DJ pricing calculators
A DJ fee has to cover far more than the hours behind the decks. Music preparation, client meetings, travel in both directions, loading in through a difficult venue and packing down after midnight all sit inside the same fee.
These tools separate performance hours from total working hours, so you can see the hourly rate you are genuinely earning on weddings, corporate work and private parties.
Calculators for djs and mobile discos
Costs that belong in every booking
- Performance and prep hours
Set preparation, playlist building and client consultations, priced at your target rate.
- Setup and pack-down
Load in, rig, soundcheck, de-rig and load out — often three hours around a five-hour set.
- Rig depreciation
Speakers, lighting, controllers and cabling written down over their expected working life.
- Music and software subscriptions
Streaming pools and DJ software, allocated across your annual bookings.
- Insurance and PAT testing
Public liability and annual electrical testing, both of which venues increasingly require.
- Crew or roadie
Paid help for larger rigs or awkward access, including their travel time.
- Travel and late finishes
Mileage, parking, congestion charges and any overnight stay after a 1am finish.
- Maintenance and replacement
A per-booking allowance for failed cables, lamps and repairs so a breakage is not a loss.
Common pricing mistakes
- Quoting a flat rate for every event type
Weddings, corporate events and private parties differ in prep, risk and hours; one fee for all three underprices the hardest.
- Absorbing difficult venue access
Stairs, restricted load-in windows and long carries add real paid hours and belong in the quote.
- Never repricing Saturdays
Peak dates are a finite supply. Pricing them identically to a quiet Thursday leaves margin on the table.
- Treating the rig as free
Kit that is not being written down against bookings is being funded by you personally.
Worked example
Illustrative example — a £600 wedding booking. These figures are an illustrative walk-through of the formulas below — they are not survey data, benchmarks or a real customer result.
| Fee | £600 |
|---|---|
| Performance hours | 5 hrs |
| Setup, pack-down, travel, prepTotal working time: 11 hrs | 6 hrs |
| Travel (90 miles @ £0.45) | £40.50 |
| Rig depreciation£9,000 rig ÷ 150 expected bookings | £60 |
| Subscriptions, insurance, PAT allocated | £30 |
| Maintenance allowance | £15 |
| Payment fees (1.5%) | £9 |
| True cost excluding owner time | £154.50 |
| Contribution before owner pay | £445.50 |
| Effective hourly rate£445.50 ÷ 11 hrs | £40.50 |
£600 for a five-hour set reads as £120 an hour. Measured against the eleven hours the booking actually takes, it is £40.50 — still workable, but a very different number to price from.
How the figures are calculated
- Total working hours = performance + setup + pack-down + travel + prep + admin.
- Effective hourly rate = (fee − non-labour costs) ÷ total working hours.
- Rig depreciation per booking = (purchase price − residual value) ÷ expected lifetime bookings.
Frequently asked questions
- How much should a wedding DJ charge?
- There is no single correct figure, and we do not publish invented averages. Work from your own costs: total the hours the booking consumes, add travel, rig depreciation, insurance and subscriptions, then set a price that pays your target hourly rate and leaves your target margin.
- Should I charge more on Saturdays?
- Saturdays in peak season are your scarcest stock. A premium is defensible where demand consistently exceeds your capacity; the calculator shows what a premium does to annual profit at your booking volume.
- How do I price a second DJ or roadie?
- Cost their hours from arrival to departure at the rate you actually pay them, add any travel you reimburse, and treat it as a variable cost of that booking rather than an overhead.
Related guides and tools
Results are planning estimates based on the figures you enter. They are not financial, accounting or tax advice.