There are two ways to price an Umrah package. The common one: look at what the agency across town charges, go €50 lower, and hope. The professional one: build the price from your own costs, so you know the margin before the first pilgrim signs up.
This guide is the second way. (For the full list of cost lines with a worked example, see Umrah Package Cost — a Full Breakdown; this article is about the method.)
Start from true cost, not competitor prices
The competitor's flyer tells you their price, not their costs. They may have a better hotel contract, a bigger group spreading fixed costs thinner, or — just as often — no idea what their margin is either. Copying their price imports their mistakes.
Build the cost sheet
Split every cost into two columns:
- Per-pilgrim costs — visa, insurance, flight seat, meals. These scale with the group.
- Fixed costs — buses, the guide's fee and travel, ziyarat program. These are the same whether 38 or 45 people travel.
Hotel rooms are the special case: they're per room-night, so cost per pilgrim depends on room type. Keep them in their own section, calculated per occupancy (quad ÷ 4, triple ÷ 3, double ÷ 2).
The break-even table
Fixed costs make the group size a pricing decision. Divide your total fixed costs by several group sizes before setting a price:
| Group size | Fixed costs (€5,850) per head | True cost per pilgrim (quad) |
|---|---|---|
| 45 (full bus) | €130 | €1,280 |
| 40 | €146 | €1,296 |
| 35 | €167 | €1,317 |
| 30 | €195 | €1,345 |
Price for the group size you can realistically fill — not the full-bus best case. If you price at 45 and travel with 34, the missing margin comes out of your pocket.
Add the three buffers professionals use
- Currency buffer (2–4%). You quote in your currency months before paying suppliers in SAR/USD. Either buy currency early or price the swing in.
- No-show/rebooking buffer. Someone will cancel after the airline's name deadline. A small per-head buffer across the group absorbs the loss without drama.
- Contingency (2–3%). The extra night, the surprise transfer, the pilgrim who needs a doctor. If nothing happens, it becomes margin.
Then apply your margin on top of buffered cost — typically 10–15% in this market. Below 10%, one incident makes the trip charity; far above, the community comparison-shops you.
Tier by room type, not by discount
Sell packages as room-type tiers and derive the gaps from real hotel-cost differences:
| Tier | Hotel cost/pilgrim (10 nights) | Fair price gap vs quad |
|---|---|---|
| Quad | €280 | — |
| Triple | €373 | ≈ +€95–110 |
| Double | €560 | ≈ +€280–320 |
If your double is only €100 above the quad, every couple that books it is buying below your cost. The tier gaps aren't marketing choices; they're arithmetic.
Present the price with confidence
- Publish tiers clearly (quad/triple/double), with what's included spelled out — meals, transport, ziyarat.
- Prefer bundled prices over itemized quotes. Itemizing invites €10 negotiations on every line.
- Attach the installment plan to the price: deposit at signup, dated installments, final balance before the airline's deadline — so cash arrives before you must pay suppliers. Tracking that reliably is its own topic: Managing Installments & Payments.
- Hold the line on discounts. A €50 discount to one family in a mosque community is a €50 discount to everyone by Friday.
Automate the arithmetic
Everything above is doable in a spreadsheet — until the group size changes for the third time and every fixed-cost division needs redoing, in two currencies.
Ziyara's Cost Calculator does this natively: per-traveler and fixed costs, traveler counts (with age-group splits), your margin, multi-currency — returning total cost, true cost per head and the selling price you need. It's included on every plan and the free trial, so you can price your next departure with it today. When the group sells, the same platform tracks the installments against each pilgrim — closing the loop from price to collected cash.