speaking on a few different topics. This might be a talk on goal-setting from someone who has achieved at the highest level.
$6,000-$10,000
An experienced speaker with years of experience on a topic, a high level of expertise and is well known across the country.
$10,000+
A highly qualified guest speaker, renowned in their area and known in Australia and potentially around the world.
Lower budgets
Schools, sporting clubs and charities will likely be able to engage a guest speaker for under $1,000, but if the opportunity is commercial, expect $1,000 to be the starting fee.
The above guide is not exhaustive and certainly varies significantly from speaker to speaker and event to event. If a guest speaker is passionate about your organisation, they may be prepared to do it for less than they would another organisation.
Other things a guest speaker will require
Guest speakers need a level of information before they can accept or decline any opportunity. It’s a good idea to provide the following information:
- Number of attendees
- Audience demographic
- Duration of event
- Duration of speech
- Formality of event
- Presentation required (yes or no)
How to secure the best guest speakers for your event.
For the best way to guarantee a great guest speaker share their unique and valuable insights on a range of topics, look no further than Pickstar for your guest speaker event. We have Australia’s largest and most diverse roster of sports stars, business leaders, political figures, and entertainers all with the ability to engage and inspire any audience.
With fast response times, you can organise a guest speaker for your event with no obligation until all parties have agreed, making planning your event a breeze.
To get started, book one of our popular guest speakers today or contact us if you have any questions - we’re here to help.
Want to understand more about hiring a guest speaker?
Read our informative blogs on how to find guest speakers, how to invite speakers to an event, how long a guest speaker talks for, how to introduce a guest speaker, how to thank a guest speaker, and our top guest speakers of the year.