How Much to Charge for Wedding Vows or a Speech

For ghostwritten wedding vows or a wedding speech, Brillay recommends starting at $40–$150 depending on the deliverable: a short vow polish or single toast line at $40–$60, a full one-page vows or toast draft at $65–$100, and a longer best-man or maid-of-honor speech built from multiple stories at $110–$150+. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

Fee basis for every figure on this page: Brillay's pricing page states, "The follower pays only the displayed price. No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Creator earnings = follower payment − platform fee − processing fee" (pricing).

Vow- and speech-writing requests tend to arrive close to a wedding date, from someone who already trusts your writing — a follower, a friend of a follower, or someone who found your feed through a wedding-content search. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics recorded 2,041,926 marriages in the United States in 2023 (CDC/NCHS FastStats). The average U.S. wedding cost $34,000 in 2025, and couples spent an average of $292 per guest, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples married that year. A vows or speech request therefore usually comes from a couple or a wedding-party member already committed to a fixed date and a real budget, not from a casual browser.

How much should you charge to write someone's vows?

A full set of wedding vows — written in the couple's voice from names, shared history, and tone notes they supply — is typically priced at $65–$100 as a starting range on Brillay. A shorter polish of vows the couple already drafted, or help tightening one section of those vows, can be priced lower, around $40–$60.

Demand for ghostwritten vows starts with the couples who already intend to write their own: 61% of U.S. couples married in 2025 wrote their own wedding vows, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples (Knot Worldwide).

Wedding vows differ from a toast or a best-man speech because vows are addressed directly to one person, are usually read at the ceremony rather than performed for a room, and rarely need to land a joke. Writing a set of wedding vows is therefore a shorter, more intimate task than writing a best-man or maid-of-honor speech, but the emotional accuracy still takes real drafting time — the writer is matching one person's voice, not filling in a template.

The follower pays when they ask; you reply when you can, using the same Custom Work flow described in how it works. That matters for wedding-party followers who are already juggling vendor portals: followers can order with just name, email, and card, without creating a Brillay account. Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. For the full workflow — what to ask a couple for, how to keep the words sounding like them, and how to keep later changes outside the original order — see selling ghostwritten wedding vows or toasts online. A flat, scoped project fee works the same way for other from-scratch deliverables — see how to price a small business website build.

"Promises are what make vows. Be sure to include three to six." — The Knot's guide to writing your own wedding vows

Matching the three to six personal promises The Knot's vows guide recommends to one couple's actual history takes drafting and revision, which is what a $65–$100 vows price covers — a set of vows is not a five-minute favor.

Generic ceremony structure and template vow language are the parts a buyer can already get free from a chatbot. 36% of engaged couples used AI somewhere in their wedding planning, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples married in 2025 (Knot Worldwide). A paid vows service therefore sells specificity and one couple's own voice rather than a template a chatbot can produce in seconds.

How much should you charge for a best-man or maid-of-honor speech?

A best-man or maid-of-honor speech is typically priced at $110–$150+ on Brillay, above the $65–$100 range for a full set of wedding vows. A wedding-party speech costs more because it requires interviewing the speech-giver, structuring a narrative arc for a live room, and landing at least one joke on a mixed-age crowd.

The Knot's best man speech guide sets the target length at a minimum of three minutes and a maximum of five minutes and suggests between 700 and 1,000 words (The Knot). A 700-to-1,000-word speech assembled from interviewed stories is a multi-hour writing job, which is why the $110–$150+ speech band starts above the $65–$100 vows band.

The average U.S. wedding hosted 117 guests in 2025, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples (Knot Worldwide). A best-man or maid-of-honor speech is therefore performed in front of roughly 117 people, while a set of wedding vows is read to one.

Nerves are part of what a speech buyer is paying to reduce. 33.7% of Americans reported being afraid or very afraid of public speaking in the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, Wave 11 (2025), where public speaking ranked 46th of 67 fears measured (Chapman University). A speech buyer who shares that fear of public speaking is paying for a script they can deliver without freezing in front of the room, which is part of what the $110–$150+ speech band covers. A ghostwritten speech for another life event — see pricing a eulogy or tribute speech — follows the same interview-then-draft structure.

Price a wedding-party speech as a custom request with a clear intake list — relationship to the couple, two or three specific stories, and tone (funny, sentimental, or both) — so you're not chasing details after the order lands. The awkwardness is lower when the link already shows the price, deliverable, and delivery time; you are inviting them to check out on a clearly priced offer, not personally negotiating what your favor is worth. That same fixed-deliverable approach — pricing the thing itself rather than a clock hour — is how async offers like chess lesson pricing work too.

What is the fastest way to help with one line or one section?

The fastest way to help with one line or one stuck section of vows or a speech is a Paid Question, not a full writing service. The follower types the text and the question, and you reply privately in writing.

For a one-line fix, you reply within the window you set. Examples of one-line requests that fit Paid Questions include:

• "I wrote my vows but the ending falls flat — how would you close this?"
• "Is this joke about her mom too risky for a mixed-generation crowd?"
• "One sentence for my toast that isn't a cliché about 'finding the one.'"

Budget pressure makes a small paid fix the easiest thing for a wedding buyer to say yes to: 85% of couples married in 2025 reported that the economy affected their wedding planning, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples (Knot Worldwide). A $40 answer to one stuck line is a far smaller commitment than a $100 full draft, and a one-line order gives a buyer a low-risk way to test your writing before commissioning a full vows or speech draft.

What starting prices should you use as a baseline?

Use $40–$60 for a line or section polish, $65–$100 for a full set of wedding vows, $75–$110 for a short toast, and $110–$150+ for a best-man or maid-of-honor speech. Those four price bands are Brillay editorial recommendations, not measured marketplace averages, so treat each range as a starting point rather than a going rate.

The average cost of hiring a wedding officiant is $260, according to The Knot's Real Weddings Study (The Knot). A couple already budgeting $260 for a one-time ceremony line item is unlikely to treat a $65–$150 writing fee as an outlier.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median annual wage of $76,910 for writers and authors in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). A $76,910 annual median works out to roughly $37 an hour across a 2,080-hour work year, so a $100 vows draft that takes two to three hours prices near professional writing rates rather than above them.

"The wedding industry continues to be remarkably resilient. No matter the economic climate, couples continue to prioritize celebration and are investing accordingly." — Esther Lee, Editorial Director, The Knot Worldwide, announcing the 2026 Real Weddings Study

Any price shown on this page is illustrative, not an earnings guarantee. Take-home results depend on your audience, demand, positioning, price, and the quality of the finished draft.

How does the platform fee change your take-home?

Brillay charges an 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, so an $80 vows order carries a $6.40 platform fee and leaves $73.60 before card processing. An unsold vows or speech listing costs a Brillay creator nothing — the fee only applies once an order like this one gets paid. Creators in 41 countries can get paid; followers pay by card from anywhere.

Stripe's published pricing lists 2.9% + $0.30 as its standard rate for U.S. online card payments (Stripe). On an $80 vows order, a 2.9% + $0.30 Stripe processing charge is roughly $2.62, leaving about $70.98 after both the Brillay platform fee and card processing.

The take-home figures shown for the $50, $80, and $130 orders are estimates for illustration only, not a guarantee of any specific payout; exact amounts depend on card type and any currency conversion.

What should raise or lower the price for a specific request?

Four factors move a vows or speech price up or down from the baseline range: how many people you need details from, how urgent the delivery time is, how long the finished draft will be, and how complex the tone needs to be. Each factor adds drafting or coordination time, so price each factor explicitly in the listing.

• How many people are involved. Vows are written for one voice; a best-man speech usually means interviewing the speech-giver and sometimes cross-checking a story with a second friend, which adds time.
• Delivery time urgency. The average U.S. engagement lasts 15 months, according to The Knot's 2025 Real Weddings Study, so a vows or speech request due within 48 hours of the ceremony is a genuine exception and can carry a rush price. About 47% of U.S. couples get engaged between November and February, according to The Knot's engagement-season guide citing the 2025 Real Weddings Study, so vows and speech inquiries arrive in seasonal waves rather than evenly across the year — set a rush price before the busy stretch, not during it. Custom Work lets you set a delivery time of 1 to 5 days — five days at the maximum.
• Scope: Define exactly what the follower receives, and treat any later changes as a separate new order.
• Tone complexity. A speech that needs to be genuinely funny, land a specific joke, or balance humor with sentiment for a mixed-generation audience takes more drafting passes than a straightforward, sincere note.

What should a vows-or-speech listing say before someone pays?

A vows-or-speech listing should state six things before anyone pays: the exact deliverable, the intake details you need, a length target, what is not included, your delivery time window, and the delivery format. Defining those six upfront reduces back-and-forth after the order lands and gives you clear grounds to decline anything outside the stated scope.

Couples married in 2025 hired an average of 13 wedding vendors, according to The Knot Worldwide's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 U.S. couples (Knot Worldwide) — a buyer who has already signed 13 vendor agreements expects a written scope, so spelling out the deliverable and the limits reads as normal professional practice rather than as distrust.

Define, before the follower pays:

• Deliverable: Vows, a short toast, or a full best-man/MOH speech — pick one per listing rather than one vague "wedding writing" offer.
• Intake required: Names, key dates, 2–3 specific stories or memories, and desired tone (funny, sentimental, or both).
• Length target: For example, "under 60 seconds" for vows or "3–5 minutes" for a speech.
• Scope: State exactly what the order includes.
• Delivery time: Choose a window you can reliably meet within Brillay's Custom Work limit.
• Delivery format: Custom Work can deliver text plus files and/or a link, so specify a written document and, if offered, a voice read-through of the draft — the same audio-delivery question that comes up when pricing a personalized meditation recording.

Followers pay before you do the work; you deliver on your own time. Your Brillay listing keeps the intake, deliverable, and one-delivery scope written before you accept the order.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about pricing wedding vows and speeches cover four things: whether a speech costs more than a set of vows, when to use a Paid Question instead of a custom request, how to handle extra revision requests, and what Brillay's platform fee means for take-home. Short answers follow.

Do vows or a best-man speech cost more?

A best-man or maid-of-honor speech typically costs more than vows, generally landing around $110–$150+ versus $65–$100 for a full set of vows. The speech requires gathering stories from the speech-giver, structuring a longer narrative for a live room, and often needs a joke to land, all of which add drafting time beyond a private, one-person vows document.

Should I use a Paid Question or a custom request for a vows or speech request?

Use a Paid Question when the follower only needs one stuck line or section fixed: they send the text and the question, and you reply privately in writing within the window you set. Use Custom Work for a full vows or speech draft written from scratch, since a from-scratch draft requires intake details and a structured written deliverable.

What if the couple wants more revisions than I offered?

Write your correction and revision policy before anyone pays, since the follower sees it at checkout, and price each Custom Work order as one defined delivery. If something in the delivered draft needs fixing, the follower can message you in the order's support conversation; for additional work outside the original scope, ask them to place a new Custom Work order. You can also decline a request that clearly falls outside your listed scope.

Does Brillay take a cut of what I charge?

Brillay charges 8% only when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, and supports creator payouts in 41 countries. There's no follower minimum. Stripe processing fees are deducted separately from creator earnings; the exact processing fee varies by payment.

Can I sell a recorded video message instead of a written draft?

Yes — if the follower wants a recorded pep talk, congratulations message, or toast delivered on video rather than a written document, that's a Personalized Video, a separate offer from the text-based vows or speech-writing service described on this page.

Create your free Brillay page, put your Custom Work and other offers behind one link, and turn the next "can you help write my vows?" DM into a clearly priced order instead of an awkward payment conversation.