From Event Pricing to a Household Retainer

Imagine a private chef named Isolde Baptiste who cooks dinner parties in her clients’ homes. She charges $175 a guest, with the groceries on top, and she brings her own servers. Her busiest clients are the Lowthers. Mrs. Lowther is a surgeon, and her husband chairs two charity boards. Last year, Isolde cooked 22 dinners in their house, most of them for 10 or 12 guests.

Each dinner starts the same way. Mrs. Lowther emails a date, and Isolde checks her calendar and sends a quote. Mrs. Lowther confirms the number of guests by the Thursday before.

In October, Isolde decides to offer the Lowthers a retainer. She writes the email late one night, after an event. “I’d love to move you to a monthly retainer,” she writes. “Last year you spent about $42,000 with me. At $3,400 a month, you’d save about $1,500, and it covers two dinners a month.”

Mrs. Lowther replies the next morning. “We may host less next year,” she writes. “If we have 18 dinners, that’s more than $2,200 a dinner. Let’s keep paying for the ones we have.”

In November, Mrs. Lowther emails about the Saturday before Christmas. Another household booked Isolde for that evening in September. Isolde gives Mrs. Lowther the name of a chef she trusts, and he cooks the Lowthers’ Christmas dinner. In January, Mrs. Lowther asks him to keep two Saturdays a month for her.

Suppose instead that Isolde offers the retainer in person. After a dinner in October, she asks Mrs. Lowther for 20 minutes the next week. She starts with a question. “Which evenings next year matter most to you?” Mrs. Lowther names her husband’s 60th birthday in March and the Saturday before Christmas. Most months, she also hosts a dinner for each of his boards.

“Then here’s what I’d suggest,” Isolde says. “I keep two Saturdays a month for you, all year, before anyone else can book them. You send me the date and the number of guests, up to 14. I plan the menu, do a tasting when it’s new, bring the servers, and leave the kitchen clean. It’s $4,000 a month, with the groceries and the wine on top.” Mrs. Lowther asks about the 60th, which will be larger. “That one would have its own fee, once you know the numbers,” Isolde says.

“And the Saturday before Christmas?” Mrs. Lowther asks. “That one’s yours already,” Isolde says. Mrs. Lowther asks what happens in a month when they host only once. “Most months last year, you hosted twice, and the fee is set from that year,” Isolde says. “A quiet month is already in it.” Mrs. Lowther signs in November. In December, another household asks Isolde for the Saturday before Christmas, and it is already the Lowthers’.

Isolde cooked the same dinners both times. In the first version, she offered the retainer as a cheaper way to buy the same dinners. So Mrs. Lowther worked out the price of each dinner. She found that it might cost more, and she kept buying one evening at a time. Her Saturday went to the household that asked first. In the second version, Isolde talked about the Lowthers’ year. The fee was what that year cost, and Mrs. Lowther decided whether she wanted that year.

So when a household has you cook most months, offer it a retainer. Talk about its year, not about what the retainer costs. Here is what a retainer holds for a dinner-party chef, and what three chefs do about dates, terms, and larger parties.

A household that hosts most months needs its evenings kept

Here is the course’s view of what paying by the event does to a household that hosts often. Each dinner is a new booking. The household asks for a date, the chef checks whether it is free, and a quote comes back. So the evening goes to whichever household asks first, even when it matters most to this one.

Each quote also puts the price of one evening in front of the household. What you charge by decides what the client weighs, so a household that pays by the dinner weighs each dinner.

A party that happens once has an end, so it is fairly priced as one event. A household that hosts most months has a routine instead. A routine that goes on until the client stops is sold by the month.

A household retainer holds the evenings and the planning for one fee

A retainer is one fee each month, the same every month, for as long as the household keeps it. For a chef who cooks dinner parties, the course suggests that a retainer holds these parts:

The evenings you agree on each month are kept for the household before anyone else can book them. The household gives you each date with the notice you ask for.
Each dinner is for up to a number of guests you choose, such as 14. A larger dinner needs more servers and more planning.
The planning is inside the fee. That covers the menu, a tasting when the menu is new, the servers, and the cleanup.
The groceries, the wine, and any rentals go on the monthly bill at what they cost you. They change with every menu, and the fee stays the same.
A larger party, such as a birthday for 60, gets its own fee before you start planning it.
The retainer ends with a month’s notice from either side. That gives you time to offer the evenings to another household.

Write all of it down, with what the retainer leaves out, before the first month. Here is the reason. A household that asks for a lunch or a party for 40 should already know whether the fee covers it.

A chef in Kenya had his Christmas evening booked a year ahead

Michael James has been a private chef in Kenya for four years. In December 2024, Kenya’s Daily Nation reported that private chefs there were turning down work for the festive season. Some families had booked their chefs a year ahead.

James was one of those chefs. “My booking for this Christmas day was filled last year,” he said. The client he cooked for the year before told him, “we do it again next year at the same time.” By November, the article says, the calendars of most private chefs were full. “Our schedules get tight, and I can’t take multiple jobs in a day,” James said.

He also named the hardest part of his work. “The biggest problem is helping some clients understand why private chefs charge what they do,” he said. “Chefs don’t just cook, it’s always about creating an intimate dining experience for the client and their guests.” His prices, the article says, start from a figure for five people, with the shopping on top.

James’s client kept one evening by booking it a year ahead. A household that hosts most months has the same worry about every evening it cares about. A retainer keeps those evenings for it. When James explains his price, he talks about the evening the client and the guests will have, not the cooking.

A San Francisco chef sends his prices and his terms before he cooks

Robert Hernandez is the executive chef at Bar Jabroni, in the Lower Haight in San Francisco. He also cooks private dinners in family homes, for venture capitalists and executives at Meta and AT&T. In 2024, The San Francisco Standard reported how he works with those families.

Before he cooks for a new household, he sends a price list and his “regulations.” They say, for example, how many servers he will need for the evening. In his words, “You’re paying me for a service.”

His terms also cover the kitchen he expects to find. Hernandez turned down a couple he had cooked for once before, because the kitchen was dirty when he arrived. “They weren’t prepared for me and expected me to clean the kitchen before I started,” he said.

Hernandez’s households know the price and the terms before the first evening, so nobody has to talk about money on the night. A retainer needs the same thing, written once for the whole arrangement. The household knows what the fee holds, what is billed at cost, and what gets its own fee.

A San Diego chef gave a regular client’s large party one price a head

Andres Hinojosa is a personal chef in San Diego who hosts The Chefpreneur Podcast. In the notes for one episode in 2020, he described how he priced a party for a client he already cooked for. “I don’t normally advertise getting large events as a Personal Chef, but a regular client requested to have us for her brother’s birthday,” he wrote. His team for the evening was five people.

“It is the experience that you are selling,” he wrote. “Not just the food but everything.” His advice is not to list the travel and the extra staff separately. He puts everything into one price a head, “as this may seem that they got a good deal from you.” His notes end with a happy client and guests who said how amazing the event was.

Measured against this lesson, Hinojosa’s single price, with nothing listed beside it, fits. His reason for it does not. Here is the course’s view. A client who thinks of your price as a good deal checks the next price the same way. That is what Mrs. Lowther did with Isolde’s saving. So when a household on a retainer plans a party larger than the retainer covers, give it one fee for the evening. Say what the evening will be, and not what the client saves.

Describe the household’s year before you say the fee

The question to start with is which evenings next year matter most to the household. Then name those evenings to the household, and say how each one will go. Isolde did that with the Saturday before Christmas. Tell the client what the work will be like for them before the list and the fee. Then they are not setting your list beside another chef’s list.

Then say what the retainer holds in a sentence or two, and give the fee once. Make it a round figure you meant, with the groceries on top, and stop.

Leave out last year’s total, any saving, and what the fee works out to for each dinner. Here is the course’s reason. A fee offered as a saving tells the household that the retainer is the old dinners with money off. Besides, a saving makes each part look cheaper. The household then counts dinners to check the saving, as Mrs. Lowther did. A fee said on its own works differently, because price creates belief. A client takes your price as a sign of how good your work is. So the fee tells the household what you think a year of its dinners is worth.

Why offering the retainer to every household goes wrong

Imagine a private chef named Corentin Ravel who cooks dinner parties for $160 a guest. In January, he decides that retainers are the better way to work. He offers every household he cooks for a retainer of one evening a month, at $1,800.

The Ellwoods host twice a year, at Easter and for Mr. Ellwood’s birthday in September. Mrs. Ellwood says yes, because she likes Corentin and does not want to lose him. By May, the Ellwoods have paid $9,000 for one dinner. In June, Mrs. Ellwood gives notice. In September, she books a chef who charges by the dinner. She tells a friend, “He charges you whether you have people over or not.”

Corentin was right that a retainer suits a household that hosts often. His mistake was offering it to a household that hosts twice a year. The Ellwoods paid for evenings they never used. So the fee looked to them like a charge for nothing, and Mrs. Ellwood told a friend so.

The version that works starts with last year’s bookings. Corentin offers the retainer only to the households that booked him in most months. The Ellwoods keep paying by the dinner. When Mrs. Ellwood emails about Easter, Corentin quotes it at $160 a guest, as before, and she books him for September too.

A monthly fee is not charging for dinners that do not happen

Many chefs have only ever been paid for the evenings they cooked. A fee that arrives in a month with one dinner can feel like charging for nothing. That is what Mrs. Ellwood told her friend.

The fee is set from the year the household has already had with you. So a quiet month is in it from the start, as Isolde told Mrs. Lowther. Between dinners, the household is paying to have its evenings kept and its dinners planned. James’s client booked a year ahead to keep one evening. A household on a retainer has every evening it hosts kept for it, without having to ask early.

A household that hosts twice a year has nothing to keep, and it stays on your event price.

How to move a household from event pricing to a retainer

Go through last year’s bookings for each household. Count the dinners, the usual number of guests, and the months they fell in. Offer a retainer only to a household that booked you in most months. For example, a chef might find that the Varleys booked 16 dinners in 10 months, and the Dunnings booked three.
Write down what the retainer holds. Name the evenings each month, the notice you need for a date, and the most guests at a dinner. Add the planning it covers, and say that the groceries, the wine, and the rentals are billed at cost. For example, a chef might write, “Two Saturdays a month, kept for you, with a week’s notice of each date. Up to 14 guests.”
In the same terms, say that a larger party gets its own fee, and how the retainer ends. For example, a chef might write, “A party for more than 14 has its own fee, given before I plan it. Either of us can end the retainer with a month’s notice.”
Set the fee from what last year’s dinners came to at your event prices. Add what the retainer now holds, which is the evenings kept and the planning between dinners. Round it to a figure you meant. For example, a chef whose busiest household spent $30,000 with her last year might set the fee at $2,800 a month.
Offer the retainer in a conversation of its own, not inside a quote for the next dinner. That is the course’s suggestion, because a retainer offered next to a quote gets compared with the quote. Ask which evenings next year matter most. Then describe the year back, give the fee once, and stop. For example, a chef can say, “The evenings for your board dinners and the Christmas party are kept for you, and I plan each one. It’s $3,500 a month, with the groceries on top.”
When the household asks whether the retainer costs less, answer with what it holds, not with a sum. For example, a chef can say, “It’s about what last year’s dinners came to, and your Saturdays are kept for you.”
When a household would rather keep paying by the dinner, say that is fine. Quote each dinner at your event price, and book its dates in the order households ask. For example, a chef can say, “That’s fine. Send me dates as you have them, and I’ll book them as they come in.”

Next: You will see what to do, and what not to do, when a guest at a dinner party asks about you.