Setting rates for your wedding hair or makeup business can be a frustrating and complicated process if you're new, and even if you've been doing it for a while, sometimes you can end up either second guessing yourself or wondering if you're leaving money on the table.  Let me help you make the process a little easier!

An often overlooked piece of the pricing puzzle is travel costs.  What should you charge?  When should you charge?  Where should you charge for?  It comes up over and over again in wedding chats, and hopefully this guide can help you navigate what will work best for your business.

My best piece of advice?  Don't be afraid to try different things until you find a sweet spot for your business!  As with all things, trial and error will be an eventuality, and your business will be ever evolving.  Nothing has to be set in stone.  Learn to be flexible and relax, and the process of setting your prices will become infinitely less stressful.

The best part of running your own business is that you and you alone get to decide what is or isn't working for your business and change it as you see fit.  If you start out using a mileage based system and find that you'd rather be using time based or flat rates, switch it up!  The quotes you've sent out should have an expiration date, and the brides under contract already have their rates locked in.  Everyone else after that, you are in charge of setting your pricing, and they can choose to accept it or pass.  One bride's budget does not determine what is best for your business, so unless you're constantly getting brides turning you away (and telling you it's because of your travel rates,) do what feels right for you.

Now let's get to the good stuff...

Mileage vs Time vs Flat Rates

There are three main ways to charge for your travel to a bride for her wedding hair or makeup.  You can base your rates off of mileage (the distance between her location and where you live), off of time (a set rate per hour that it takes you to travel to her location from yours), or simply create a set fee per area (you can block this out however makes the most sense to you.)

Mileage

The biggest mistake I see when people set rates based on mileage is going off of the current tax deduction rate.  For 2020, the IRS tax deduction rate in the United States was 57.5 ¢.  That's down 5¢ from 2019.  I mean, really, wtf IRS?  Can you already see how going off that rate could seriously impact your profitability?

Here's what else is wrong with using the IRS tax deduction rate:  

1. It doesn't take into account any wear and tear on your car.
2. The IRS rate isn't the only thing that fluctuates.  Gas prices do, too.  Using the IRS rate for the year doesn't take into account that if you book a wedding in 2021 for a 2022 date, gas prices could be much higher and going the same distance could end up costing you more.
3. It's really low.  Like, really really low.  Get you that money honey.  Let's learn to up-level our business, shall we?

Instead, when you set your rates based on mileage, make it high enough to not only account for keeping your car cared for, gas prices, but also the time it takes you to get there.  You should never be working for free.  That's why we have travel fees to begin with.  We're getting paid for the time we spend driving to our brides.  All minutes should be accounted for in your pricing.  Yes, even driving!

One Way or Round Trip?

This is something you've got to answer for yourself, but it's a question that's going to come up often when brides are looking at your pricing.  "Is that travel fee one way or round trip?"  Make sure you've got an answer for them, and better yet include that in your welcome packet or your FAQs page of your website to avoid having to type it out for them over and over in email.  

Time Based Rates

If you live in an area where there's a lot of traffic and going just a few miles can take longer than if you were in a more suburban or country setting, a time based rate might be more appropriate for you.  Let's use Washington, DC for example. 

Traffic in DC is well, frankly, bullshit at best.  It's a city designed before cars were a thing, so getting from point A to point B can be obnoxiously long if you need to drive.  However, it makes a handy reference for this example, because it's already divided into quadrants. If you were a local artist wanting to do time based rates and you live in Northwest DC, you could have a set fee for Northeast DC, one for Southwest DC, and another for Southeast DC.  You'd need to know approximately how long it takes on average to get from NWDC to each of the other four quadrants and set your rate based on that.

If it takes roughly 30 minutes to get anywhere in NEDC from NWDC, you could set your rate at $50 per 30 minutes and therefore charge $50 for any location in NEDC.  If it takes 45 minutes to SWDC, the rate would become $75, and if it's an hour to get to SEDC it would be $100 for the travel fee.

When listing your rates, you'd simply list it as "Locations within XYZ area are $X".  You don't need to list it as based on timing, because a bride will try to tell you how long it takes to get from your location to her, and that's not her job.  It's YOURS.  You can using timing to set those rates, but just list them as flat fees on your pricing documents.

If you need to go outside your local area, let brides know that pricing for all other areas is available upon request, then Google Maps or Waze the best route, and it will tell you how long that will take.  Use your per hour formula to give your bride a price and that's that!

Flat Rates

Flat rates are pretty similar to time based rates, but they are for a larger coverage area.  If you want to set flat rates for the variety of towns you cover rather than having to calculate out exact mileage each time, you can set an amount for each area.  For example, I charge $75 for all locations inside DC and Maryland locations south of Baltimore.  If I have to travel north of Baltimore, it's $125.

Using A Combination

Don't be afraid to have different travel fee structures for different areas.  Within Virginia, where I live, I use all mileage based rates.  And like I mentioned above, for DC and Maryland locations, I have a flat rate.  DC is only about 30 miles from me, but the extra timing required to get into the city reliably early enough to find parking at the venues means I'm adding an extra 45 minutes to my driving time.  Plus, more than likely I'll also be hitting a lot of traffic leaving the city on my way home, so I make sure I'm compensating myself for it.  

Likewise with heading into Maryland and north of Baltimore, traffic can be unpredictable and so I have to add extra travel time to be safe.  Those locations also have tolls, so the fee for going there is higher for that reason.  

If I need to go to Delaware, West Virginia, or Pennsylvania, those are my destination pricing, and I've got a whole blog on how to set those types of rates here. All three of these states are within relatively short driving distances for me (within 2 hours or so), but since they aren't my "immediate coverage area", I charge them as a destination location.

You'll have to determine where the line is for you on what you consider local versus destination, and how much you want to charge for your time when traveling, but these guidelines are here to help you understand what goes into setting rates so you can determine what will work best for you.

A Word On Parking, Tolls, and Valet

Three additional things to consider when setting your travel costs for weddings:  parking, tolls, and valet.  These are variable costs by location, but you should still have a way to incorporate them into your pricing in a way that's easy for your brides to understand and easy for you to quote them quickly.

Parking:  Simplest way to do this is to have all parking charges billed directly to your bride at her hotel.  If your bride's hotel charges for parking or valet, add into your contract that you will charge those fees directly to her room.  Often, the hotel will comp the bride's vendors or give her a discounted rate, so it ends up saving everyone money all around.  

If the parking is not associated with the venue, such as with street parking for non-hotel locations, find out beforehand what the costs are per hour and add that into your travel fee during the quote.  If you frequently work in an area that has paid street parking, you should know how much the hourly cost is and can easily calculate that at booking based on your timeline.  You can list this charge on your pricing information as additional fees with an * and state based on timeline requirements.  

Brides who are having you get them ready somewhere with street parking are aware that it's not free, and as long as you let them know parking fees will be added to their total, there's no surprise.  Don't ask for parking fees after the fact.  All your payments should be up front and detailed in your contract, otherwise they are not enforceable.

Valet:  If the hotel offers valet, utilize it.  Its much faster than self parking or street parking, and as stated already it should be billed to the bride's room.  Include this as part of your contract, and you won't even need to add that total to your pricing breakdown.  It's a transaction between the bride and the hotel, and it doesn't require a line item in your quote or contract outside of a general clause.

Tolls:  If you work in an area that has tolls, I suggest utilizing a flat rate structure that takes into account your timing for travel to that area plus the average cost of tolls.  Always go a bit higher than what current toll rates are, as you never know when those rates can go up, and weddings can book far in advance.  

Issuing Quotes

When you give your bride a quote for her wedding day hair and makeup costs, travel should be listed as a single line item no matter how you arrived at that number.  The bride doesn't need to know nor does she really care how to got it.  You don't need to list tolls, parking, plus mileage.  Just list "travel" and then the number.  Anything more gets too confusing and looks like you're nickel and dimeing her.