We have a complicated relationship with money, especially when it comes to getting paid for the work we do.  More money makes us happier – but only up to a point, according to research from 2018.  (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0277-0).  Now, new research says that rich people are getting happier, and poor people unhappier – in the West.  (https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000774).  And no matter how much money these wealthy people get paid, they’d rather keep getting more than actually have meaningful work (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672231159781).  But just to complicate that further, apparently chasing that hedonistic treadmill isn’t the ultimate answer:  even the rich in the US aren’t as happy as the Scandinavians – who are only as happy as poor fisherman in Bangladesh, who operate without much money at all.  (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244569)

Phew! To make this existential financial analysis more immediately practical and manageable, let’s bring it down to the essential money question for regular readers of this blog:  how much should you charge for a keynote speech?

Alas, that turns out to be a complicated question, too.  Here are some basic guidelines.  If you want to work with speaker bureaus – the big leagues, in keynote speaking – you have to charge more than $10K USD for a speech.  Otherwise, it isn’t worth their time, since they take a percentage cut.  Just starting out?  Try for $5K – $7.5K, and sneak under the speaker bureau radar while you establish your track record as a good speaker who is easy to work with, not a prima donna.  When you have paid your dues, so to speak, then go for $15K and see what kind of response you get.  If you are a bona fide thought leader with some years of experience toiling in your particular thought vineyard, and you have one or more books to prove it, then you can expect to make somewhere between $25K – $35K per speech.  If your topic is something super-hot, like AI, then you might get up to $50K USD, or even more.  Celebrities make much more; it is hard to get up-to-date, accurate information, but apparently former Presidents Clinton and Obama have been paid as much as $400K – $700K per speech.  And lest you think it’s a partisan thing, yet-to-be-President Trump reportedly made nearly $2M USD for a speech in 2008 based on his TV show.

To bring it back down to your future earnings, there’s a further wrinkle.  To a hard-to-quantify extent, what you charge for a speech is an expression of your brand and attractiveness in the marketplace of ideas.  So, speaker fees can vary a surprising amount – depending on what the speaker in question says they are worth.  If you price yourself too low, you are saying that you are not in the same league as those other keynoters, and that will hamper your chances of getting hired, especially at the biggest conferences and events.

Many conferences and events will say they have no money to pay you, and would you please give your speech for free?  They will inevitably follow this request with the generous assurance that speaking at their event is a fabulous marketing opportunity.  If you ask in return, ‘OK, will you share your mailing list with me so that I can market to these wonderful people after the event,’ a surprising number will say ‘no’.  At this point, it’s up to you.  Know that they do have the money — they would simply rather spend it on the venue than on you.

Many speakers are willing to speak for free at breakout sessions at prestigious events, because while selling from the stage is usually a no-no, it is a near-inevitable result of giving a thoughtful breakout speech to a conference of smart people.  That’s because some of those people will come up to you after you are done and ask for your (digital) business card, hoping to continue the connection.  You’ve generously offered good actionable advice and wisdom on your subject, the audience has come to trust you as an expert, and they want to talk about hiring your consulting firm to come and finish the job of transforming their mess into something efficient and profitable.  Thus, using a great breakout session speech as a highly profitable marketing engine can make your company as much money as keynote speaking over the long run.  It may take longer to realize the return through a consulting engagement than from an hour-long speech, but the barriers to entry in that speaking market are much lower, too.

I’m tempted to sum up this complicated miasma of speaking and money by answering the question, how much should you charge to speak, with, “What makes you happy, and the market will bear.”  Good luck!