Pricing your planning packages without underselling the work

Most planners price by copying the market, undercutting it slightly out of nerves, and then quietly resenting the number for two years. There is a better way to get to a price, and it starts with the only honest unit in this business: hours.

A full-planning wedding takes most solo planners 200 to 350 hours across the engagement. A month-of coordination takes 40 to 80 once you count the handoff meetings, the vendor confirmations, the rehearsal, and the twelve-hour day itself. Before touching a pricing model, know your real number. Track two weddings honestly and you will have it.

Flat fee is the strongest default. Couples know the cost, you are paid for outcomes rather than time sheets, and efficiency improvements you make (better systems, better templates, better software) become margin instead of a discount.

Percentage of budget (usually 10 to 20 percent) scales with complexity and keeps you aligned with high-budget events, but it makes couples audit your vendor suggestions and it caps your income to their spending. If you use it, set a floor.

Hourly works for consulting and troubleshooting single problems. As a primary model it punishes your own competence: the faster you get, the less you make.

Structure your offer as three packages: month-of coordination, partial planning, and full planning. The month-of tier is your entry point and your marketing; price it so it is worth your weekend, because it consumes one. Full planning is the flagship. Partial planning exists mostly to make full planning look reasonable, and about a third of couples who inquire about it upgrade once they see the gap.

Put real inclusions on each tier, and be specific about what is not included. Unlimited revisions is not a feature, it is an unpriced liability.

A number is only as good as its collection. Standard practice: a non-refundable retainer of 25 to 50 percent to hold the date, a mid-point installment, and the balance due two to four weeks before the wedding, never after. You do not want to invoice anyone during their honeymoon.

Send real invoices with line items, on letterhead, with a payment link. It reads as established, it collects faster, and it kills the awkward Venmo request text forever. This is also where good software quietly pays for itself: an invoice that takes ninety seconds to produce gets sent on time.

Review pricing every season, and raise it when either signal fires: you are booking more than 70 percent of consults, or you are dreading the volume you have booked. The first means the market values you above your price. The second means the price is not covering the true cost of the work.

Your calendar is finite inventory. Twenty weddings at an undersold rate is not a business, it is a very tiring hobby with invoices.