How to write a musician invoice

What goes on a musician invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a musician / dj document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Bill the performance as one line. The set is the product. It goes on as a single figure at the agreed fee rather than as an hourly rate.
2. Name what the fee covers. How long you play, how many sets, and the finish time. A fee with no finish time is an open invitation to play another hour for free.
3. Put equipment rental on its own line. PA, lighting, extra speakers and anything you sub-rent is a cost that moves independently of your fee.
4. Charge travel and accommodation separately. Mileage, parking, congestion charges and a room if the venue is far. Folded into the fee, a distant gig quietly pays less than a local one.
5. Take a deposit to hold the date. Until it clears, the date is not booked. Invoice it with a payment link at the point of agreement.
6. State the overtime rate in advance. What another thirty minutes costs, printed before anyone asks for it at midnight.

The lines a musician invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Musician / DJ. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $1,350 before tax.

How to write a musician invoice, step by step

1. Put the event, venue and set times at the top. Open the musician / dj invoice and write the date, the venue and the agreed set times. Whoever settles it may not have been in the room.
2. Bill the performance as one line. Playing time up to three hours, split into sets as agreed. The fee is for the performance, not for each set.
3. Add overtime only at the agreed rate. If the couple asked for another hour at midnight, it goes on at the rate in your booking terms, with the time it ran to.
4. Keep equipment and travel apart. Sound and lighting rental and travel with load-in are separate lines, so the fee for the music is never confused with the cost of the van.
5. Deduct the deposit, then send. Show the deposit that held the date as a minus line. Set 7 days, and if an agency booked you, agree beforehand whether you invoice gross or net.

Musician invoice example, filled in

A wedding reception with three hours booked and an extra hour played at the couple's request. The venue and set times are at the top, so whoever settles the invoice after the honeymoon can see what was agreed.

Subtotal $1,350, tax $135, total $1,485. The extra hour is the line that usually causes trouble, and here it carries the finish time and a note that it was requested. Sound and lighting at $350 and travel at $120 sit apart from the $700 performance fee.

The deposit is what makes the booking real

A date agreed by message is a date you will lose to a better offer, on either side. The deposit is what converts it into a booking.

Invoice it at the point of agreement, with a payment link so it can be settled from a phone at the kitchen table where these decisions get made. State what it covers and whether it is refundable, and state what happens if the event moves rather than cancels, because in live work the event moving is the common case.

Then invoice the balance before or on the night with the same reference, so nobody is trying to remember what was already paid while loading a van.

Overtime, and the hour nobody agreed to pay for

At half past eleven somebody will ask you to play for another half hour. If your overtime rate is not on the invoice, you are negotiating it in a loud room with someone who has been drinking.

Put the rate on the original document as a line with a zero quantity: additional performance time, per 30 minutes, at a stated price. It costs nothing when it is not used and settles the entire question when it is.

Bill it afterwards as its own line with the time. A named line reading "additional 30 minutes, 23:30 to 00:00" is a fact; a bigger total is a dispute.

Getting paid by a venue, an agency or a wedding couple

These are three different payers with three different habits and one invoice shape will not suit all of them.

A couple pays personally and usually promptly, but wants everything settled before the day. A venue pays on terms and needs an invoice that matches their booking reference. An agency deducts commission, so agree whether you invoice the gross fee and they deduct, or the net, and put it in writing before the gig rather than after.

Whichever it is, name the event and the date on the invoice. A finance office paying forty acts a month cannot match "performance fee" to anything.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how musicians and DJs price the work

Live work is priced per performance and everything else is negotiable around it: the length of the set, the travel, the equipment and how long you are on site before you play. The fee people quote is usually the fee for the playing and the cost is for the day.

Take a deposit that holds the date and make the cancellation terms match how the diary works. A date booked is a date refused to somebody else, and in a business where the product is one specific evening, that is the whole commercial risk.

Working out what to charge

Performance fees depend on the event, the lineup and the date, so a figure from a web page means little. The service price calculator builds a fee from your rehearsal, travel and playing time, and the break-even calculator shows how many gigs pay for the equipment.

Getting paid once it is sent

The deposit is what makes the booking real, so take it when the date is agreed and invoice the balance for payment before or on the day, not weeks after the room has emptied. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether a musician gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost musicians and DJs money

• No finish time in the fee. Then the last hour is free and everyone assumes it always was.
• No overtime rate on the original invoice. You end up negotiating it at midnight in a loud room.
• Travel folded into the fee. A gig two hours away quietly pays less than one down the road.
• Holding a date without a deposit. It is not a booking, whatever the messages say.
• Not agreeing gross or net with an agency. Commission gets deducted from a number you thought was yours.

Musician / DJ invoice questions

Free musician invoice template

The free musician invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 30 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for musicians and DJs

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to musicians and DJs rather than in general. The four marked links open with musician / dj already selected.