How much do public speakers earn worldwide?

Public speakers earn about $5 billion a year worldwide in 2025. I say "about" because public speaking is a young industry: no charts, no top 100, no box office. I forecast that the number grows to $12 billion by 2030. The $5 billion is the fee pool: everything companies, conferences, and festivals pay a speaker to stand on a stage. The ladder is steep. The median keynote fee is $2,500, corporate rooms pay $4,500, and 9 in 10 speakers earn under $10,000 a talk. At the top, Tony Robbins, the world's best-paid motivational speaker, charges $300,000 to $1 million a talk, and Barack Obama starts at $400,000. Between the top and the median sits a 400x gap. No music chart has that. Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, charges $200,000 to $500,000 and gives every dollar to his Virgin Unite foundation. I shared a speaker line-up with him on Necker Island, and I run the same model: 100% of my speaking fees fund social innovation, $45 million and counting. The analysts expect $7 billion by 2030. I expect $12 billion, which is $5 billion growing 19% a year for 5 years. Live events grow toward $2.5 trillion, hosting and podcasts add new stages, and in crazy times people pay for seers. My warning: by 2030 AI writes and voices any average keynote, so the middle of the ladder gets automated and the top gets repriced.