Speaker bureaus and speaking agencies in United States

Five of the eighteen here. All American Speakers filters its search by budget band, separately for live and virtual events. Executive Speakers Bureau shows a fee range on every speaker profile, again splitting live and virtual. Gotham Artists publishes a fee guide plus a curated list of speakers at $15,000 and under. Eagles Talent filters by in-person fee band, and The Speaker Exchange Agency filters from an under $5,000 band.

Everyone else quotes on request.

The budget bands that All American Speakers uses give the clearest public picture: $5,000 to $10,000, $10,000 to $20,000, $20,000 to $30,000, $30,000 to $50,000, and $50,000 to $100,000, with more above that.

Virtual sessions run materially cheaper. Executive Speakers Bureau lists them separately, and a speaker at $20,000 to $30,000 in the room may be $10,000 to $15,000 online.

Yes, and in a country this size it's worth trying. Eagles Talent lets you filter by the state the speaker lives in. With any other bureau, tell them where the event is and ask for a shortlist of people who won't need a long flight.

Wherever you search, ask whether travel is in the quote or added on top. A cross-country flight and a hotel night can add a lot to the total.

Yes, as a directory. The NSA is the US industry body, based in Minneapolis and nearly fifty years old. It isn't a booking agency, so you'll contact the speaker yourself.

Members who complete an eSpeakers profile appear automatically in its Find-a-Speaker directory, which event organisers do search. Look out for CSP after a name. That's the Certified Speaking Professional designation the NSA awards, and it's the recognised credential in the American market.

It's infrastructure rather than a bureau. Founded in 1999, eSpeakers runs the member directories for both the National Speakers Association in the US and the Professional Speaking Association in the UK and Ireland.

It syndicates one speaker profile out to many directory and bureau sites. That's why you can find the same person in several places, sometimes on sites they never signed up to one by one. If it matters who you deal with, ask who actually handles the speaker's bookings.

No, and that sets it apart. Harry Walker and Gotham Artists are New York, but Executive Speakers Bureau is in Memphis, Premiere is in Franklin, Tennessee, BigSpeak is in Santa Barbara, Speakers.com is in Annapolis, American Program Bureau is in Boston and the NSA is in Minneapolis.

American Program Bureau alone runs offices across six cities. Compare that with the UK, where nearly everything is in London.

A bureau represents many speakers non-exclusively and sells them to event organisers. Most American speakers sit on several rosters at once, so you can often get the same name from more than one bureau.

The Harry Walker Agency works the other way. It represents its people exclusively, which is how it holds a roster of former heads of state and Nobel laureates. If you want one of those names, Harry Walker is who you'll be dealing with.

Yes, and the American bureaus are the only ones in this directory that show it publicly. All American Speakers runs separate live and virtual budget filters, and Executive Speakers Bureau publishes both figures on each profile.

The pattern is consistent: virtual sits well below the in-room fee, because there's no travel and less of the speaker's day is gone.

American Program Bureau is the clearest fit. Its site breaks out higher education and community and nonprofit as distinct markets, and it's been serving the college circuit for much of its sixty years.

Gotham Artists also names college and nonprofit events alongside corporate work.

Six to twelve months for a conference keynote, and a year or more for a high-profile name. American conference season is crowded and the recognisable people commit early.

The depth of the market helps at short notice more than anywhere else in this directory. There are simply more people available.

Yes. The large ones all book internationally. Leading Authorities is the interesting case: it runs both US and UK operations, and routes visitors outside the US to its UK site.

For any cross-border booking, check which currency the quote is in and what travel it covers. A long-haul flight, and sometimes a visa, adds time as well as cost, so start early.

Email us. Every organisation here was checked on its own website on the date at the bottom of this page.

The US market is the biggest in this directory and this is the first pass at it, so if we've missed a bureau you rate, tell us. Nobody pays to appear, and nobody can pay to be removed or moved up. See how we verify.