£271 per person on average. City-by-city prices, what covering the groom or bride really adds (14% in a group of 8), and a full worked weekend in Cardiff, every figure sourced.
A UK stag or hen do costs the average guest £271, according to Novuna Personal Finance (£331 in Belfast). Booking data tells a similar story: across almost 250,000 party-goers, Chillisauce found an average booked spend of £200 per stag and £136 per hen, before flights. Below: where the money goes, what covering the groom or bride really adds, and a full worked weekend in Cardiff built from published prices.
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| £271 per person (Belfast £331) | Average spend on a stag or hen do | Novuna Personal Finance, updated Mar 2026 (method not published) |
| £200.36 stag / £136.21 hen | Booked spend per person, excluding flights | Chillisauce 2025 industry report, ~250,000 participants |
| £243.52 UK / £252.56 Europe | Package average: accommodation + activities only | The Stag Company, Jul 2026 |
| 13.1 stags / 12.1 hens | Average group size | Chillisauce 2025 |
The figures differ because they measure different things. Booking data only counts what was booked through an operator; surveys count what guests think they spent. Neither includes everything (fancy dress, gifts, rounds).
The Post Office City Costs Barometer 2026 prices two nights in a three-star city-centre hotel (two sharing, 5–7 June 2026) and a three-course meal for two with house wine:
| City | 2 nights, hotel for 2 | Per person | Dinner for 2 | Local beer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardiff | £257.00 | £128.50 | £73.20 | £5.70 |
| London | £284.00 | £142.00 | £98.30 | £6.40 |
| Belfast | £332.00 | £166.00 | £92.24 | £5.48 |
| Edinburgh | £462.00 | £231.00 | £118.00 | £6.00 |
| Budapest | £176.00 | £88.00 | £82.73 | £3.50 |
| Krakow | £181.00 | £90.50 | £93.01 | £4.31 |
| Amsterdam | £391.00 | £195.50 | £92.48 | £5.71 |
Edinburgh is the third most expensive of the 50 cities in the barometer, ahead of Amsterdam. For an Edinburgh weekend, the hotel and dinner alone come to £124.90 more per person than Cardiff (£290.00 against £165.10; EvenRound calculation from the figures above).
Tradition says the group covers the guest of honour's place. The Stag Company describes the main costs being "divided equally between the other group members"; GoHensays the same for hens, though it's not a hard rule.
The cost is simple to work out. If shared costs are S per head and there are N people including the groom or bride, each paying guest pays S × N ÷ (N − 1):
In EvenRound you can set the group's default split (in Settings) to "Equally between some people" and leave the groom or bride out, so every expense skips them automatically.
An illustration built only from published prices (not a survey figure). Cardiff is in StagWeb's 2025 top 10 and has dated Post Office prices.
| Item | Working | Group | Per head (÷8) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel, 2 nights, 4 twin rooms | 4 × £257 | £1,028.00 | £128.50 |
| Escape rooms, 2 rooms of 4 | 8 × £26 + 2 × £4.90 booking fee | £217.80 | £27.23 |
| Group dinner with house wine | 4 × £73.20 | £292.80 | £36.60 |
| Shared pot | £1,538.60 | £192.33 | |
| Split 7 ways (groom covered) | £1,538.60 ÷ 7 | £219.80 | |
| Cost of covering the groom | £219.80 − £192.33 | +£27.47 | |
| Train London–Cardiff and back | 2 × £23 cheapest Advance single | £46.00 | |
| Each paying guest | £265.80 |
£265.80 sits right between The Stag Company's £243.52 package average and Novuna's £271, which is reassuring. Add eight beers over the weekend at the Post Office's £5.70 Cardiff price and it's £311.40.
Create a free group on EvenRound for the weekend: nobody needs to sign up, and the settle-up plan tells everyone exactly who pays whom.
Figures checked 30 October 2026. Prices change; tell us at hello@evenround.com if one is out of date. Free to quote with a link to this page. More in our cost reports.
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