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The speaker contract clauses that actually cost people money · Speaker Hub
The speaker contract clauses that actually cost people money
Most speaker agreements are fine. The four clauses that go wrong are the ones nobody reads, and one of them can quietly take your talk away from you.
•7 min read
This is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer. It is a list of the places speakers get caught, so you know what to look at before signing.
Cancellation, on both sides
The clause that costs the most money and the one most often missing entirely.
Events get cancelled. Dates move. Budgets get pulled two weeks out. If the agreement says nothing, you have a diary you kept clear and no fee.
What you want is a sliding scale. Something like: cancelled more than 60 days out, no fee. Between 60 and 30 days, half. Inside 30 days, full. The specific numbers are negotiable and the principle is not, because you turned down other work.
Check the other direction too. If you have to cancel, what happens? A reasonable clause requires you to make best efforts to find a replacement rather than imposing a penalty, and a contract with a punitive clause on you and nothing on them is unbalanced enough to raise.
Travel is separate. If flights are booked and the event moves, someone is out of pocket. Say who.
Recording rights
The quiet one. It is missing more often than any other clause and it is the one that can take your talk away from you.
Three questions:
Are they recording? Assume yes unless told otherwise.
What can they do with it? Internal training use is very different from publishing it publicly, and both are different from editing it into their own marketing.
What can you do with it? This is the half speakers forget. You want a copy, and the right to use a clip for your own demo reel.
The version to avoid is a broad assignment of rights in your material to the client. Rare in conference contracts, more common in corporate ones, and it can mean the talk you spent three years developing is now theirs to deliver without you.
If a contract is silent on recording, add a line. Something as simple as: the client may use the recording for internal purposes; the speaker may use up to three minutes for promotional purposes; neither party publishes it publicly without written agreement.
Payment terms
Two numbers, and the second is the one that hurts.
The fee, which everybody checks.
When it is paid, which many do not. Net 30 from invoice is normal. Net 90 is not, and it appears more often than you would expect in large organisation contracts because it is their standard supplier term.
For a new client or a large booking, ask for a deposit. Fifty percent on signing, balance within 30 days of delivery, is a reasonable ask and a normal arrangement in adjacent industries.
Also worth pinning down: who raises the invoice and to whom. A booking arranged by a programme chair and paid by a finance department can sit for weeks because nobody told finance it existed.
Expenses, in detail
Vague expense terms cause more friction than any other clause, and it is always small money argued about badly.
"Travel covered" is not a term. Covered how? Booked by them or reimbursed to you? Economy or any class? Which airport? Does it include the taxi at both ends, and the hotel, and the night before if the talk is at 9am?
Get it specific. Either they book and pay directly, which is simplest, or you agree a fixed travel allowance, which is even simpler and removes receipts from the relationship entirely.
Things worth adding
Beyond the four above, a few lines that prevent common problems.
What you are actually delivering. Format, length, and whether there is Q and A. Prevents the 45 minute keynote becoming a keynote plus a panel plus a workshop by the time you arrive.
Technical requirements. Your own laptop or theirs, what connector, whether you need a handheld or a lapel microphone, whether there is a confidence monitor. Boring, and it is the difference between a good talk and a talk delivered while facing the screen.
Approval of how you are described. If they are producing marketing with your name on it, you want to see the bio and photo they are using. See your speaker bio.
Exclusivity, if they ask for it. Some events ask you not to speak at a competing conference within a window. That is a real restriction with real cost, and if you agree to it, it should be reflected in the fee.
For small bookings
A local meetup does not need a contract, and it does need a confirmation.
One email, sent by you, that says: date, time, location, length, format, fee or that there is none, what travel is covered, and that you will be recording on your own phone if they are not recording.
Ask them to reply confirming. That is an agreement, it takes four minutes, and it prevents almost every misunderstanding that actually happens at that scale.
When they send their own
Larger organisations will send a standard supplier agreement. This is normal and it is not a take it or leave it document, whatever it looks like.
Read the four clauses above. If the recording clause is broad, ask to narrow it. If payment is net 90, ask for net 30. If cancellation protects only them, ask for symmetry.
Most of the time you get the change, because the person who sent it is not the person who wrote it and they want the booking. If it is a large fee, an unusual clause, or an assignment of rights in your material, that is the point to pay a lawyer for an hour.
Yes, even a short one, and even for a small booking. Most disputes are not about bad faith, they are about two people remembering a conversation differently five months later. A one page email confirming date, fee, format, travel and cancellation terms is a contract and prevents most of it.
What should a speaker contract include?
Date, time and location, format and length, the fee and when it is paid, what travel and accommodation is covered and by whom, cancellation terms on both sides, and what happens to any recording. Recording rights are the clause most often missing and the one most likely to matter later.
Who provides the contract?
Larger organisations will send their own, which is normal, and you are allowed to ask for changes to it. For smaller bookings there is often nothing, so send your own short confirmation. Whoever writes it, read the cancellation and recording clauses before signing.
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