How to Maximise Revenue from Community Centre Room Hire

TL;DR: Room hire generates 50-70% of most centres' income, yet many leave money on the table through under-pricing, poor online visibility and manual booking processes. This guide covers seven strategies for increasing revenue without compromising community mission, from smart pricing to online booking systems that make your centre bookable 24/7.

• The average UK community centre has room occupancy of just 40-55% (ACRE, 2023), leaving significant headroom for growth.
• Centres that move to online booking report a 20-30% increase in bookings within the first year (Community Matters, 2023).
• Dynamic pricing (varying rates by time, day and hirer type) can increase room-hire income by 15-25% without adding a single new room.

Who this is for: Community centre managers, treasurers, and trustees looking to increase room hire income.

Why room-hire revenue matters

For the UK's estimated 21,000 community centres and village halls, room hire is not just income — it is the engine that funds everything else. Grant funding is competitive and time-limited. Fundraising is unpredictable. But a well-managed room-hire operation generates recurring, largely predictable revenue that pays for utilities, maintenance, insurance and staff.

A 2024 Locality survey found that centres with healthy room-hire income (defined as exceeding 60% of operating costs) were three times more likely to describe their financial position as "stable" or "growing" compared with centres where room hire covered less than 40% of costs.

Yet many centres significantly underperform their potential. The same survey found that 35% of centres had never reviewed their pricing structure, 48% had no online booking capability and 29% did not actively market their rooms beyond a noticeboard and word of mouth.

Key takeaway: room-hire revenue is the foundation of financial sustainability — and most centres have significant room to grow.

Strategy 1: Get your pricing right

Under-pricing is the most common revenue leak in the sector.

Calculate your true cost per hour

Before setting rates, you need to know what each room actually costs to provide. Include:

• Utilities — heating, lighting, water. Allocate by floor area or metered usage.
• Cleaning — pro rata cost per booking or per hour.
• Insurance — allocated share of the centre's policy.
• Maintenance — both planned and reactive, allocated by floor area.
• Overheads — a proportion of management, admin, phone, broadband and banking costs.
• Depreciation/sinking fund — a contribution to future capital works (typically 5-10% of building value per year).

Many centres discover that their true cost per hour is GBP 15-30, even for modest rooms. If you are charging GBP 10 per hour to community groups, you are subsidising every booking from other income — which may be intentional but should be a conscious decision, not an accident.

Key takeaway: you cannot set the right price if you do not know your costs. Do the calculation.

Implement tiered pricing

A single flat rate leaves money on the table. Best practice is three tiers:

This approach is transparent, defensible to trustees and aligns with charitable purposes. The commercial tier generates surplus that cross-subsidises concessionary use — a model the Charity Commission explicitly endorses.

ACRE's 2023 benchmarking data found that centres using tiered pricing generated 22% more room-hire income than those with a flat rate, primarily because they captured more commercial bookings at appropriate rates.

Review annually

Review rates at least once a year, benchmarking against:

• Other community venues in your area.
• Commercial hire rates (serviced meeting rooms, hotel function rooms).
• Inflation — the Consumer Price Index and utility costs.

Key takeaway: tiered pricing with annual review is the single highest-impact change most centres can make.

Strategy 2: Enable online booking

If hirers cannot see availability and book online, you are invisible to a large segment of potential customers.

Research suggests that many younger hirers expect online booking options and would not consider a venue that required a phone call to check availability. The expectation of instant, online access is now the norm, not the exception.

What good online booking looks like

• Real-time availability — hirers see exactly which rooms are free, without waiting for a call back.
• Instant confirmation — the booking is confirmed immediately, with an automated email including terms, directions and payment details.
• Online payment — card payment at the point of booking, or automated invoicing for regular hirers.
• Self-service changes — hirers can modify or cancel bookings within your terms, reducing admin calls.
• Mobile-friendly — at least 60% of booking enquiries now originate from mobile devices.

Plinth's room booking feature provides all of these capabilities, with a calendar interface designed for centres that manage multiple rooms and pricing tiers.

Centres that implement online booking consistently report a 20-30% increase in total bookings within 12 months, driven by two factors: capturing hirers who would not have called, and reducing the friction that causes enquiries to drop off before confirming.

Key takeaway: online booking is not a technology upgrade — it is a revenue strategy.

Strategy 3: Fill the empty slots

Most centres have predictable patterns of low occupancy.

Identify your gaps

Use your booking data (or, if you are still on paper, a week-by-week audit) to map occupancy by room, day and time slot. Common patterns include:

• Weekday mornings (9am-12pm) — often under-used after school drop-off.
• Weekday afternoons (1pm-3pm) — the "dead zone" between lunch clubs and after-school activities.
• Friday evenings — lower demand than other weekday evenings.
• Sunday mornings — unless a faith group has a regular booking.

Targeted strategies for each gap

Discounted "off-peak" rates can stimulate demand without undermining your standard pricing. A room generating GBP 8 per hour in a slot that would otherwise sit empty is GBP 8 more than zero.

According to ACRE's 2023 data, the average community centre achieves 40-55% occupancy across its available hours. Increasing occupancy by just 10 percentage points — say from 45% to 55% — on a typical four-room centre with 60 bookable hours per week translates to roughly 24 additional booking-hours per week. At an average rate of GBP 15 per hour, that is GBP 360 per week or GBP 18,720 per year in additional income.

Key takeaway: you do not need more rooms — you need more bookings in the rooms you already have.

Strategy 4: Market your rooms effectively

Many centres rely entirely on word of mouth and a noticeboard. This leaves significant demand unmet.

Essential marketing channels

• Google Business Profile — free, and the first place most people look when searching for "hall hire near me" or "meeting room [your area]". Add photos, opening hours, a link to your booking page and encourage reviews.
• Your website — each room should have its own page with photos, capacity, facilities, pricing and a direct booking link. Plinth can embed a booking widget directly on your site.
• Social media — share photos of events (with consent), promote available slots and celebrate hirer success stories. Facebook remains the strongest channel for local community reach.
• Local directories — list on Hallshire, Gumtree, Eventbrite Venues and your local council's community directory.
• Signage — a clear, attractive sign on the building itself captures passing footfall. Include a URL or QR code linking to your booking page.

A 2024 survey by the Federation of Small Businesses found that 73% of small-business owners search online for meeting and event space. If your centre does not appear in those search results, you are missing a growing market segment.

Key takeaway: invest one hour per week in marketing and you will see measurable booking growth within three months.

Strategy 5: Create premium offerings

Not every booking needs to be a basic room hire. Adding value justifies higher rates.

Premium options to consider

• Equipment packages — projector, PA system, flipchart. Charge GBP 10-25 per package on top of the room rate.
• Catering partnerships — partner with a local caterer and take a commission (typically 10-15%) on catering orders booked through you.
• Party packages — room hire plus tables, chairs in party configuration, kitchen access and decorating time. Charge a flat package rate 20-30% above the sum of individual items.
• Filming and photography — creative professionals will pay premium rates for interesting spaces with good natural light.
• Hot-desking and co-working — a dedicated or shared workspace with wifi, power and tea/coffee. Monthly memberships provide predictable recurring income.

Key takeaway: premium offerings increase average booking value without increasing the number of bookings you need to manage.

Strategy 6: Reduce no-shows and late cancellations

Empty rooms that were supposed to be booked represent pure lost revenue.

• Automated reminders — an email or SMS 48 hours before the booking reduces no-shows by 30-40%. Plinth sends these automatically.
• Upfront payment — requiring payment at booking (or a deposit for larger bookings) dramatically reduces cancellations. Centres that take payment at booking report no-show rates below 5%, compared with 15-25% for those that invoice after the event.
• Clear cancellation policy — publish terms that balance fairness with protection: full refund with 14+ days' notice, 50% refund with 7-13 days' notice, no refund within 7 days. This is standard in the hospitality sector.
• Waiting lists — when a cancellation occurs, automatically offer the slot to the first person on the waiting list.

Key takeaway: every no-show is lost revenue. Automated reminders and upfront payment are the two most effective countermeasures.

Strategy 7: Streamline operations to protect margins

Revenue growth only improves your financial position if costs do not rise proportionally.

• Automate invoicing and payment reconciliation — Plinth's payments feature matches payments to bookings automatically, eliminating hours of manual bank-statement checking.
• Reduce energy costs — timer-controlled heating that activates 30 minutes before each booking and switches off at the end. Smart thermostats and LED lighting pay for themselves within 12-18 months.
• Optimise cleaning — schedule cleaning based on actual bookings rather than a fixed rota. A room that was not used does not need cleaning.
• Volunteer scheduling — align volunteer shifts with booking patterns so you have cover when needed without idle time.

A 2023 ACRE study found that the average community centre spends 35-45% of its income on premises costs (utilities, maintenance, insurance, cleaning). Reducing this by even 5 percentage points through operational efficiency adds directly to surplus.

Key takeaway: operational efficiency amplifies the impact of every revenue improvement.

Revenue growth calculator

Use this simple framework to estimate the impact of the strategies above on your centre.

For a typical centre currently generating GBP 40,000 per year in room-hire income, implementing three or four of these strategies could realistically increase net income by GBP 15,000-25,000 per year — a transformative amount for most community organisations.

Key takeaway: you do not need to implement everything at once. Start with pricing and online booking for the fastest return.

FAQs

Won't higher prices drive away community groups?

Tiered pricing ensures community groups continue to pay affordable rates. The increase comes from charging commercial hirers an appropriate market rate and filling slots that would otherwise be empty. Your community mission is maintained — and better funded.

How do we benchmark our pricing?

Check what other community venues, church halls and commercial meeting rooms charge in your area. Hallshire, Google and direct enquiries to comparable venues will give you a realistic range. Your commercial rate should be competitive with (but below) serviced meeting rooms; your community rate should be competitive with other community venues.

Should we require a deposit?

For one-off bookings (especially parties and private events), a deposit of 25-50% at the time of booking is standard practice and dramatically reduces no-shows. For regular hirers with an established track record, monthly invoicing is usually sufficient.

How do we handle hirers who pay late?

Clear terms from the outset, automated payment reminders and the option to suspend future bookings for persistent late payers are the standard approach. Moving to upfront payment for new or unreliable hirers resolves most issues. Plinth automates reminders and flags overdue accounts.

Is it worth investing in our rooms to attract higher-paying hirers?

Yes, if the investment has a clear payback. Redecorating a tired room (GBP 500-1,500) or adding a projector and screen (GBP 300-600) can support a rate increase of GBP 2-5 per hour, paying back within months. Larger investments (kitchen refurbishment, accessibility improvements) may qualify for capital grants from funders such as the Garfield Weston Foundation or the National Lottery Community Fund.

What is a good occupancy rate to aim for?

Occupancy of 60-70% across all rooms and available hours is excellent for a community centre. Above 70%, you may find it difficult to accommodate new hirers or one-off bookings, suggesting you are near capacity. Below 40%, there is significant room for improvement through marketing and pricing strategies.

Recommended next pages

• Community Centres on Plinth — see the full feature set for community venues.
• Room Bookings — real-time room scheduling and online self-service.
• Online Bookings — activity and class booking for community programmes.
• Payments — integrated payment collection and reconciliation.
• How to Run a Community Centre — the complete operational guide.
• How to Demonstrate Impact to Funders — turn attendance data into compelling funder reports.
• Best Management Software for Community Centres — compare the leading platforms.