Are You Charging Enough? The Ultimate Pricing Guide for Event Businesses

If you get pricing wrong, you lose money. Either way.

Price too low and you’re working events for pennies. Price too high and leads ghost you. Find the sweet spot and you build a real business.

This episode is about finding that sweet spot.

The #1 Pricing Mistake: Pricing Out of Your Own Wallet

Justin Goodhart has seen it a thousand times. New cart owners look at a number like $400 and think: “That sounds like a lot to me, so it must be a lot to everyone.”

This is called “pricing out of your own wallet.” And it kills businesses.

“Until you make it conscious, you just assume everyone has the same financial situation as you. Obviously that’s not true. But it’s an unconscious assumption that shapes your pricing.”

The math gets worse when you factor in growth.

Sure, $400 might feel like enough when YOU’re working every event. But what happens when you need to hire staff? Buy more equipment? Open a second city?

If you priced for yourself instead of for scale, you’re stuck.

The Baseline: Know What Your Competitors Charge

Before you can set intelligent prices, you need market context.

Justin’s recommendation: secret shop your competitors.

Get quotes from 5-10 businesses in your area. You’ll find a bell curve. Maybe 80% charge $600-1,000 for a 2-hour package. You’ll also find outliers on both ends.

“What more relevant information could you possibly gather than what current operating businesses are actually selling their service for in your area?”

But here’s the catch: what if all your competitors are just copying each other? What if none of them actually know WHY they charge what they charge?

That’s why you need the math.

The Math: Calculate Your True Costs

Before you’ve served a single drink, you have $300-500 in fixed costs per event. This includes:

• Labor: Your staff picks up equipment, loads it, drives to the venue, sets up, tears down, drives back, unloads, and restocks. A 3-hour event might be an 8-hour shift.
• Consumables: Coffee beans, dairy, cups, napkins. Photo booth paper. Bar ingredients. Usually $0.50-0.75 per drink.
• Mileage: Gas, wear and tear on vehicles, parking fees.
• Equipment depreciation: That cart isn’t going to last forever.

Once you know your costs, apply a multiplier.

Justin’s rule of thumb: Double or triple your event costs to get your final price.

If an event costs you $500 to serve, charge $1,000-1,500.

That gives you 50-66% gross margin. Below that, you’re not building a sustainable business.

The Signal: Track Your Booking Percentage

Your booking percentage tells you if your pricing is working.

Justin targets a minimum of 15% booking rate (leads to booked events). At 3,000+ events per year, Goodhart Coffee has the data to know.

Here’s how to read the signals:

Low lead volume + high booking rate? You’re too hard to find. When people find you, they love you. But not enough people are finding you. Work on SEO and marketing.

High lead volume + low booking rate? Something’s broken. Either you’re priced too high, your follow-up is weak, or your website doesn’t communicate value well.

5-10% booking rate? There’s more you can get out of your market. Dig into what’s causing drop-off.

The Psychology: Price for Value, Not Cost

Here’s where it gets interesting.

You can charge whatever you want. But will someone pay it? That depends entirely on perceived value.

Two businesses can charge wildly different prices for essentially the same service. The difference? How well they communicate value.

“If you go look at people who command high prices, their websites convey the full value of their service extremely well.”

Great photos. Clear descriptions. A website that walks buyers through the journey. These aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re prerequisites for premium pricing.

Pricing Psychology Tactics

The big brands use these. You should too.

Anchoring: Show your highest-priced option first. It makes everything else look reasonable by comparison. When Starbucks puts a $6 specialty drink at the top of the menu, that $4 latte suddenly looks like a deal.

Decoy pricing: Add a middle option that makes your target option look like the obvious choice. McDonald’s does this with meal sizes. The medium is priced to make the large look like better value.

Bundling: Combine services at a slight discount to increase total revenue. A 4-hour package might cost 20% less per hour than a 2-hour package, but you’re still making more total money.

Limit choices: Too many options cause paralysis. Stick to 2-3 packages. Make the decision easy.

Event Type Matters

Not all events deserve the same price.

A Fortune 500 company booking office catering has a different budget than a family booking a birthday party. South by Southwest has more money than a local startup.

Know your minimums. Below a certain price, it’s not worth your time and energy. But above that floor, adjust based on who’s buying.

“Adapting your pricing to the ranges that different types of people and different types of events expect is where you find more margin and more profitable events.”

The Bottom Line

Pricing isn’t about picking a number that feels right. It’s about:

1. Knowing your costs so you never lose money on an event
2. Understanding your market so you’re competitive
3. Communicating value so customers understand what they’re getting
4. Using psychology to guide decisions in your favor
5. Tracking data to know if it’s working

Get pricing right and everything else gets easier. Get it wrong and you’re always swimming upstream.

Your homework: Calculate your true event costs this week. Know your number. Then build from there.