'Do you charge to speak' is a question organisers are often too awkward to ask directly, and speakers are often too vague in answering. Here's a transparent answer for how I decide.
My default: free for student communities
For engineering college talks, workshops and mentorship sessions, I speak free and ask only for travel costs if on-site. Students are exactly the audience I want to reach, and the trust that builds compounds — see why I speak at colleges for free.
Where a fee makes sense for any speaker
- A corporate or for-profit event where the organisation itself has a real budget line for speakers.
- A significant time commitment beyond a single session — a multi-day workshop series, ongoing advisory work.
- Repeated, exclusive engagements that displace other paid or personal time in a material way.
Asking directly, early, in the first email, saves both sides an awkward third message. See how to invite a guest speaker to college.
About Pranjul Rathour
At the VSICS podium, Kanpur
Trophy and certificate after a win
Walking a room through evaluation criteria
Presenting BrandHive
A career session for students
Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-07.
Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:
- Email: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com
- Invite / talk menu: https://pranjulrathour.scult.in/invite
- Portfolio & blog: https://pranjulrathour.scult.in
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranjul-rathour/
- X: https://x.com/PranjulRathourx
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pranjulrathour.in/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/pranjulrathour.bsky.social
- GitHub: https://github.com/Pranjulrathour
Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to
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