How do you price a church building?
It sounds straightforward until you actually try to answer it. The church down the road might charge £50 an hour. A nearby community hall might charge £500 a day. A smaller hotel might charge several thousand. None of those figures necessarily tells you what your building is worth.
Pricing venues is now a significant part of my work. I look at spaces across very different markets, benchmark them against comparable venues and use our commercial pricing model to test what they could realistically achieve. One thing I’ve learnt is that churches can be particularly nervous about getting this number wrong.
I understand why. Increasing your prices can feel like putting existing income at risk.
I remember the first moment I encountered this as a venue manager at St Mary’s. When I took over venue hire, a full day cost £2,950. My research suggested that, with the right offer, the building could eventually command closer to £10,000. But to get there, we knew we needed to change the positioning too. We developed new branding and a new website, made the venue easier to buy and became much clearer about what we were offering. Then we made our first significant price increase, from £2,950 to £4,950.
The results were fascinating. Enquiries fell by around 30%, but the number of bookings remained broadly similar and, most encouragingly, income increased by 34%. For me, it was an early demonstration of what can happen when positioning, offer, and pricing work together. You can read more about what happened at St Mary’s in the full case study.
So, if you’re trying to work out what your church should charge, these are the five things I would look at.
1. Start with what you actually have
Before looking at prices, assess the building itself. Capacity matters, but so do character, location, facilities and the experience you can offer. A beautiful historic church with limited facilities may command considerably more than a well-equipped but ordinary hall because, for some events, the setting itself is part of what the customer is buying.
Look at your space through an event organiser’s eyes:
- How many people can it safely accommodate for the events you’re targeting?
- What furniture, AV and facilities are included?
- Is it accessible and easy to reach?
- What condition is it in?
- What makes holding an event there easier or more attractive?
The aim is to understand the offer you actually have, rather than starting with what you’ve historically charged.
2. Work out what it costs you
Before deciding what to charge, understand what it costs to provide the space. Staffing, cleaning, heating and utilities can quickly change whether a booking is financially worthwhile, particularly in a large or historic building.
Calculate the additional costs created by a typical booking:
- staffing and security
- cleaning
- heating and utilities
- consumables
- payment charges
- any other costs you incur specifically because the event is taking place
If it costs £400 to open and operate the building for an event, a £450 booking brings in income but very little useful return. Knowing your costs gives you a floor beneath which the booking stops making commercial sense.
3. Understand who you’re pricing for
Someone organising a child’s fifth birthday has a very different budget from a company planning its annual training day. Before setting the price, think about the events your space suits, who organises them, what they would normally expect to spend, and which alternatives they would consider.
Your competitors aren’t necessarily other churches. A corporate customer may also consider hotels and conference venues, while a parent might compare you with community halls and leisure centres. Benchmark your space against the alternatives your customer is actually considering.
4. Research what the market is charging
Once you understand the space and customer, find closely comparable venues. I look for similarities in location, capacity, facilities, quality and event type, then compare the hire fee, hire period, VAT, mandatory charges and what is actually included.
Don’t take advertised prices at face value. Someone asking £10,000 doesn’t mean anybody is paying it. Look for recent reviews, event photographs, and other signs that the venue regularly attracts the type of bookings you want.
A small number of strong comparators will tell you far more than averaging every church hall within five miles. This is also why I think many churches end up underpricing their venue hire: they start with what another church charges rather than establishing the commercial value of their own offer.
5. Build a pricing structure, not just a price
You now need to turn that research into something that reflects how people will actually use the building. Not every customer or event needs to be charged in exactly the same way.
Depending on your market, that might include:
- hourly, half-day and full-day rates
- weekday and weekend pricing
- peak and off-peak rates
- discounts for regular or repeat bookings
- separate charity or community rates
- different rates for concerts and recitals
- wedding pricing that reflects the additional administration involved
- separate filming rates
You don’t need all of these. You need the structure that makes sense for your building, your customers and the way they buy.
Then watch what happens
Once your pricing is live, review it. Look at enquiries, conversion, occupancy, customer mix and overall income. Being permanently booked can be just as useful a pricing signal as having an empty diary.
There isn’t a universal answer to what a church should charge. But there is a process for getting much closer to the right number, based on the building, the costs, the customer and the market rather than simply choosing a figure that feels comfortable.
If you’d like an experienced second pair of eyes on your pricing, we already assess this through our Strategic Venue Audits and wider venue-hire work. Or, if you’re not sure what you need yet, you can book a free 30-minute consultation and talk it through with us.