A meeting room's hourly price comes from three numbers: what the room costs you in a year, the hours you can realistically sell, and what similar rooms nearby charge. Get the hourly rate right and the half-day and day rates follow, as long as booking longer never costs more per hour.
Count the hours you can really sell
Don't divide your costs by every hour the room is open. Open 9am to 6pm on weekdays, it has about 2,250 hours a year, and you won't sell most of them. Use the occupancy your own bookings show; if you have none yet, start from 30% and correct it after three months.
Say the room costs you £9,000 a year: its share of rent and business rates, cleaning between meetings, the screen, the coffee. At 30% you sell 675 hours, so each one costs you about £13.30. That's your floor. If you want the room to clear £9,000 on top, you need to average about £27 an hour.
Read your local market
Check five or six rooms of a similar size within a short walk. For each, note the hourly, half-day and day prices, whether VAT is included, and what comes with the room.
Build the ladder: hour, half day, day
The rule everyone knows is that longer bookings should be cheaper per hour. The one people miss is that a half day must still cost more than the single hours it replaces. If five hours cost less than three single hours, anyone needing three hours books five, and the room is gone for the afternoon, blocking a paying booking.
A ladder that respects both, starting at £30 an hour:
- 1 hour: £30.
- Half day (4 hours): £100, or £25 an hour. Three single hours would be £90.
- Day (8 hours): £170, or £21.25 an hour.
Say how long your half day is and whether it's a fixed morning or afternoon or any block of that length.
Busy and quiet hours
Your last three months of bookings show which hours fill. Charge your standard rate there and a lower one where the room sits empty, such as before 10am and after 4pm. Think about who books then: counsellors, tutors, interview panels, small groups meeting after work.
Don't insist on a day's notice. Plenty of meeting rooms are booked the same morning, and if someone wants the room in an hour, let them book it.
Members and outsiders
A member's monthly fee should buy something, but not your best hours. Include a set number of room hours a month, or give members a lower rate in quiet hours, and charge them like anyone else beyond that. If free member hours take the busiest mornings, the outside customer paying full price finds the room taken, and goes elsewhere.
Showing VAT
First, check whether VAT applies at all. HMRC lists hiring out "a hall or other accommodation for meetings" as a licence to occupy land, normally exempt, but once you opt to tax the building your supplies are normally standard-rated (VAT Notice 742). Its examples also show that doing more than providing the room, such as arranging catering for a party, can take a hire outside the exemption.
If you charge VAT at the standard 20%, any price aimed at consumers, people booking for themselves rather than for a business, must give the total including taxes (Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 230). VAT-registered business customers reclaim it, so price lists aimed only at businesses commonly show prices before VAT, clearly labelled: £30 + VAT is £36. If both kinds of customer book, show both figures. With business customers, your terms and conditions do most of the work.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice; check the VAT position with your accountant.
Doing it with Tuora
Tuora gives your space its own booking page showing only the rooms really free. Prices can change with the day, the hour and the length of the booking, so an hour, a half day and a day each carry their own price, per room or per person. Booking rules set the shortest booking and the start times for each part of the day. Customers pay online when they book, in full or as a deposit, into your own Stripe account, and staff add phone bookings to the same calendar. More for coworking spaces.
Try it before talking to anyone: book a room at our demo coworking space and look at it from the back office.