Price an AI workshop from your own hours, not from an average. Run it free if you have no email list, charge per head for a public session, charge a flat fee for a team, and count every unpaid hour around the session before you pick the number.
I haven't published a standard workshop price, so I'm not going to invent one or quote you an "industry rate". What I can give you is the method, plus the pricing mistake that cost me a year.
Should my first AI workshop be free or paid?
Free, if you have no email list. Free rooms fill fast, they build the list, and they give you more goodwill to sell with at the end. My first workshop had two people in it. I started with 158 followers, so I wasn't exactly turning people away.
Once you have an audience of roughly 10,000 followers, a low ticket price works, and paying even a small amount lifts your show-up rate. That's my rule from running these for a year, not a law. The full system for filling the room and closing it is in how I get clients with AI workshops.
If you want the first paid run without a big audience, there's another route from my ranked list: run the first session free for a group you're already in, film it, collect testimonials, then charge the second time.
Per head or flat fee?
It depends on who's paying. A person paying from their own pocket and a business paying from a training budget are different buyers. In my list of ways to make money with AI I say you can price a workshop two ways, and the team fee is where the bigger money is, because the business covers it.
- Business owners, open to the public: charge per head. Each person decides for themselves.
- One company's team: charge a flat fee. The business pays out of its training budget.
- You have no list yet: run it free for the first couple of runs. It builds the list and the proof.
Everything in that list is my published advice. None of it comes with a dollar figure, because the figure depends on the next section.
How do you work out your number?
Add up every hour the workshop costs you, not just the hour you're live. Then price above that, not below it.
Here's my own mistake. I started consulting at $280 for a 90-minute call. It wasn't profitable. I raised it to $400 and it still wasn't profitable. My business advisor pushed me to $1,200, I didn't believe anyone would pay it, and someone booked the next week. Nothing about the offer had changed. I wrote that up in how to start a one-person business with AI, including my warning that those fees are historical examples, not a rate for your business.
The 90-minute call is now A$3,000 plus GST, per my consulting page. The first version failed because the fee didn't cover the pile of extras I'd promised in the moment. Raising the price fixed some of it. The rest was handing the unpaid parts to Claude.
A workshop has the same hidden hours:
- Before: the topic, the slides, and the sales page with its payment link.
- Around: confirmation and reminder emails, replay.
- After: follow-up, feedback, the offer at the end.
My workshop sales page, emails and reminders took an afternoon to build with Claude, and the second run reuses them. That drops the cost of every run after the first. It's why I'd price the first one on the full cost and the next ones on the reduced cost, rather than the other way round.
What should the price include?
The session, and nothing you haven't written down. The $280 calls went wrong on extras I'd promised on the spot. Decide before you sell what's in and what's out, and put it on the sales page.
If you want to add value, add a bonus, not a discount. A bonus beat a discount for me every time over 12 months of testing, and that was my advice from the recording, not a universal result. Pre-built Claude skills or a short pre-recorded mini training work because they add value without creating more work for you. Your price holds.
Do this in 15 minutes
- Write down the four numbers: prep hours, setup hours (page and emails), live hours, follow-up hours.
- Multiply the total by the hourly rate you'd accept for your time. That's your floor.
- Decide the buyer: one person paying for themselves, or a business paying for a team.
- For a public session, divide the floor by the seats you'd be happy with, then round up. For a team, quote the floor plus the extra value to the business.
- Write the "not included" line next to the price.
If the number feels uncomfortable, that's not automatically wrong. My lesson was to charge more than felt comfortable, and one client at $1,200 beat chasing three at $400.
Quick answers
When can I put my price up?
When you have clients and testimonials to point to. For my one-to-one AI setup sessions I suggest starting at a couple of hundred dollars and raising the price as clients and testimonials come in.
How many people do I need for a workshop?
Twenty is a great first room, and two is still worth running. Early workshops are about reps and building the list, not room size.
What do I sell at the end of a paid workshop?
One clear next step. I use a self-identifier close: name the two or three kinds of people in the room, warmly and honestly, and invite the ones who need more help to take that step.
Where to bring your draft price
I run Wright Mode, so I have an obvious interest in you getting paid for this. Pricing is easier to fix with a second pair of eyes than alone at midnight. Inside the membership there's a workshop pathway in the classroom, plus fortnightly Co-Work + Q&A where you can bring your draft offer and price and get a second opinion.
