Running in the big races can be a costly business. Enter the New York City marathon and you have to fork out a hefty sum. But how does its entry cost compare to other 26.2 mile races? And how does that break down per mile?

When you stop and think about it, it actually just seems daft. We pay for the privilege of running 26.2 miles? They should pay us.

So why do marathons (and other races) cost so much?

One answer is simply that the organisers charge what people are willing to pay. The New York marathon is phenomenally expensive – but over 50,000 people ran it last year and innumerable others who wanted a spot didn’t get one. With that many people prepared to fork out, where’s the incentive to bring down those hefty entry fees?

Organisers would point to the costs involved – which also don’t necessarily get smaller with shorter distances. There’s advertising, insurance, security, road closures, chip timing systems, water stations, finishing medals, T-shirts, goodie bags and more.

Even with donations from charity and partnerships with other brands, who might donate or give hefty discounts on water or food for those goodie bags, the costs soon add up. Yes, there will be plenty of kind volunteers offering their services for nothing, but there will probably be paid staff too. Then there’s the clean up costs afterwards. Some races will have every one of these costs to add to the list, others hardly any. It’s unfair, really, to compare a race involving major road closures in central London with a local race across open parkland.

The exact breakdown of races’ costs can be hard to obtain - organisers understandably don’t always want this information to be public. But the Washington Post recently had a breakdown of the costs of the Marine Corps marathon (a relatively cheap US one at a mere $99). They reckoned that the 2013 entry fee of $99 per person was spent as follows:

$36 for course operations – toilets, buses, chip timing, rubbish and the like.

$34 for “event enhancement” – that’s entertainment, advertising and the pre-event expo.

$34 on security.

$22 on “other ops” – staff salaries, utilities, vehicles etc.

$13 on your bling – the race numbers and pins, T-shirt, and medal.

$12 on food, including the aid stations within the race (and doughnuts, apparently, which doesn’t sound like an entirely health pre- OR post-race snack).

$6 on registration, which is likely to include whatever online registration system they use.

The total cost per runner adds up to greater than the $99 (to $158 in fact) because sponsors contribute the rest, in either cash or provisions.

So how do the top world marathons compare for cost?

The Guardian’s data team crunched the numbers to find out.

However one unarguable fact our data shows is that the big American races are by far the most costly.

As our analysis of the registration cost of the world’s biggest marathons shows, entry to the New York City marathon would set a UK adult back around £230 ($347) – equivalent to £8.76 per mile. That’s not factoring in the non-refundable $11 “processing fee” all applicants must pay upon submitting an application.

Seven of the top 10 costliest marathons are in the US. The most expensive marathon outside the US is in Kyoto, Japan where running the city marathon would cost a runner up to £84.63 (15,000 yen).



A recent article in Esquire claimed that running has become a victim of its own success – the more runners want to add a marathon (particularly a World Marathon Major) to their bucket list, the more they can be charged. It also points out how big races have been bought up by companies keen to make as much money as possible.

Esquire found that between 2007 and 2013 the average entry fee for the top 25 US marathons went up 35% (3.5 times the rate of inflation). The New York marathon cost just $80 in 2004. Now it’s $347.

Something, you imagine, has got to give. Let’s hope that it’s a price rethink in the US, rather than similarly sky rocketing prices here. Part of what makes the London marathon special – other than that incredibly reasonable “cost per mile” rate – is the huge number of charity runners. You could argue they’ve paid a hefty price themselves, as they often have to hit a fairly large fundraising target – but that is, after all, money going to a very good cause.



Do you have a ceiling for how much you’d pay for a big race?

More on our data analysis: the maximum online entry price - excluding early-bird offers - for a standard UK adult (non- UKA affiliated) were included in our numbers. Where 2015 or 2016 registration fees were not available, the most recent figure has been used. International fees were converted in January 2015. The international and UK marathons included in the analysis are those with the highest total number of finishers in 2014 according to the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races.