Price Guides
How to Set Your Venue Pricing and Improve Enquiry Quality
Why Price Guides Matter: Use your pricing and availability to filter enquiries and attract opportunities that are right for your venue
Aside from your venue photos, pricing is one of the most important parts of your Canvas profile to get right.
Your pricing directly influences the value and type of enquiries you receive. The aim is not simply to generate as many enquiries as possible. We want to help you receive quality enquiries that your venue is genuinely willing and able to consider.
As a general rule, the higher you set your minimum price, the fewer enquiries you are likely to receive, but those enquiries should be better aligned with the level of business you want.
Your price guide should therefore act as a realistic starting point rather than a final quote.
A useful question to ask is:
“What is the minimum figure we’re realistically happy to entertain?”
Use that as the starting point for your pricing.
How Your Minimum Price Filters Enquiries
Canvas uses venue specific pricing logic based on the minimum pricing you provide.
If your minimum starting price is £10,000, for example, a client cannot submit an enquiry to your venue with a budget below that minimum.
This means:
- Your pricing is based on your venue, rather than a generic site wide budget range
- Clients are given clearer expectations before submitting an enquiry
- Clients cannot select a budget below your minimum starting price
- Your venue will not be suggested where the client's stated budget falls below your minimum
This is designed to reduce enquiries at price points you simply cannot accommodate.
Fewer Enquiries Can Mean Better Enquiries
It can be tempting to set a lower starting price to increase the number of enquiries you receive, but this can also result in more enquiries that your team is unlikely to progress.
Our approach is focused on quality rather than volume.
Set your minimum at a level where you would genuinely be willing to have a conversation with the client. This helps your team spend more time on realistic opportunities.
What Pricing Should I Add?
You should always provide a clear primary starting price using your venue hire rate or minimum spend.
You can also add day delegate pricing to provide clients with additional guidance.
Day delegate pricing is primarily informational and is not used as your main minimum pricing filter. You can, however, specify the minimum number of guests required for your day delegate rate, allowing clients to see a more realistic indication of the likely cost.
You can also add different pricing to individual rooms where appropriate. For example, a private dining room could have different pricing from your main venue.
Pricing Best Practice
- Set a realistic minimum venue hire or minimum spend
- Use your day rate as the main starting point where appropriate
- Treat hourly rates as supplementary rather than your primary pricing
- Use day delegate rates to provide additional information to clients
- Add the minimum number of guests where your day delegate pricing requires one
- Avoid using unusually low half day, hourly or small room prices as your main starting price if these do not represent the enquiries you want
- Review your pricing regularly as your venue's rates change
- ⚠️ Please always enter net prices excluding VAT.
Your Availability Helps Filter Enquiries Too
Pricing is not the only information we use to help improve enquiry quality.
Make sure your available days and times are accurate too.
When clients search or enquire, Canvas can make it clear when your venue is generally not available on particular days or at particular times.
If a client tries to enquire with you directly for a day or time you have marked as unavailable, they will be told about the restriction and given the opportunity not to submit the enquiry.
Keeping both your pricing and availability accurate helps reduce enquiries that are unlikely to work from the outset.
Don't Judge an Opportunity on Budget Alone
Although pricing helps us create better matched enquiries, we strongly recommend reviewing the entire brief and speaking to every client where possible.
Clients do not always want to disclose their full budget at the beginning of their search, and their initial figure may not necessarily represent what they are ultimately prepared to spend.
The same applies to dates. You may not have their first choice available, but they could have some flexibility.
This is particularly important with corporate clients. A single enquiry may be the beginning of a relationship with someone who books multiple events throughout the year or over several years.
Some of our best performing venues treat every relevant enquiry as an opportunity to start a conversation, rather than looking only at the initial budget or date.
The Key Takeaway
Your pricing should do two things:
Filter out enquiries you genuinely cannot accommodate, while leaving the door open to conversations that could turn into valuable business.
Accurate pricing, availability and profile information all work together to help us focus on what matters most: fewer poorly matched enquiries and more quality opportunities for your venue.
If you're unsure how to set your minimum pricing or would like us to review your profile with you, get in touch with the Canvas team.