Key takeaways
- Build every package bottom-up from components: hotels, transport, visa and services, flights and meals, each with its own cost basis.
- Hotel cost is per room, but the price is per person, so divide by occupancy and publish quad, triple and double prices separately.
- Apply one consistent markup rule to every component, so margin is predictable and explainable.
- Lock the exchange rate and component costs at the moment of sale, and keep them with the booking.
Umrah packages look simple on a flyer: one price, one hotel star rating, one flight. Behind that price sit costs in several currencies, rooms priced per night but sold per person, supplier terms that change mid-season, and often two or three layers of agents who each need a margin. Agencies rarely lose money because a competitor undercut them. They lose it because a room was costed at double occupancy and sold at quad, or because the riyal moved between quotation and payment.
Here is a costing method that avoids those traps, with an illustrative example.
Step 1: break the package into components
Every Umrah package is a bundle of components, and each has its own cost basis:
| Component | Typical cost basis | Usual currency |
|---|---|---|
| Makkah hotel | Per room, per night | SAR |
| Madinah hotel | Per room, per night | SAR |
| Ground transport | Per vehicle or per seat, per transfer | SAR |
| Visa and Nusuk service package | Per person | SAR |
| Meals | Per person, per meal or per day | SAR |
| Flights | Per seat, often from a group block | Local currency or USD |
| Ziyarat, guides, extras | Per group or per person | SAR |
Costing each line separately is what lets you answer "what happens to the price if we switch the Madinah hotel?" in seconds, and it is what lets you give sub-agents a clean net price.
Step 2: convert room costs into per-person prices by occupancy
Hotels charge per room. Pilgrims pay per person. The conversion is simply the room cost for the stay divided by the number of people sharing, which is why Umrah prices are always quoted as quad, triple and double.
An illustrative example (figures are invented for the arithmetic, not market rates): 7 nights in Makkah at SAR 600 per room per night, and 7 nights in Madinah at SAR 450 per room per night.
| Per person, in SAR | Quad | Triple | Double |
|---|---|---|---|
| Makkah, 7 nights (SAR 4,200 per room) | 1,050.00 | 1,400.00 | 2,100.00 |
| Madinah, 7 nights (SAR 3,150 per room) | 787.50 | 1,050.00 | 1,575.00 |
| Transport (illustrative) | 250.00 | 250.00 | 250.00 |
| Visa and services (illustrative) | 500.00 | 500.00 | 500.00 |
| Land cost per person | 2,587.50 | 3,200.00 | 4,425.00 |
The gap between quad and double here is more than SAR 1,800 per person, driven entirely by occupancy. Mis-assigning even a few pilgrims to the wrong occupancy tier can erase a group's margin.
Step 3: apply one markup rule, consistently
A simple, explainable formula works better than ad hoc rounding:
sale price = cost × (1 + markup %) + fixed fee
Continuing the illustrative example with a 12% markup and a SAR 50 fixed fee per person:
| Per person, in SAR | Quad | Triple | Double |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land cost | 2,587.50 | 3,200.00 | 4,425.00 |
| Sale price (× 1.12 + 50) | 2,948.00 | 3,634.00 | 5,006.00 |
Applying the rule per component, rather than once on the total, lets you use different margins where it makes sense, for example a lower markup on flights and a higher one on value-added services, while keeping the logic identical everywhere.
Step 4: manage currency exposure
Most land costs are in Saudi riyals, while many agencies sell in BDT, PKR, IDR, TRY or other currencies. The riyal has long been pegged to the US dollar at 3.75, so the real exposure is usually between your selling currency and the dollar. Three rules help:
- Quote with a stated exchange rate and a validity date, and re-quote when it expires.
- Store the rate used on every booking, alongside the original currency of each cost.
- Collect deposits early for high-value departures so that a currency move affects less of the balance.
Step 5: freeze the numbers at the moment of sale
Once a customer accepts a price, the components behind it should be frozen with the booking: cost, markup, sale price and exchange rate. When a supplier changes a rate next month, it should affect new sales only. This is the single most effective protection against repricing disputes, and it makes settlement with suppliers and sub-agents auditable long after the trip.
Step 6: layer margins for a B2B network
If you sell through resellers and agents, each tier adds its own markup on top of the price handed down to it. Two principles keep this healthy: no tier can sell below the floor it inherited, and no tier can see the margins above it. We cover this in detail in building a B2B Umrah agent network.
Step 7: price the payment plan, not just the package
Many pilgrims pay in instalments. Tie the final instalment to a date before visa submission, because under current rules the visa follows confirmed hotel and transport, and those bookings are commitments you make on the pilgrim's behalf. An unpaid balance after the visa is issued is a risk you are financing.
How UmrahCore handles package pricing
UmrahCore's package builder assembles departures from visa, flight, hotel, transport and meal catalogues and computes indicative sale prices with the same cost × (1 + markup%) + fixed fee logic across every module. Every component freezes its cost, markup, sale and FX breakdown when attached, and stacked markup lets each tier of your network earn without seeing the margins above it.
Frequently asked questions
Why are Umrah packages priced as quad, triple and double?
Hotels in Makkah and Madinah charge per room, while pilgrims pay per person. Dividing the room cost by the number of people sharing gives a different per-person price for each occupancy.
What markup do Umrah agencies use?
It varies by market and by component. What matters most is applying one consistent, explainable rule, such as cost multiplied by one plus the markup percentage plus a fixed fee, so margins are predictable across every package.
How should agencies handle exchange rates on Umrah packages?
Quote with a stated rate and validity date, store the rate used on each booking with the original cost currency, and collect deposits early on high-value departures to reduce exposure.