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How to make a tour budget
Updated October 7, 2026 · 3 min read
A tour budget answers one question before you leave: will this run make or lose money, and by how much? It also becomes the yardstick you measure every day against once you are out. This guide walks through building one line by line, the mistakes that sink most budgets, and how to keep it honest while you tour.
Free templates for this guide
Download and edit these for your own tour. No sign-up, no email required.
Tour budget spreadsheet
A full tour budget with show income, expense categories, commissions, a contingency line and budget-vs-actual columns. Totals and net are formulas.
Tour expense log
Date, category, payee, method, amount and receipt status, with a category summary.
See the complete free resource library for budgets, riders, checklists and more.
Step 1: List every show and its deal
Start with income, because everything else depends on it. Make one row per show with the date, city, venue and the deal from the contract: a flat guarantee, a guarantee versus a percentage of the door, or a guarantee plus a back-end bonus. Use only the guarantee for your budget number unless you have real ticket history in that market. Backend money is a bonus, not a plan.
Add the other income you can count on: merch (net of cost and venue fees, see below), any sponsorship or tour support already promised in writing, and buyouts paid in cash instead of a meal.
Step 2: Estimate merch honestly
Merch often decides whether a tour makes money, so don’t guess high. A useful starting point is your average merch spend per paying fan from past shows multiplied by realistic attendance. If you have no history, budget merch net of cost of goods at a conservative figure and treat anything above it as upside. Remember the venue merch fee: many rooms take a percentage of soft goods (shirts, hoodies) and sometimes a different percentage of hard goods (vinyl, CDs).
Step 3: Add up the fixed costs
Fixed costs don’t change with how many tickets you sell:
- Band and crew pay: weekly or per-show fees for players, tour manager, front-of-house engineer and anyone else.
- Vehicles: van or bus rental, trailer, insurance, and the driver if you have one.
- Production: backline rental, lighting or in-ear packages, rehearsal days.
- Insurance: gear and liability.
- Merch inventory: the cost of goods you order before the tour.
Step 4: Add the daily costs
Daily costs scale with the number of days, not shows. Count every day including travel and off days:
- Hotels: rooms per night times nightly rate. Decide your room plan first (for example two to a room).
- Per diems: a fixed amount per person per day for food and incidentals.
- Fuel: total route miles divided by miles per gallon, times your fuel price estimate. Add tolls and parking.
- Flights and bag fees, if any.
Step 5: Commissions and percentages
Agents and managers usually take a percentage of gross or of guarantees, depending on their deal. Work out each commission on the right base and enter it as a cost. Leaving commissions out is one of the most common reasons a budget looks profitable and the tour isn’t.
Step 6: Add a contingency
Things break: a tire, an amp, a cancelled show. Add a contingency line, often in the range of five to ten percent of expenses, so a bad week doesn’t put you underwater.
Step 7: Compare budget to actual every week
A budget only helps if you check it. Add an Actual column next to every budget line and fill it as receipts come in. The difference column shows exactly where you are over. Review it weekly with the band or management, not at the end of the tour when it is too late to change anything.
Example: a two-week club run (EXAMPLE numbers)
| Line | Budget |
|---|---|
| Guarantees (12 shows) | $14,000 |
| Merch net | $4,000 |
| Band and crew pay | $5,600 |
| Van, fuel, tolls | $2,900 |
| Hotels | $3,400 |
| Per diems | $1,750 |
| Commissions | $1,400 |
| Contingency (5%) | $760 |
The template calculates totals, net and differences for you. Every number above is made up; replace it with your own.
Common tour budget mistakes
- Budgeting backend money you have never earned in that market.
- Forgetting off days still cost hotels and per diems.
- Using gross merch instead of net after cost and venue fees.
- Leaving out commissions, bank fees or currency conversion.
- Never updating actuals, so the budget is fiction by week two.
How TRMNGR helps
TRMNGR does not have a budgeting screen, so keep the budget in the spreadsheet below. Where TRMNGR helps is the actual side: each show’s settlement worksheets (box office, deal, merch, expenses, cash and payment) roll up into Tour Totals, and the Merch page (Production Office → Merch) shows live Square sales by day and for the tour. Cash Deposits shows how much settlement cash is still on hand. Those are the numbers you copy into the Actual column each week.