# What a Keynote Speaker Actually Costs in 2026

Source: https://speakersbureaus.directory/guides/what-a-keynote-speaker-costs/
Author: David Caruso (https://davidcaruso.com.au)
Last updated: 2026-09-21
Publisher: Speakers Bureaus Directory, an independent directory. Nobody pays to appear and a listing is not an endorsement.

Only 36 of the 145 bureaus in this directory will tell you what anything costs. Here is what those 36 publish, in their own currencies, with nothing rounded or guessed.

Ask a speaker bureau what a keynote costs and most will ask you for your budget instead. That is not evasion for its own sake. It is how the industry has always worked, and it leaves first-time bookers with no idea whether a quote is reasonable.

So we counted. Across the 145 organisations in this directory, we checked every one for a published fee, a band, a range or a price filter.

36 of 145 bureaus publish any fee guidance at all.

The other 109 quote privately. That is three quarters of the industry.

Everything below comes from those 36. No averages have been invented and nothing has been converted between currencies, because a converted band implies a precision that does not exist.

## The short answer

If you are budgeting and want one number to start from, use these. They are the bands where the largest share of working professional speakers sit in each market.

| Market | Typical working professional | Established name | Top of market |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | GBP 5,000 to 10,000 | GBP 10,000 to 25,000 | GBP 50,000 to 100,000 |
| United States | USD 5,000 to 20,000 | USD 20,000 to 50,000 | USD 50,000 to 100,000 |
| Canada | CAD 7,500 to 10,000 | CAD 10,000 to 25,000 | CAD 50,000 to 75,000 and up |
| Australia | AUD 3,500 to 8,000 | AUD 10,000 and up | Quoted privately |
| Ireland | EUR 4,000 to 6,000 | EUR 6,000 to 10,000 | EUR 10,000 to 15,000 and up |

A local expert who speaks a few times a year sits at the bottom of these. A recognised author with a television profile sits in the middle. Former heads of state and household names sit at the top, and are usually quoted on application rather than banded at all.

## Why most bureaus will not tell you

Three reasons, and only one of them is about you.

The first is that a speaker's fee is rarely one number. It moves with travel, audience size, whether the talk is customised, and whether you want a workshop bolted on. A published figure would be wrong more often than right.

The second is competitive. A bureau that publishes fees is giving its rivals a price list.

The third is that the speaker often sets the floor and does not want it public. A speaker who charges AUD 15,000 for a corporate audience may do a charity event for a fraction of that, and a published band makes the discount awkward to offer.

Fee transparency is not evenly spread. Canada is the most open market here by rate, and Australia publishes the most bureaus in absolute terms. The United Kingdom is among the least open, despite carrying the single clearest price ladder anywhere.

| Market | Bureaus publishing fees | Total | Rate |
|---|---:|---:|---:|
| Canada | 4 | 11 | 36.4% |
| Australia | 23 | 70 | 32.9% |
| United States | 5 | 18 | 27.8% |
| Ireland | 2 | 8 | 25.0% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 20 | 10.0% |
| New Zealand | 0 | 11 | 0% |
| Singapore | 0 | 7 | 0% |

## Australia

Australia has more bureaus publishing prices than any other market here, though most of them are entertainment agencies where speakers sit alongside bands and comedians.

**Platinum Speakers** starts at about AUD 2,000 plus GST and runs a fee filter upward from there. That is the lowest published entry point in the country.

**Ovations Speakers Bureau** opens its bands at AUD 3,500 to 5,000.

**Bark.com** publishes a guide of AUD 3,650 to 8,000 for motivational speakers, which is useful because it reflects what buyers actually pay rather than what agencies advertise.

**Instinct Music** guides keynote speakers at AUD 10,000 and up, aimed at the corporate end.

Above roughly AUD 15,000 the Australian market stops publishing. If you are booking a household name here, expect to be quoted rather than banded.

## United Kingdom

Britain has the clearest single price ladder in this directory and almost nothing else.

**JLA**, the largest UK bureau at 36 years old, puts a band on every speaker profile:

| Band | Range |
|---|---|
| A | GBP 50,000 to 100,000 |
| B | GBP 25,000 to 50,000 |
| C | GBP 10,000 to 25,000 |
| D | GBP 5,000 to 10,000 |
| E | Under GBP 5,000 |

The biggest names are marked price on application, above Band A.

**Gordon Poole Agency** shows a guide fee group on each profile with a note that it is indicative.

Those two are the whole of UK price transparency. Eighteen of the twenty British organisations in this directory publish nothing.

Most working professional speakers in Britain sit in Band D, GBP 5,000 to 10,000. A speaker with a book and a media profile moves into Band C.

## United States

The American market publishes more than Britain and splits its pricing in a way nobody else does.

**All American Speakers** filters by budget band, and runs live and virtual as separate filters: USD 5,000 to 10,000, USD 10,000 to 20,000, USD 20,000 to 30,000, USD 30,000 to 50,000, USD 50,000 to 100,000, and higher above that.

**Executive Speakers Bureau** shows a fee range on every profile, again splitting live and virtual.

**Gotham Artists** publishes a fee guide plus a curated list of speakers at USD 15,000 and under.

The virtual split is the useful part, and it is covered below.

## Canada

Canada is the best-documented market in this directory, with four bureaus publishing and two of them going into real detail.

**Speakers Spotlight**, founded in 1995 and one of the largest bureaus in the world, publishes the clearest tiers anywhere:

| Tier | Range |
|---|---|
| Emerging speakers and industry experts | CAD 7,500 to 10,000 |
| Established keynote speakers | CAD 10,000 to 25,000 |
| High-profile speakers and bestselling authors | CAD 25,000 to 50,000 and up |
| Celebrities, athletes and internationally known figures | CAD 50,000 to well over 75,000 |

**Speakers Bureau of Canada** filters by budget from CAD 3,500 through to CAD 15,000 and above, and also by province or territory.

**National Speakers Bureau**, running since 1973, offers bands of CAD 5,000 to 7,500, CAD 7,500 to 10,000, CAD 10,000 to 25,000 and CAD 25,000 plus inside its enquiry form.

**ProSpeakers** publishes browsable lists of speakers under CAD 5,000 and under CAD 10,000, and states plainly that it adds no premium to the speaking fee.

That last point matters more than the numbers. It is the only bureau in this directory that publicly commits to taking nothing from your side.

## Ireland

**Speaker Solutions** publishes the only euro ladder here: under EUR 4,000, EUR 4,001 to 6,000, EUR 6,001 to 10,000, and EUR 10,001 to 15,000 and above. You can filter its roster by band without contacting anyone.

**Alive Network** shows a price range on its Republic of Ireland speakers, though in pounds rather than euro.

Everyone else in Ireland quotes privately.

## New Zealand and Singapore

Neither market publishes anything. Not one of the 11 New Zealand organisations or the 7 Singapore organisations in this directory shows a fee band, a starting price or a price filter.

For New Zealand, Australian bands are the closest usable reference, and several New Zealand speakers are booked through Australian bureaus anyway.

For Singapore, the British and American ladders are the better guide, because the bureaus serving Singapore are largely international.

In both markets, ask early. You will not find the answer on a website.

## What actually moves the price

Fee bands describe the speaker. These describe your event, and they are where a quote grows.

**Travel.** A speaker flying interstate loses a day. A speaker flying internationally loses three, and business class on a long-haul route can add more than a mid-range speaking fee.

**Customisation.** A talk adapted to your industry, your data and your people costs more than one delivered from the shelf. It is also the difference between an audience that listens and one that checks its phones.

**Format.** A keynote is one price. A keynote plus a breakout workshop, a panel appearance or a leadership dinner is several.

**Recording rights.** If you want to film it and use it afterwards, say so during the negotiation. Asking later is expensive.

**Timing.** Speakers price on scarcity. Conference season and the weeks either side of a financial year end are when good ones run out, and a booking made eight months ahead has more room to move than one made eight weeks ahead.

**Virtual delivery.** This is the biggest single discount available, and the American bureaus are the only ones who show it publicly. All American Speakers runs separate live and virtual filters, and Executive Speakers Bureau publishes both figures on each profile. The pattern is consistent: a speaker at USD 20,000 to 30,000 in the room may be USD 10,000 to 15,000 online. No travel, and far less of the speaker's day.

## Is your quote fair

Four questions worth asking before you sign.

**Does the fee include travel and accommodation, or are they extra?** Both are normal. What is not normal is finding out afterwards.

**Is the bureau adding a margin to the speaker's fee, or taking commission from the speaker?** These are materially different deals for you. Most bureaus earn from the speaker's side. Ask which it is, and note that ProSpeakers in Canada is the only bureau here that publishes the answer.

**What happens if you have to move or cancel?** Get the schedule of deposits and cancellation terms in writing before money changes hands.

**Are you comparing like with like?** A quote that includes a workshop, a book for every attendee and full recording rights is not comparable to a bare keynote, even if the headline number looks similar.

If a quote sits inside the bands above and the extras are itemised, it is a normal quote. If it sits well outside them, ask what is driving the difference. There may be a good reason, and it is fair to ask what it is.

## Where these numbers come from

Every figure here was read off the bureau's own website, not from an aggregator, a press release or a third-party estimate, and checked in September 2026.

We publish no fee we cannot point at. Where a market publishes nothing, this guide says so rather than filling the gap with an average.

Nobody pays to appear in this directory, and no fee here has been supplied by a bureau in exchange for a mention. If you run one of these organisations and your published pricing has changed, [tell us](/methodology/) and we will update it.

The full underlying data is free to use with attribution, as [JSON](/api/bureaus.json) or as [plain markdown](/llms.txt).

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Directory data as JSON: https://speakersbureaus.directory/api/bureaus.json
Method: https://speakersbureaus.directory/methodology/
Free to use and cite with attribution to speakersbureaus.directory.