Understanding Your Floral Design Labor Charge and Labor Cost for Weddings & Events

Gross Profit Margin (GPM) helps florists quickly see whether their pricing is actually working. This is especially critical when pricing custom floral designs for weddings and events. However, if your Gross Profit Margin does not include your labor charge and labor cost for designing a floral arrangement, an important question remains: What exactly are you missing?

A Commonly Overlooked Question in Floral Pricing - What Are You Really Charging Per Hour for Design Labor?

How do you know whether you are charging a client $5, $25, $50, or $100 per hour for design labor? This is one of the most often overlooked aspects of floral pricing. Many florists charge a Retail Floral Design Fee (using the industry standard pricing formula) without ever stopping to ask:

Does my Retail Floral Design Fee actually cover the time and cost it takes to design this arrangement or installation? Am I generating a profit on my design labor charge? And, am I very efficient (time wise) at designing a particular arrangement?

First, you should determine what you are truly charging a client per hour to design each specific arrangement.

What Is the Retail Floral Design Fee?

The Retail Floral Design Fee is the dollar amount you charge your customer for designing an arrangement — regardless of how long it takes or how much you pay your designer or yourself.

On paper, your numbers may look great. You might even show a strong Gross Profit Margin when design labor is NOT included. But that does not necessarily mean your design labor pricing is healthy — or that you are designing arrangements efficiently.

The real question is: Is your Retail Floral Design Fee and your actual design labor time appropriate?

To be both profitable and competitive, your Retail Floral Design Fee should not be too high or too low, and your design labor time should be appropiate and not longer than necessary.

This is where Floral Math Works helps bring clarity.

Why Design Labor Varies

Design labor is not fixed. The time required to design a bridal bouquet, ceremony installation, or large-scale arrangement can vary based on:

• Style and complexity

• Flower types

• Mechanics and structure

• Experience of the designer

Labor charges should be higher for larger and more complex arrangements. As one famous artist once said: “I am not asking this price for a brief amount of work. I ask it for the knowledge and expertise gained during the efforts of my lifetime.”

Labor charges can and should be higher for more experienced and skilled designers. True skill is often measured by years of experience, not simply by how long it takes to complete an arrangement.

However, without measuring your labor charges and labor time (from time to time), it's easy to overestimate profitability.

How Floral Math Works Helps

The Wedding & Event Pricing Tool helps you evaluate:

• Your labor charges

• Your labor time

• Your actual labor cost

So you can protect both profitability and efficiency.

Billable Hourly Labor Rate vs. Actual Hourly Labor Rate

Floral Math Works uses two distinct hourly labor numbers, and understanding the difference is critical.

Billable Hourly Labor Rate

This is the hourly rate you charge your customer for floral design labor for a particular arrangement.

Actual Hourly Labor Cost

This is the hourly rate you actually pay your florist, designer, freelancer — or yourself — to design an arrangement.

Your Billable Hourly Labor Rate should always be higher than your Actual Hourly Labor Cost — typically 2 to 3 times higher.

Examples:

• Pay a designer (labor cost) $25/hour → Billable rate (charging clients) $50 to $75/hour

• Pay a freelancer (labor cost) $50/hour → Billable rate (charging clients) $100 to $150/hour

• Billable Hourly Labor Rate - (minus) Actual Hourly Labor Cost = Labor Profit

This difference between your billable hourly labor rate and your actaul hourly labor cost is not simply profit markup (especially for weddings and events). Your labor profit covers your non-billable time such as consultations, mood boards, revisions, and general business overhead — all of which are necessary to keep your business sustainable.

How Floral Math Works Calculates Estimated Labor Hours

Floral Math Works uses your Billable Hourly Labor Rate to estimate how much design time is built into your pricing.

Estimated Labor Hours =Total Event Retail Floral Design Fee ÷ Billable Hourly Labor Rate

You will find the following values at the bottom of the Floral & Financial Summary form in the Wedding & Event Pricing Tool:

• Total Event Retail Floral Design Fee

• Estimated Labor Hours

• Billable Hourly Labor Rate

How to Check Your Billable Hourly Labor Rate for an Arrangement

1. Go to the Wedding & Event Pricing Tool

2. Go to the Events Product form and choose one floral product (for example, a bridal bouquet)

3. Go to the Floral & Financial Summary form and enter a Billable Hourly Labor Rate (start around $50/hour).

4. Observe the Estimated Labor Hours and adjust your Billable Hourly Labor Rate until the Estimated Labor Hours match the actual time it takes to design that product

Once your Estimated Labor Hours equals your real-world design time, this Billable Hourly Labor Rate is what you are actually charging the customer per hour for that particular design. You can now clearly see whether your Billable Hourly Labor Rate and your Estimated Labor Hours makes sense.

What Your Results Are Telling You

• If the Billable Hourly Labor Rate is less than $50/hour or less than 2× your Actual Hourly Labor Cost:

  • Your Estimated Labor Hours may be too long, improve efficiency and reduce design time.

  • Your Estimated Labor Hours seem appropriate, consider increasing your Retail Floral Design Percentage Fee.

• If the Billable Hourly Labor Rate is $50–$100/hour or 2×–3× your Actual Hourly Labor Cost:

  • You are working efficiently and may have flexibility to reduce your Retail Design Fee to be more competitive.

There are no industry-standard labor times — every florist’s style, complexity, and process are different. The goal is to develop your own benchmarks based on real data.

Analyze Profitability by Product

Tracking labor also helps identify which floral products:

• Generate strong profit with minimal labor

• Require significant time for less profit

This insight allows you to adjust pricing, redesign offerings, and set expectations with clients more confidently.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your floral design labor charge and labor time helps you determine:

• How time-efficient you are when designing specific arrangements

• Whether your labor charge is truly appropriate

When you know:

• How long designs really take

• What you are actually charging per hour

• What that design time truly costs

• How labor impacts profit

You will gain confidence and clarity in pricing your arrangements, explaining pricing to clients, and building a more sustainable floral business.

That is exactly what Floral Math Works is designed to help you do.

Pete

Creator of Floral Math Works