booking balloons and what you charge?

Okay we typically have three tiers of parties that we do for balloons. I have always charged by the hour and if they want the balloons that take 4 balloons to twist a design like a penguin or monkey then the prices go up and it takes me a good 4 to 5 minutes to do blow up the balloons up and to twist them. The single balloons take no time. So, I do a base rate at each hour. How do you professionals do it? Do you say per balloon or each hour?

Do you find that you make more money doing line work or doing parties? And since the unpoppables show we have had more interest in the columns and things like arches. How do you guys price those things? I need help, I have a bridal show in two weeks and need to get my pricing up to par. HELP ME!!! Plus, I am still confused about what kind of pump to get. I want the mack daddy of pumps....

I haven't done much with the decor stuff yet, although I do have a pillar and arch kit and did one arch.... For that I would figure out how long it takes you on average to do it and make a price based on that.

As far as parties go, it's based more on the number of kids for me and if I'm running out of time, I only offer the kids the faster balloons... If we've got lots of time for the number of kids, they can have cooler stuff and/or the parents can have stuff too.

Thanks Perry, I am trying to rework everything as that the balloons are doing pretty good for us at the moment but there are so many ways that people want them done.

I saw that a guy on you tube offered like a named package with 20 complex balloons and 10 simpler balloons, and it got me to thinking that I should ask the group what is better.

I usually find out how many kids and then give them the per hour price based on how many kids that I know we can handle.

Also, what do you do about the kids popping the balloons? Inevitably it is going to happen. We just had a party and my hubby was replacing although I didn't want him too. He gave a simpler design though. We had extra time that they had paid for but I was thinking that this could go on forever. We need a limit. I prefer NO REFILLS on BALLOONS. But, he is a softy. What do you do?

It depends on how many kids are there... if I'm pretty sure that I'll have time, I will do one repair or retwist on something that came undone. If I know I won't have time, I tell them "Balloons are like vitamins, you only get one a day!"

It could easily go on forever... it sometimes does.

My husband does a lot of line work as well as parties. He charges $100/hr for the first 2 hours and $75/hr after that. $575/7-8 hr. day. We might tweak it a little at some point during the season, but that's what we came up with. He has special pricing for birthday parties. He charges for the size of the party based on the number of kids. HTH