What to charge?

Rene`

I have a customer who asked me to take pictures of her daughter. She needs them for a teen modeling agency. I have never sold images on a CD. They need digital. I have 45 images from the shoot. I figure that I have 5 hours involved in the taking and editing. The young lady had several blemishes and patches of dry skin. What should I charge?

Thanks in advance.
Rene`

ChatKat

costs/rate
You have to determine how much your gear costs, your insurance costs, your computer costs, your software costs and an hourly rate. All your overhead for a one year period. So you might have to do a budget. Then after you figure out your real costs then you figure out how much to charge based on real expenses. You then figure out a daily/hourly/weekly rate without product. You also have to account for things like telephone, supplies, and then costs plus markup.

The problem with most photographers is that they don't know how to do this so they pull a number out of a hat based on what someone else is charging. But if you do that - you will most likely be undercharging. You don't sell paper. You sell a service where the product cost is a minimal part of the total you charge.

Glort

$356.42

Rene`

ChatKat wrote:

You have to determine how much your gear costs, your insurance costs, your computer costs, your software costs and an hourly rate. All your overhead for a one year period. So you might have to do a budget. Then after you figure out your real costs then you figure out how much to charge based on real expenses. You then figure out a daily/hourly/weekly rate without product. You also have to account for things like telephone, supplies, and then costs plus markup.

The problem with most photographers is that they don't know how to do this so they pull a number out of a hat based on what someone else is charging. But if you do that - you will most likely be undercharging. You don't sell paper. You sell a service where the product cost is a minimal part of the total you charge.

Thanks for your help.

Rene`

Glort wrote:

$356.42

Thanks! Have a great day!

ChatKat

Glort wrote:

$356.42[/quote

Glort - is that Australian Dollars?

Rene`

ChatKat wrote:

Glort wrote:

$356.42[/quote

Glort - is that Australian Dollars?

ChatKat,

I was wondering the same thing. I was also curious if he was just pulling something out of a Hat.

My main problem is that I want to be fair, but I don't want to get in a situation of always selling digital images. However, I realize that someone could simply order a large print and scan it in. (And I might never know.)

I work in a very small town. When the gentleman asked me upfront how much I would charge I told him that I had no idea, because I didn't ever sell CD's. I spent 4 hrs editing and I don't want to undercut myself. Thanks for your input!

Rene`

zoomer

Since you already shot the pictures without any price agreement you don't have many options.
Ask your customer what she thinks is fair and sell them to her for that, especially if customer really means a friend.

Next time agree on a price up front.

I do stuff like that for free and chalk it up to marketing expenses, you will get more value from her telling people about how great you are than you will for the actual small amount of work you did on this.

If you feel you must... charge her $50 or $100.

Rene`

zoomer wrote:

Since you already shot the pictures without any price agreement you don't have many options.
Ask your customer what she thinks is fair and sell them to her for that, especially if customer really means a friend.

Next time agree on a price up front.

I do stuff like that for free and chalk it up to marketing expenses, you will get more value from her telling people about how great you are than you will for the actual small amount of work you did on this.

If you feel you must... charge her $50 or $100.

My main concern is that they are friends. But LOTS of their family are my customers. Many of whom I have refused to sell digital images to. I have given a few for FB profiles and such. I understand the need for digital images in this case. (they are doing a bidding on some modeling jobs)

But, I am the only photog in my area who doesn't sell CD's. (And I have a good thing going right now.)

Thank you so much for giving me your thoughts.

Rene`

ChatKat

Glort:

My comment of Aus/USD/Pesos etc was actually tongue in cheek.

But, you are correct in your answer. No two photographers are every going to have the same price. There are too many factors in setting up a pricing model. As an accountant, however, I can answer this question.

We really as photographers have a bigger problem in what to charge and we need to educate those who charge for the cost of paper and leave out the cost of overhead and profit because if we do not do that - in a generation, the role of professional photographer will go away and be made obsolete. It will be impossible to stay in business when competing with people who are giving their photography away without understanding what thier cost is and determining what their actual price should be.

zoomer

Thank God for the people who still demand a quality product in this day of RAP everything....mediocrity is becoming the norm...photography has not been spared.

Yes at the rate things are going it will be very difficult for more than one or two photographers who are actually providing a quality product to make a go of it in the average market.

Art Scott

ChatKat wrote:

We really as photographers have a bigger problem in what to charge and we need to educate those who charge for the cost of paper and leave out the cost of overhead and profit because if we do not do that - in a generation, the role of professional photographer will go away and be made obsolete.

It will be impossible to stay in business when competing with people who are giving their photography away without understanding what thier cost is and determining what their actual price should be.

In my market, my biggest problem ove the years was the wally world, seers ansd such studios and their 400 prints for 4.99.........last night while watching a little tele i was knocked out of my chair by a new ad for a Portrait Studio......Portrait Innovations......supposedly state of the Art all digital and a package of around 40 prints for 9.95.........all done by Professional photogs.........it is going to kill us.......another chain studio......and one of their claims is that "We always shoot handheld so we can get that perfect angle and perfect focus every single time".........and I almost forgot......."You don't have to wait 15 days for your portraits they will be ready in 15 minutes"..........

Page with the Ad I saw...............just press play video.

Rene`

Come on now.........
If you thought that my question was so stupid and such a waste of time then why did you even bother to waste your time and bandwidth responding.

Glort wrote:

ChatKat wrote:

In reality, there is no difference if it's $US, $A, Yen, Peaso's or Sea Shells.

These how much questions are impossible to answer for a whole range of reasons.
This question is no different to all the others that are asked along the exact same lines and in my opinion are a complete waste of time and useless to ask in the first place.
With out doubt there is not nearly enough information provided anytime these questions are presented to give anything like a meaningful answer.

Secondly, when anyone else does provide a number or advice for arriving at a price, there are invariably objections by the OP that contest that advise for a myriad of reasons, of course one of them without fail being related to further details of the situation that were not provided in the first place.

From there, the general way these things go is divulge further facts that make ANY advice completely irrelevant due to situations and circumstances ONLY the OP can account for.

In this case we have the situation of the work done was for a friend but then that is trying to be offset by not undermining the value of further work for others, presumably non friends whom the OP does not want to discount their rate for. How can anyone other than (or maybe including) the OP have any clue as to what bearing this has on a price structure?
It is plainly impossible! The person has put them in a situation from the start by not giving the customer/friend a price from the start and then trying to complicate the issue with opposing factors.

This is not a go at the OP here specifically, this is a very common scenario for these questions that is often repeated and I am merely using this case as the example given the questions posed on the thread.

In my own case, there are some friends I would charge and some I would not. Some friends do me a lot of favors and pay for things from their own pocket and will never take any cash in return and others I have a very business like relationship where money is concerned. Furthermore, even with these people, they may have done me a non financial favour which I would be happy to return in kind such as providing the type of pics as referred to here which were not a cash out of pocket expense.

These things alone make any sort of meaningful reply to these questions an impossibility and if one can put emotion aside long enough to be blatantly honest, it's rather pointless and meaningless to ask the question in the first place.

In this instance what is being asked for is a commercial price balanced by non commercial one. How has anyone other than the OP got any possible way of calculating that?

Straight out commercial based " How Much" questions are difficult enough and again being honest, if a person has to ask the question in the first place, there is a great likelihood that they are also going to skew any answer with thoughts of " I'm not a Pro" or "my work isn't 100% " or " I want to go cheap to get more business" among a myriad of other thoughts that will render any answer given a basic waste of time in the greatest majority of cases.

Rarely if ever can I recall someone asking the right question of " What is the going rate for XXX work?", Its always a story of situations that basically tell any respondents up front they are not interested in an accepted commercial rate, but rather are trying to apply a price to specific situation with more to it than they ever let on but impossible for anyone else to calculate with any meaning in the first place.

I really wonder how many people that have ever asked the "How much" question have ever gone with the replies given. And of course the replies in themselves are always so widely varied that a person that couldn't make up their minds in the first place as to what a job was worth would not be able to find any help in. Shooters all charge widely different and varying rates at the best of time so someone not knowing whhat something is worth wanting to offset any any widely varying answers through different factors..... What hope has anyone got???

The ONLY person that has a hope of answering a "How much" question is the one asking it and I strongly suspect from what I have read that they most likely go with the number they had in their head before they asked anyhow rendering the whole process a basic waste of their time as well as any respondents.

In this case I have given an answer that is perfectly reasonable and appropriate for the job described. Others have given a much different answer but one that still fits ( In my mind anyway) with the work done and the associated mitagating background factors. None of these answers appears to be acceptable or even helpful to the OP ( despite thanks for the comments) because they are still wheeling out reasons that would effect ANY price given.

For these reasons I think these "How much" questions are largely a waste of time and bandwidth here for everyone and would personaly prefer to see them not allowed any more. The exception to this would be a separate section where people had to answer specific relevant questions that could be answered by people on a pure business basis because anytime you charge anyone for your work over and above out of pocket expenses, its business.

If people want to skew answers given by trying to make business decisions on a personal relationship basis, well that is up to them and at their peril.

Their is no formula, accepted rate or remote possibility of calculating this and before anyone gets upset or wants to call me mean or anything else for my reply here, first ask yourself if there is anything I have said that factually is not correct.

ChatKat

Direction of your comment
Rene'

I don't think anyone thinks your questions are without merit. It's not yes or no question - there are many factors and opinions about price. I think that there has been very civil discussion regarding your question and none of it on this thread has been questioning you at all.

Editing to add that I did go to your website and looked at your print prices and you have priced your prints barely above cost. You need to figure out your cost of equipment and your time at a living wage in there.