1. List every cost in its own unit
Suppliers charge in different units, and most pricing mistakes come from mixing them. Write each cost the way it is charged:
- Hotels: per room, per night, by room type and meal plan. Extra bed and child rates separately.
- Transport: per vehicle, per day or per kilometre, with driver allowance and tolls if extra.
- Sightseeing and activities: per person, at adult and child rates.
- Flights, visas, insurance: per person.
- Group costs such as a guide for the day: per group, to be shared.
2. Multiply by the trip
Room rate by nights and rooms, car rate by days, per-person costs by travellers. Now every line is a rupee cost for this trip.
3. Add your markup, line by line
One markup on the whole trip hides where you earn and where you do not. Pricing each line lets you add a fixed amount where a percentage would be too much, such as on an expensive hotel, and a percentage where a fixed amount would be too little, and leave a line at cost when that is what wins the booking.
An example only, with made-up numbers: a two-night Udaipur weekend for two adults. The markups here are illustrations, not suggestions.
| Line | Cost | Markup | Markup ₹ | Sell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel, 1 room, ₹6,200 a night × 2 nights | ₹12,400 | ₹800 a night | ₹1,600 | ₹14,000 |
| Car with driver, ₹4,200 a day × 3 days | ₹12,600 | 10% | ₹1,260 | ₹13,860 |
| Boat ride, ₹900 a person × 2 | ₹1,800 | ₹100 a person | ₹200 | ₹2,000 |
| Palace entry with guide, ₹750 a person × 2 | ₹1,500 | None | ₹0 | ₹1,500 |
| Total | ₹28,300 | ₹3,060 | ₹31,360 |
4. Check what you keep
In the example the agency keeps ₹3,060 on a ₹31,360 trip: 9.8% of the price the customer pays. Look at the margin in rupees as well as the percentage. A small percentage on a large trip can still be good money, and a healthy percentage on a small trip may not pay for the calls it takes.
5. Decide how GST sits in the price
If you bill 5% GST on the gross package, the GST comes out of whatever the customer pays. Quote ₹31,360 including GST and the taxable value is ₹29,867, with ₹1,493 of GST, so the ₹3,060 you planned to keep becomes ₹1,567. To keep ₹3,060, the price including GST is ₹31,360 × 1.05 = ₹32,928. Decide which you mean before you quote. The 5% or 18% guide explains the two ways to charge GST.
6. For an overseas trip, add TCS on top
TCS is not part of your price and not your income: you collect it on top and deposit it against the customer's PAN. From 1 April 2026 it is 2% of the amount. Tell the customer in the quotation, so the extra line on the invoice is not a surprise. Check a figure with the TCS calculator.
7. Set the per-person price
Divide the trip total by the travellers it covers: ₹32,928 for two adults is ₹16,464 each. Price children from what they use rather than as a share of the adult price. Rounding to a clean number is your call; if you round, round the price the customer sees, not the costs underneath.
8. Put a date on it
Every cost above came from a rate on a date. Give the quotation a validity date, and when a remembered rate is months old, check it before you send.
Doing this in Triplli
Triplli's estimate works exactly this way. Each line is an item from your catalogue, a quantity, your cost and your markup, as rupees or a percentage. The total and your margin in rupees and percent update as you type, and each remembered rate shows how old it is. There is no default markup and no warning if your margin is low: the number is yours. The customer's PDF shows the price per adult, per child or in total, and never a cost. See quotations in Triplli.
