Five ways lifestyle concierge firms charge
This guide is about lifestyle and luxury concierge firms that handle dining, travel, events, gifting and household requests for private clients. It is not about concierge medicine, which uses the same words for a very different business.
Few firms use only one model. Most combine a recurring fee that covers the relationship with one or two ways of charging for work that falls outside it.
- Retainer or membership: a fixed monthly or annual fee, often in tiers, covering an agreed scope of requests.
- Hourly: time billed for projects or for clients without a membership, usually in set increments.
- Per request: a flat fee for a defined task, such as a restaurant booking, a trip plan or a gift sourced and delivered.
- Commission or markup: income from vendors on bookings, or a percentage added to the vendor’s cost when you pass it on.
- Surcharges: rush, after-hours, holiday and out-of-scope fees that protect your team’s time.
Retainers and membership tiers
A membership is the most common anchor for an ongoing relationship. It gives you predictable revenue, lets you plan staffing, and encourages clients to bring you everything rather than only the hard requests. It also makes the relationship feel personal: the client has their lifestyle manager, not a booking service.
The risk is unlimited scope. Define what a tier includes in terms you can measure: requests per month or a fair-use guide, response hours, whether household and vendor management are included, and how many family members are covered. Write down what happens when a member regularly exceeds their tier, such as a conversation about moving up or hourly billing for the excess.
Hourly and per-request pricing
Hourly pricing suits projects with an uncertain shape, such as planning a house move, organizing a large event or sorting out a home renovation’s vendors. It is fair to both sides, but clients can find it hard to predict, and it rewards slow work. If you bill hourly, track time honestly and send a short summary of what each block of time achieved.
Per-request pricing suits occasional clients and well-defined tasks. It is easy to understand and easy to sell to someone trying you out. Keep the menu short and the definitions tight, so a “dinner reservation” doesn’t quietly become a week of negotiation for a sold-out table. Many firms use per-request or hourly pricing as the entry point and move regular clients onto a membership.
Commissions, markups and pass-through costs
Vendor costs are usually passed through to the client, either at cost or with a markup. Separately, some vendors pay commission to the concierge who brought the booking. Both are legitimate. Problems start when the client doesn’t know which applies, so state your approach in your service agreement and on your statements.
Use one simple formula for markups: price to the member equals vendor cost multiplied by one plus your markup percentage. On a hypothetical vendor cost of $1,000 with a 10% markup, the member pays $1,100. Record the commission you expect on each booking so you can check it actually arrives; unreconciled commission is one of the easiest places for a concierge business to lose money.
- Ask for deposits before you commit to large bookings, so you never front a villa or a jet on your own card.
- Keep cards on file with written authorization and a spending limit that needs approval above it.
- Card processing fees are a real cost; check card network and local rules before you pass them on.
Rush, after-hours and out-of-scope fees
Surcharges are less about income than about protecting your team. A same-day request that needs three people for an afternoon costs you far more than the same request with a week’s notice. A modest rush fee, a defined after-hours window and a holiday rate set expectations without saying no.
Decide whether surcharges apply to every tier or whether your top tier includes them. Including them is often what makes the top tier worth its price to a client who lives on short notice.
Work out your break-even fee
The method below works for any firm. Replace the inputs with your own numbers. The figures in the table are hypothetical, chosen only to make the arithmetic easy to follow; they are not market rates or recommendations.
Two cautions. Commission income is uncertain, so be conservative or leave it out the first year. And members per manager is the number that matters most: be honest about how many clients one person can serve to the standard you promise.
| Line | Formula | Hypothetical value |
|---|---|---|
| A. Lifestyle managers | Input | 2 |
| B. Fully loaded cost per manager per year | Input (salary, payroll taxes, benefits) | $90,000 |
| C. Overheads per year | Input (software, insurance, office, marketing, accounting) | $60,000 |
| D. Total annual cost | A × B + C | $240,000 |
| E. Members the team can serve well | Input (here 25 per manager) | 50 |
| F. Net commission kept per year | Input (be conservative) | $30,000 |
| G. Break-even fee per member per year | (D − F) ÷ E | $4,200 (about $350 a month) |
| H. Target margin | Input | 25% |
| I. Revenue needed | D ÷ (1 − H) | $320,000 |
| J. Average fee per member per year | (I − F) ÷ E | $5,800 (about $483 a month) |
| K. Billable hours per year | Input (here 1,200 per manager) | 2,400 |
| L. Equivalent hourly rate | I ÷ K | about $133 |
A sample three-tier structure
Tiers work best when each one reflects a real difference in workload. Give each tier a weight for how much work a typical member creates, then share the fee income you need (I minus F above) across your expected mix of members. In the hypothetical example, a mix of 20 Essential, 22 Signature and 8 Private office members gives 96 weighted units, and $290,000 divided by 96 is about $3,021 per unit per year, or roughly $252 a month.
The monthly figures in the table come from that example and are rounded, which leaves the firm slightly short of its target. They show the method, not what the market pays. Your own numbers will differ.
| Tier | Who it suits | Typical scope | Weight | Monthly fee in the example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | Individuals with occasional dining, travel and gifting needs | A fair-use number of requests, business-hours response, rush fees apply | 1 | $250 |
| Signature | Busy professionals and couples who use the service weekly | More requests, extended hours, one named lifestyle manager | 2 | $500 |
| Private office | Families with several homes, staff and frequent travel | Household and vendor management, family members covered, rush fees included | 4 | $1,000 |
Put it in writing and bill it consistently
Whatever you choose, write it into your service agreement: the tier and fee, what is in and out of scope, hourly and rush rates, how vendor costs, markups and commissions are handled, deposits, card authorization and spending limits. Then make every statement match the agreement line by line. A member who can read their bill and recognize every charge is a member who renews.
Review your numbers every six months. If members per manager has crept up and response times have slipped, your pricing is telling you to raise fees, tighten scope or hire. MyRolodex’s billing handles membership dues by tier, pass-through vendor costs at cost or with a markup, service fees, deposits and one statement per member or family, and its reporting shows workload and commission by vendor.