Last Thursday I told you about a tall centerpiece I created for an intimate dinner party. And today, as promised, I’d like to share the details of just how I priced it.
However, before I do, here are a few reminders about pricing flowers:
1. You are not only selling flowers: you are also selling your design, talent and overhead.
2. It is your responsibility to educate your clients, and make sure they understand they’re getting a lot more than just flowers.
3. If you do not charge enough, you will not be a florist for very long.
Most people commented last week that they would never be able to get clients to pay the prices I was writing about. But, please folks, you’re missing the point! The point is that regardless of your clientele, it’s essential to breakdown what you spend and then charge accordingly.
In looking over the comments from last Thursday’s post, I was also very surprised that not one person came close to guessing the accurate centerpiece cost.
So, what’s the answer? Here it is:
Total Price of Centerpiece (100% markup): $2754
Dear Readers, let’s educate each other. We’re all from different countries and cities, and we all have our own unique points of view. So please, tell us, what is the most you think you could charge for a tall arrangement in your area. Thanks!
PREVIOUS
George Bernard Shaw once said: “You see things and say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’” That quote embodies how Preston Bailey approaches every event.
Eve
June 11, 2012
Hi Preston,
I have been following this series of posts, and I am very grateful to you for opening up, shedding light and hopefully encourage more florists to charge due prices. I come from South Africa, and it seems that our flowers are more cost effective here and for a similar centerpiece the cost of flowers would be in the region of $312; materials at $48; labour at $281; Thus total for this type of arrangement in SA is about $650. Flowers are expensive (regardless of where you are in the world, the cost of flowers will be relatively expensive), it seems that most brides have a problems accepting the prices of flowers required for a wedding, let alone florist/design fee. I had brides telling me that they will buy the flowers from the farms on the same day special and will drop them off for me (needless to say, I politely asked them to follow my process or find someone else). Creating flowers for someone’s special day is highly stressful, and physically demanding labour.
This year, I have created educational documents for my potential clients, in which I explain the basics behind decorating a round, square and a long table. Including things to understand and consider, and prices of decor items (before putting the flowers on). I then created a chart (very similar to what you have above) indicating how much each type of arrangement will cost.Then they can add up decor and flower centerpieces to create their own look. I find it works like a charm and couples walk out educated and less anxious about the price because they understand. Thank you Preston!
YOUR NAME
June 11, 2012
I was taught in Floral Design School that you multiply the flowers by 3.5, if it’s a wedding or something that requires more labor by 4, and then all hard goods were multiplied by 2. Which means that your centerpiece would be a lot more expensive…
I really appreciate you sharing and being transparent. You are a fabulous role model.
Helene
SIMONE LEJOUR
June 11, 2012
US $800 and just for 1 single big centerpiece, never for all the tables of the party.
Carolyn Shepard
June 11, 2012
I come in at $1300.00 Charging a bit less in labor but I add 22-28% for delivery/install/and pick up that evening.
Thanks so much, once again, for addressing this PB.
I’d love to see you do a series on delivery/install/pick up fees too for florals and related decor items!
YOUR NAME
June 11, 2012
Great article!! We have Brides coming into the shop with
Pictures of these large arrangements and when we quote a price
They lose their minds at the actual cost. Thank you for sharing
Valuable information!
Yvonne Szikla
June 11, 2012
That is interesting that you just double the entire amount. Most schools/stores have a formula of 3x the cost per stem, 2x for the containers, and a labor fee and delivery, etc. As someone below mentioned, it would make your sales price considerably more.
Do you find that this formula is enough when you do events or do you charge other fees when you are in charge of designing the whole event?
Tina Weems
June 11, 2012
I total agree with the way you charge for each “centerpiece”. I don’t understand what the problem is when it comes to charging your clients. Whatever you send is always charge to the clients plus labor and mark up point blank.
Whenever I have an client that’s gives me that look when it comes to the price of each “centerpiece”. I always suggest to the client, that we go shopping together for flowers to give her some idea what flowers cost. To this day I have never had any problems (knock on wood) charging my clients for their “centerpieces”.
Hey, thanks Mr Preston!!!….And keep those ideas and posts coming.
Vanessa Oluwole
June 11, 2012
I am based in the UK, for the above arrangement I will charge £400 considering all the above and season as well. Well done you are a good role model.
Cheers,
Vanessa
Sara
June 11, 2012
Holy cow! My wedding didn’t cost that much! We were married outside so we utilized the natural beauty of the location. We each had bouquets (three in all) and the men had boutonnieres (three total), plus we had our reception catered. Including my dress and everything, I think we spent $1500. And, it was a beautiful wedding. That was 21 years ago, by the way.
bisi bordley
June 11, 2012
Justified prices, experience, celebrity status & skills. I’ll bill around £1,700 (UK sterling). But then my mark-up is not 100%, give me time and experience like yours!! xb
Tori Washington
June 11, 2012
I would then take off 25% so that my client would feel they are saving a lot of money but I would still be making 75%. Most of my clients love discounts so I try to find a way to give them without really cheating myself.
Tamara - Tamara's Flowers
June 11, 2012
Dear Preston, I am from Croatia and I have very hard time to charge for wedding flowers, even for a price double from the price of flowers. For instance, they pay to rent a dress 1.500$, dinner by plate is 70$/plate and they want to pay for all the flowers (w. bouquet, centerpieces, church…) around 400-500$.
It’s just the way it is right now, hope for better days.
Carolyn Shepard
June 12, 2012
Tori
That is really unfortunate.
By unnecessarily discounting your work, you do yourself AND the entire industry a disservice. This is EXACTLY what this whole exercise PB has explained is about. Correct pricing!
Goodness!
Carolyn Shepard
June 12, 2012
@Tori
By the time you pay all your overhead, you have just worked for FREE!
Congratulations!
Pau
June 12, 2012
Amazing. I hope one day I could charge like that. I am from Mexico and I think it impossible to charge for only one centerpiece. Of course if those $2754 were mexican pesos, that’ll be possible. It is not easy to get Peonias here and when you get them they are quite expensive. Many florist here will just charge what they think is fine to charge but if you do the math correctly and professionally I was thought to do it x3.
I am always scared when I have to tell the client the prices so Thanks for this!
Napkin Wizard
June 12, 2012
What a great blog. Preston, thank you for sharing with all of us. Your advice is priceless.
Ali
June 12, 2012
Wow! That’s incredible.
incredibly awesome! I would love to hear what your “sales pitch” would be that goes along with the actual quote. I was taught in school that you don’t need to tell the bride what type of flowers you will be using but to tell them an overall idea/ concept. This was hard for me to understand and still is tough. I guess I’m such a nut case for detail that I would want to know on my wedding day so I assume all brides are like this. I would love to hear your take on that. Thanks!!!
JOANA TOMOVA
June 12, 2012
What can I say, you’re right about how we have to charge, but I don’t thing in my country this is going to happend soon. I’m a florist for over 1o years, and I’m one of the good here. We have many rich clients, but they totaly refuse to pay for flowers. The last 5 client this year Whant tall centerpiece /close to this/ for the price of 50$…. I’m not kidding. Tell me how to be an artist, and a florist,and how to create beautiful design for that kind of money??? :-/
Layla
June 12, 2012
Thank you Thank you Preston. Trully you are a role model. I’m working on opening my own flower shop here in Abu Dhabi soon.
I would like to suggest writing posts about ordering flowers. How do you estimate your need?
Wish you all the best.
Edith
June 12, 2012
lucky you who believe that this kind of forming price is possible in every country. here in the country I live people prefer to pay for anything else but not for beauty and design. believe or not you can celebrate your wedding, to have about 80 guests, flowers, dress and everything for that amount of money
Chris Burson
June 12, 2012
Wow the majority of my budgets for a wedding is the total cost of this centerpiece. My biggest flower budget has been 5000 for all bouquets centerpieces, ceremony arrangements. You are very fortunate to come across people with this type of money. It is also very hard being a designer when you are limited to show your ability because no one can afford you.
Pam Archer
June 12, 2012
I get heart attack responses when I tell my brides it would cost approximately $525 for a centerpiece like this. It’s difficult to get that amount, knowing that florists and other designers in this area charge about $150 for the same thing. They charge about $50 total for their labor on a piece like this.
Seeing the pricing from these posts and other comments has been an eye-opener for me. I’ve tried pricing every way known to man and I still can make enough in my market area to even afford a shop. This is why I am probably giving it up in January and trying to find another job.
I would be very interested in how you price delivery-installation-tear down, too. Please share!
Erik H.
June 12, 2012
I like the charges Preston…’No more Mister Nice Guy!!’ lol!!
Kim
June 13, 2012
I can’t tell you how many brides have excitedly brought in photos of large, full, centerpiece arrangements like this (mainly photos from bridal magazines) for their consultations only to be completely sticker-shocked when they find out that something like this would cost in the upper hundreds to thousands. They don’t understand the rising cost of flowers (no matter seasonal or not), materials, or labor time (prep, design, and delivery/setup) for any type of bouquet or centerpiece arrangement. They think it’s crazy that the most basic, simple centerpiece will be $50-$55 yet I can barely acquire the raw products wholesale for $50, let alone the labor time to process the flowers, design, and pay for all the overhead costs of answering their calls, eMails, meeting for their consultations, etc. I think the bridal industry magazines have done much to set unrealistic examples for the bride with an average budget. They see high-budget bouquets and centerpiece designs scattered throughout the magazines and assume that they are $50 bouquets and $30 centerpieces because there are no prices shown with the designs, and $50 for a bridal bouquet and $30 for a centerpiece is what their parents paid for their own weddings 25-30 years ago. One change that would make things easier for florists is if bridal magazines published a realistic price range (from perhaps 5-6 florists in various parts of the country) for each design shown, that way brides starting to plan their weddings have a more realistic expectation for what flowers cost and can budget and/or set their expectations accordingly.
David
June 13, 2012
I’d like to hear your response to “Pam Archer’s” comment below. She states that so many other florists would charge significantly less for the SAME design which makes it imposible to charge what you do. On the same note, I’ve heard customers say the same thing and go elsewhere. But something tells me what others would charge, is NOT THE SAME as this. What is your response?
Kim
June 13, 2012
I think the phrase (and expectation – or perception, really) of “the same as” is what gets everyone into trouble. So many times I’ve had price-shoppers meet with me, show me a photo of a bouquet or centerpiece that they want duplicated “exactly the same way”, yet I find out later that I lost the bid because their perception is that another florist is giving them the “same thing” for much cheaper when they really aren’t getting the same thing. For anyone who doesn’t think this happens, sneak into the event venue for a peek after the florist who won the business has setup or look online at the price shopper’s wedding photos and notice just how different the floral varieties and designs that they got really were from what they showed you they wanted and that you quoted and what they actually got. Every time I have lost a bid and been able to see what a competitor gave the person for a deeply discounted price, the bouquets were tiny, clutch bouquet of a handful of roses or gerberas or filler flowers and the centerpieces contained less than half the amount of flowers/volume as what I quoted. The perception of “same” is in the eye of the beholder, and the lesson I’ve learned over the past 12 years is that a typical bride (and sad to say, even some event planners – particularly inexperienced ones) apparently cannot tell the difference between a $35 bridesmaid’s clutch bouquet of 6 gerberas with no foliage and a nice, full, visually pleasing bridesmaid bouquet of gerberas, roses, hydrangea, and foliage for $75.
Alina
June 13, 2012
Thank you for posting this! Not only the article, but also the comments were very helpful. I was very curious on how you make the prices for your arrangements, because in Romania there are no floral design schools and nobody teaches you stuff like this.
) that said something about florists “forgetting” to charge for pins and extra foliage.
)) ), and our new clients are not just interested in the lowest price, but they understand we can be very creative with the right budget 
.
Before the 90′s the secrets of the trade were passed down only in the family. When the weddings industry exploded about 15 years ago, a lot of people started working on their own, without having any idea on how to work with flowers and how to price them (I am no better). This led to a currently disastrous quality of the products and terribly low prices. I saw a comment from a fellow Romanian (that works for the only magazine for florists in the whole country
My partner and I used to do the same stupid thing, because we loved creating beautiful arrangements and we wanted to improve our designs, until everybody started to know us as the guys who do cheap and amazing stuff. We almost ruined ourselves, until we found your blog and realized that things can be different.
Right now we are in the middle of changing things, and because there’s nobody to teach us, it’s more like hit or miss. But I am glad to find out that our new pricing method is the same as yours, with the difference that we charge our labor about 15 $/hour/3 persons, because this is still Romania, where the average income is 300 $/month (yes, it’s per month). One thing we still struggle with is renting our containers (specially the ones we made ourselves), but I suppose we’ll figure that out sometime.
Ah, by the way, we lost more than half of our clients when we started changing our image. We had to find other jobs in order to put food on our table, but we didn’t give up. Right now we have a wedding per month in full season, but even so we gain more from 1 event than colleagues that have 5 wedding on every weekend. So we figured that less it’s not necessarily bad. We grit our teeth, because we know that things we’ll be great in the future. Now we are learning how to do real design (via books bought on the internet
Loraine
June 13, 2012
Alina, It was very comforting to hear of your experience and subsequent results. I get turned down for more jobs that I get hired because of price. I refuse to compromise the quality of my work and service and despite wanting great service, customers refuse to pay appropriate prices. And lets not even mention design and labor -”Don’t you just stick the flowers into foam” is the popular response. I’m beginning to think I am in the wrong business and/or the wrong country. It’s really tough when people don’t value your talent, time and professionalism.
Loraine
June 13, 2012
I also have to agree with KIM. The wedding magazines have and several blogs have done a great job of glamorizing the wedding industry without the associated price tags.
Then there is the other end where big wholesale/discount retailers are offering wedding flowers in a box with the price tag attached. Result – brides turn up for consultations with an image from Grace Ormond magazine and a Costco price tag.
Come on publishers and other market influence’s…why don’t you say how much (the decor/flower/linen) those real weddings and special photo shoots cost with the 1000 stems of phalenopsis orchids, 2000 stems of roses and 500 heads of hydrangea?
Stephen
June 14, 2012
Alina, Congratulations on your passion for our industry. I to have been in the flower business for more than 20 years and still sometimes realize I forgot to charge for an item. I also changed my pricing structure several years ago to something along the lines of 3.5 times on fresh product and 2 times on hard good plus a labor of 25%. This does prevent me form doing some wedding. I concentrate on the brides and mothers that believe flowers and good design are important to the event. I fortunately have great clients that only want the best. We work really hard to provide them with the best available. Preston thanks for all the inspirations and information.
intimacy event
June 15, 2012
Absolutely perfect. Most client want the best yet don’t wanna pay
Rach
June 15, 2012
Nice explanation. This just helps me justify why I don’t bother paying for table centre pieces. It’s certainly beautiful and u get what u pay for but I don’t bother because it’s not worth spending that much money. I’d rather spend it on something my guests will appreciate ad remember. Most guests don’t even notice what flowers were used etc
nancy swiezy
June 16, 2012
http://remarkablerhinestone.com/Napkin-Rings/64575-pink-flower-napkin-ring
these would be amazining in the middle!
ARJ
June 18, 2012
Wow after seeing this I am so glad I made my niche to gear towards the bride who can’t afford all this money. There are enough planners out their catering to the rich how about those hard working brides and grooms who would like their weddings to be beautiful but can’t afford $30 grand just for flower. I personally wouldn’t spend that much if I had the money. Wow three grand for flowers you won’t take home and will be dead in a day or two.
Lisa Silva
June 18, 2012
I would charge around 1,800 for something like this. Flowers are so costly and I do not want to work for free. Designs like this take time and talent. I feel I have earned the right to be paid for my time and talent. I do know that brides come to me with pic’s from all the glossy mags and say, ” I want these.” They then freak when given a price. This is when I give them ideas on how to bring them down to earth yet still have lovely flowers. I too wish the mags would give brides a real cost of the very fancy and lush displays they show. Those cost MONEY and not every bride can afford 60 grand for flowers.
www.OdArtStore.com
June 19, 2012
Depending on the time of year and if they peonies are in season, and assuming the vase is rented, I would say between $650-800
Susan Marie
November 17, 2012
A Bride was questioning my pricing and it forced me to sit down and really figure out all of my cost and time. I realized was only marking up my work less then 15.8%, how sad is that. Is that really what my months of working with the Bride, rushing around on her wedding day and worrying about perfection, worth? Thank you for making me realize my talent is worth much more. Tomorrow is a new beginning and Brides – only those who realize I’m worth it will have me.