Fee for giving a mental health/wellness workshop

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flerfmcgerf

Full Member
5+ Year Member
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I was recently invited to give a 1hr talk/workshop to a smallish (<20) group of professionals. I was debating whether or not to do it with all my time constraints as new assistant professor with lots of non-work commitments to people and other organizations. While debating, I suddenly thought.... "wait a minute... couldn't/shouldn't I be getting some money for this sort of thing?" So I went online and found some ideas and language for asking about speaker fees. I asked and they responded requesting my normal rate. So... anyone willing to share some things to think about when setting a rate. My gut reaction is something like $150-200 as that might be generally what my psychotherapy rate would be if I were doing clinical work in a private practice. It's not a high CoL area by any means. I personally sort of want to err on the lower side as I'm a bit more interested in making connections and having them share my info with others.
 
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A university I had given a talk at in the past has recently been offering an honorarium around $250 for virtual speakers.
Yeah, honoraria I've gotten for that type of stuff has typically been in the $250-500 range. For something like a full or half day workship, I would think it would be at least $1,500-$2,000.
 
To some extent it depends on the make-up of the participants and the setting. If it's, say, a regional or local professional or consultation group looking for a guest speaker at a meeting, err on the cheap side. If, on the other hand it's more of a staff training or thing that someone will use to increase clinical capacity, fulfill a required training, use in marketing, etc., charge more. If you decide to go cheap, make sure you still let them know of your higher "standard", and that you are giving a discount as you are looking to build contacts, referrals, consultation relationships, etc. Don't underestimate the time it takes to prepare an hour long presentation, especially if it's a one-off that you won't use again.
 
It all depends on the organization and their finances. You would be shocked at the costs for holding a conference. If it is a local professional organization, the honorium is usually 0-$200. For larger , national, organizations, they usually pay for your travel and give you a grand.

The real benefit to giving talks, is to market yourself.