Short answer: between $15 and $30 per player per session for a weekly campaign, and roughly $200 to $400 for the whole table if you book a private game for a group you already have. The spread is enormous because “hiring a Dungeon Master” covers two completely different purchases, and most articles about it quietly mix them up.
The two things people mean by this question
A seat in an ongoing campaign. You join a table of four to six strangers, meet weekly for months or years, and split the cost. This is what most people want and it is priced per player, per session. Expect $15 to $30.
A private game for a group you already have. You book a DM for your own friends, or for a corporate away-day, and pay for the whole table. This is priced per hour or per event, and it is where the $375 and $500 numbers come from.
If you are comparing a $20 seat against a $375 booking, you are comparing a cinema ticket against hiring the cinema.
Published rates, checked 31 August 2026
Every figure here comes from the vendor's own page, linked. The middle column is the one that matters: these businesses do not quote in the same units, and most comparisons you will read quietly ignore that.
| Who | Published price | Billed as | Roughly, per player, for one 4-hour session |
|---|---|---|---|
| StartPlaying | $15–$20 a session | Per player, per session | $15–$20 |
| Crit Fails and Fairy Tales | $20–$30 a session | Per player, per session | $20–$30 |
| StoryForgers | $48.99 an hour (campaign) | Per hour; per-player or per-table not stated | about $39, if it is a table rate |
| Session 0 Studios | $55 an hour, $235 premium | Per hour of play, prep billed on top | about $59, standard tier |
| Dungeon Master Direct | $375 per online event | Whole group, up to 6, 3–4 hours | $63–$75 |
The last column assumes a four-hour session and a party of five, and it assumes StoryForgers and Session 0 quote table rates rather than per-player rates — neither says on its site. We have read them the generous way. If either is actually per player, their real cost is several times what that column shows.
One number that does not appear in anyone's headline price: StartPlaying deducts 15% of every booking before the Game Master is paid. That does not change what you pay. It changes what your DM takes home, which over a three-year campaign changes who is still running it.
What you are actually paying for
The four hours you spend at the table are the cheap part. Behind a weekly session sits map building, encounter balancing, NPC prep, rules lookups, recap writing, and the scheduling admin that kills more home campaigns than any other single cause. A DM running this professionally is doing several hours of unpaid-looking work for every paid hour, and the reason a paid campaign reaches level 20 while a free one dies at level 6 is that somebody's livelihood depends on next week happening.
You are also paying for the software. A Foundry VTT licence, the module library, the map packs, the audio, the 3D assets — the DM owns all of it so that six players do not have to.
Why the cheapest option is not usually the cheapest option
A $15 seat that folds after five sessions cost you $75 and a Tuesday night habit. A $25 seat that runs for three years cost you more in total and was the better purchase by a wide margin. The number that matters is not the session price, it is whether the campaign finishes. Ask any DM you are considering how long their last campaign ran and how it ended.
Questions worth asking before you pay anyone
- How long has your longest campaign run, and did it reach an ending?
- Do you run a session zero, and is it free?
- What happens if the table and I turn out not to suit each other?
- Do I need to buy any software, books or subscriptions?
- What is your cancellation policy when a session does not happen?
Crit Fails answers all five on the pricing page, in public, which is the answer to a sixth question you should also ask: does this person publish a price at all?
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