How to build a small tour budget: a practical worksheet for indie acts

A tour that loses money is not always a mistake. Sometimes it is the price of reaching new towns, and that can be a fair trade. The mistake is not knowing, before the van leaves, roughly how much it will cost and where the money is meant to come from. This guide sets out a simple worksheet for a short run of shows, the kind a two- to five-piece act books itself. It is not tax or legal advice, and the tax points below are US rules as we read them on 24 Oct 2026; check your own country's rules with an accountant.

Start with three kinds of cost

Most budgeting mistakes come from lumping everything into one number. Split costs by what drives them:

• Fixed costs happen once, however many shows you play: rehearsal space, van hire deposit, gear repairs before you go, merch you order up front, insurance, any visas.
• Per-day costs happen every day you are away, show or no show: accommodation, food, fuel or mileage, parking, tolls.
• Per-show costs happen only on show days: a sound engineer you bring, a local backline hire, an opener's fee you pay, venue-side charges such as a merch percentage.

The split matters because it tells you what an extra day is worth. A day off between two cities still carries every per-day cost. If a gig on that day pays less than your per-day cost, it can still be worth taking, because the alternative is spending the same money with nothing coming in.

Price the driving honestly

Fuel is the cost people under-count, because the van is "already paid for". It is not free to run: tyres, servicing and wear all scale with distance. One way to put a number on it is to borrow a rate built for exactly this. The IRS standard mileage rates page lists a business rate of 70 cents per mile for 2025 and 72.5 cents per mile for 1 January to 30 June 2026, with a separate rate shown for the second half of 2026. Even if you are not filing in the US, multiplying your route's mileage by a rate like that gives a fuller picture than fuel receipts alone. If you hire a van, use the hire cost plus fuel instead.

Map the whole route, including the drive home, and add it up before you confirm dates. Routing is where a budget is usually won or lost: two shows four hours apart cost far less than two shows nine hours apart.

Food and beds

Set a daily food allowance per person and stick to it. Write down what each venue provides (a meal, drinks, a buyout) when you confirm the show, and subtract it. For beds, list each night as one of: paid room, friend's floor, or drive home. Be realistic about how many floor nights a band can manage in a row.

Keep receipts for all of it. IRS Publication 463 says you "must keep records of all the expenses you have" and that a log, diary or notebook can do the job. It also notes that you can generally deduct only 50% of the unreimbursed cost of your meals, so food is not a full write-off even when it counts as a business expense. Our guide to music income record keeping covers a simple system for this.

Income lines, conservatively

List income per show and be honest about which numbers are certain:

1. Guarantees: a fixed fee in a confirmed offer. Count these in full.
2. Door deals or splits: count a cautious attendance figure, not your hopeful one.
3. Merch: estimate from past shows if you have them. If you don't, budget low and treat any merch money as a bonus until you have real numbers.
4. Other: crowdfunding, pre-sales, or a sponsor. Our guide to fan subscriptions and crowdfunding covers those options.

Subtract any merch you still owe for, and agree in writing how the band splits whatever is left. Our band agreement basics explains why that conversation is better before the tour than after it.

The worksheet

A one-page spreadsheet is enough. Use one row per day, with columns for:

• date, city and venue (or "off" or "drive")
• miles driven, and the mileage or fuel cost
• accommodation
• food (allowance multiplied by people, minus what the venue provides)
• per-show costs
• guaranteed income
• estimated income (door, merch)
• the running total

Add a block at the top for fixed costs, and a contingency line at the bottom. A contingency is not a sign of pessimism; vans break, shows get cancelled, and a card gets lost. Choose a figure you could absorb without the tour stopping.

Then read three numbers: the total cost, the guaranteed income, and the gap between them. That gap is what you are actually risking. If it is bigger than you can lose, change the plan before you change your hopes: cut a weak date, shorten a drive, drop a paid night for a floor, or ask for a guarantee rather than a door split.

After the tour

Fill in actual numbers beside each estimate as you go, one minute each night. When you get home, compare the two columns. The difference is the most useful data you will get from the run, because the next budget can use your own costs instead of guesses.

What we think

The worksheet above is deliberately boring, and that is the point. Small acts rarely tour at a loss because one big thing goes wrong. They lose money through many small things nobody wrote down: the extra day of fuel, the meals that were meant to be covered, the merch that did not sell. Writing each one down turns a vague sense of "we'll probably break even" into a number you can act on.

We also think bands should decide, before they go, what a loss is buying. "We'll lose a modest amount to play to new people in four cities" is a reasonable plan. "We hope it works out" is not a plan. Name the gap, name what it buys, and you will know afterwards whether the tour did its job, even if it did not make money.