Step 10 of 10

Your Balloon Pricing Results

Three numbers to enter into Fanfaire, and what a typical job earns once they're in.

Close — a few things worth a second look

Confidence 0%

31 inputs are still on our industry estimate — the amber dots.

Benchmarks below are for national average (add your state on step 1 to sharpen them), suburbs / mid-size city, work that reads as clean, consistent, professional.

Enter these numbers into Fanfaire

These are the only values Fanfaire asks for. Type them in exactly as shown — your pricing matrix does the rest.

Delivery fee per mile

$4.25

per one-way mile, outside your 6-mi free radius

Minimum for delivery

$150

smallest order you'll drive out for

Price per foot — your Fanfaire pricing matrix

Classic

$10.45

per foot

Moderate

$11.73

per foot

$$$

Premium

$12.93

per foot

$$$$

Luxury Organic

$15.51

per foot

Adjust

Change an input right here

These six move the numbers the most. Edit them here and everything below recalculates as you type — no need to walk back through the screens.

Your hourly rate$Helper hourly rate$Install time per job (min)Strike time per job (min)Average garland length (ft)Free delivery radius (mi)

Be honest about the clock

Time is the input people get wrong, and it's the one that decides the price. Count from the moment you start loading to the moment you're unloaded and cleaned up — inflation, prep, drive-side faffing, the venue making you wait. If your install time above is a guess rather than something you've actually timed, assume it's low: most decorators under-call it by a quarter or more.

Number 1

Price per foot, by tier

Set your margin

%Your build hour is worth $136/hr

Normal range

typical 15%–30%

In range

Most decor businesses that pay their owners a real wage land at 15–30% here. If it's just the two of you and you pay yourselves well, you've already taken a big share of the profit as wages — this percentage is what's left on top of that, and a lean number is fine as long as your hourly rate above is genuinely what you want to earn. Under 15% means one slow month or one blown time estimate wipes out the year.

This percentage is the margin, by definition: the advised price is your cost floor divided by (1 − margin), so the percent never moves when you change your crew rate. What moves is the dollars — a cheaper crew hour lowers both the floor and the advised price, so you take home fewer dollars per foot at the same percent.

Tier	Free-delivery $/ft	Cost floor $/ft	Enter this $/ft	Margin $/ft	Typical near you
$ Classic	$0.40	$7.31	$10.45	$3.13	Below typical typical $16.00–$26.00
$$ Moderate	$0.40	$8.21	$11.73	$3.52	Below typical typical $19.00–$29.00
$$$ Premium	$0.40	$9.05	$12.93	$3.88	Below typical typical $22.00–$32.00
$$$$ Luxury Organic	$0.40	$10.85	$15.51	$4.65	Below typical typical $26.00–$36.00

Your 6-mile free zone isn't free — nothing is billed for those trips, so that travel is buried in the per-foot price. It works out to $0.40/ft at a 25 ft job, and it's already inside the cost floor above (the other -$0.01/ft covers what the mileage fee still doesn't recover on longer hauls). Price per foot scales with the sale, so bigger jobs carry more of the drive — exactly what you want.

Number 2

Delivery fee per mile

Enter this in Fanfaire

$4.25/mi

Charged on one-way distance

Free radius

6 mi

No delivery fee inside this ring

Delivery minimum

Break-even is $150; we advise $150 so a trip is worth making, not just survivable. Raise it freely — below it, the client picks up.

Typical near you

typical $2.50–$6.00

In rangeRight where decorators in your area sit. Charge it without apologizing.

Driving costs you $1.39 a mile. Fanfaire bills the one-way distance only, so the rate is doubled to cover both directions: $1.39 × 2 = $4.25/mi. A minimum delivery fee of $17 keeps short paid trips from losing money.

Number 3

Average margin on a 25 ft job

Balloons only

25 ft of Luxury Organic, left behind

Job value $388

Balloons & materials: $71
Labor (build, fixed time, teardown): $189
Driving not covered by the fee: $10
Overhead share: $2
Total expenses: $271

$116

30% margin after all costs

+ 1 wooden chiara backdrop

Adds handling, teardown and the return trip

Job value $513

Balloons & materials: $71
Backdrops (cost per use): $4
Labor (build, fixed time, teardown): $203
Driving not covered by the fee: $26
Overhead share: $2
Total expenses: $306

$206

40% margin after all costs

+ 2 wooden chiara backdrops

Second one rides the same return trip

Job value $638

Balloons & materials: $71
Backdrops (cost per use): $7
Labor (build, fixed time, teardown): $218
Driving not covered by the fee: $26
Overhead share: $2
Total expenses: $324

$313

49% margin after all costs

Margin here is what's left after materials, labor (design at owner rate, install at $95/hr, strike at $20/hr), driving and overhead are all paid. Backdrops come home with you — the first one buys the return trip, the second rides along for free, which is why selling two beats selling one by more than double.