One of the biggest challenges for event decorators is knowing what to charge. It can be tempting to look at what others are charging, add a small markup, and use that as your price.
But proper pricing is more than adding a percentage to the cost of your materials.
Your price should reflect the true cost of delivering the job, the time and skill involved, your business expenses, and the profit you need to make.
1. Know Your True Costs
Start by calculating everything that goes into delivering an event.
This includes:
- Balloons and other decoration materials
- Frames, stands and structures
- Ribbons, adhesives and consumables
- Helium or other gases (where applicable)
- Transport and delivery
- Labour or assistants
- Installation and dismantling
- Equipment used for the job
- Any outsourced services
Don’t forget the small items. Tape, glue dots, fishing line, batteries, fuel and other consumables may seem insignificant individually, but they add up across multiple jobs.
2. Pay Yourself for Your Time
Your time is a business cost.
If you spend hours designing, shopping for materials, preparing balloons, travelling to the venue, installing the decoration and dismantling afterwards, that time needs to be accounted for.
A common mistake is to calculate only the cost of the materials and treat everything else as “profit.”
It isn’t.
Your labour should be priced before you calculate your profit.
3. Include Your Business Overheads
Your business has expenses even when you aren’t working on a particular event.
Think about:
- Storage costs (where applicable)
- Staff salaries
- Marketing and advertising
- Website and software subscriptions (where applicable)
- Equipment maintenance
- Phone and internet
- Accounting and professional fees
- Insurance
- Transportation costs
- Training and professional development
These costs need to be recovered through the jobs you take.
4. Then Add Your Profit
Once you’ve calculated the true cost of delivering the job, you can add your desired profit.
For example:
Materials: ₦150,000
Labour: ₦80,000
Transport: ₦30,000
Overheads allocated to the job: ₦40,000
Total cost: ₦300,000
“If you want a 30% profit margin, you shouldn’t simply add 30% to ₦300,000. Instead, divide your cost by 70% (1 − 30%). In simple terms, adding 30% to your cost gives you a 30% markup, not a 30% profit margin. A 30% profit margin means that 30% of the final selling price is profit.
For example: If your cost is ₦300,000, adding 30% would give you a selling price of ₦390,000, but that is only a 23.1% profit margin. To achieve a true 30% profit margin, you would need to sell it for approximately ₦428,571, giving you ₦128,571 profit, which is 30% of the selling price.”
Understanding the difference between markup and margin can make a significant difference to your business.
5. Don’t Price From Your Competitor’s Price
Another decorator charging ₦250,000 does not necessarily mean you should charge ₦250,000.
You don’t know their:
- Material costs
- Labour costs
- Overheads
- Experience
- Profit margin
- Business structure
- Scope of work
Instead of asking, “What are other decorators charging?”, start by asking:
“What does it actually cost my business to deliver this job profitably?”
Your market research can then help you understand whether your resulting price is appropriate for your target market and positioning.
6. Your Materials Are Part of Your Value
The cheapest material isn’t always the best choice for a professional job.
When choosing balloons and other materials, consider:
- Reliability
- Appearance
- Consistency
- Colour selection
- Performance
- Ease of use
- Waste and failure rates
- The reputation you are putting behind the finished work
If a material performs better and helps you deliver a more consistent result, its cost should be considered as part of your overall pricing — not viewed in isolation.
7. Create Packages, But Know What’s Inside Them
Packages can make it easier for clients to understand your services.
For example:
Essential Package
Balloon installation + basic styling
Signature Package
Balloon installation + backdrop + styling details
Full Event Styling
Balloon installation + backdrop + tablescape + styling + setup
But make sure you know exactly what each package costs you to deliver.
A package should make your service easier to buy — not make your profit harder to calculate.
8. Review Your Prices Regularly
Your prices shouldn’t stay the same forever.
Material costs change. Transport costs change. Your skills improve. Your business grows. Your demand changes.
Review your pricing regularly to make sure your prices still support the business you are trying to build.
The Bottom Line
Don’t price your decoration services based only on what the client is willing to pay or what another decorator is charging.
Build your price from the inside out:
True Costs → Labour → Overheads → Profit → Final Selling Price
The goal isn’t simply to get more bookings.
The goal is to build an event decoration business where every booking contributes to the growth and sustainability of the business.
If you’d like to see more practical content like this, leave a comment and let us know what you’d like us to cover next. 💬
