Pricing
run_kmc
Registered Users Posts: 263 Major grins
Questions regarding pricing seem to be not uncommon, so I thought I'd share the following link:
http://www.drawar.com/articles/two-choices-for-rates-and-cheap-isnt-one-of-them/242/
His main point is that you should charge either nothing or enough to make the work worth your time, otherwise everyone starts getting annoyed.
http://www.drawar.com/articles/two-choices-for-rates-and-cheap-isnt-one-of-them/242/
His main point is that you should charge either nothing or enough to make the work worth your time, otherwise everyone starts getting annoyed.
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I have been working for myself as a "creative freelancer" for 30 years - not photography - and am very much aware of rate bands in my areas of competence.
For friends and "business friends" I will do a short gig for free. They help me get new assignments and I do not want business relations with real friends in any case.
For my strategic marketing consultancy I charge between 1250 and 2000$ per day, for my "copywriting" I charge between 750 and 1200$ per day. I am careful to keep the two businesses separate and I do the copywriting because I enjoy it - money is not everything. The rate I quote depends on the likely longevity of the contract and my personal motivation.
For paying customers you need to charge market rates. When you charge less, your customer cannot explain to their stakeholders why they did not hire a properly qualified person. When you charge more, then you had better deliver evidently superior results. When you do jobs on the cheap then you have a real problem - you have undermined your value and your brand - better to do it for "free" and stay friends.
It would be helpful if Dgrinners could put a stakepost in the sand and establish some basic rules for market pricing. For example, what should I expect to pay for a decent professional photographer for my daughter's wedding? And what should I expect in the way of service? Similar for portraits, products, events, etc.
What I've seen for weddings (as someone who's shot a few and had to hire a photog for their own next year), the pricing pretty much goes like this:
$1250-$1500 : Regular shots, minimal editing, DVD
$2000-$2500 : Decent to good shots, some choice editing, photo album, maybe two shooters.
$3000-$4000 : Good to great shots, choice editing, photo album, two to three shooters.
$4000+ : The works. Great shots. Great editing. Photo album. Two or three shooters with an assistant.
I'm sure someone can chime in and say what's more reasonable in their area but with the average wedding photog charging about $2k, that's what I've seen.
EDIT: On a weird sidenote, now that I've read that article and broken down my own rates over time, it looks like I'm undercutting myself ridiculously. Considering I spend 50 hrs on a wedding (8-10 hrs on the day + 40 or more hours of editing), I can calculate my final price by multiplying that by what I'd like to make an hour. (which would only be reasonable if I could look at my work and say it's worth that much, right? lol)
Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
I couldn't agree more!
I'll probably upset the soft of heart and head again by saying this, but I am constantly amazed at the amount of " What should I charge" posts by people that have already committed or got deeply involved with a job, especially when they are people whom are earning an income from photography and still don't know what to charge!
A typicla scnerio is then to come here and get a lot of conflicting advise and go back to the client whom has either hired someone else whom is professional in that they know what they are worth and can give a straight up answer or they shell shock the client by asking for money after the fact when the client thought it was a favor or in kind deal given that there was no mention of money before. Seems this happens all the time not just here but on many other sites as well.
When it comes down to it, these are not pricing questions, they are " How do I run my business?" questions which should have been worked out and sorted before the person ever thought of taking payment for their services. You get money for your work, your automatically a professional and take on the responsibilities and liability's in the eyes of the law so you should act like a professional on all other levels as well.
I have no problem with " amateurs" taking on paying work but if they want to go down that road, they should work out what they want beforehand and not need to ask " How much should I charge?".
At a base level, I think pricing is very easy.
What is the minimum you would think was fair before you felt ripped off, How much would you want to think you were laughing if you got it, and what's the number in the middle of the 2 that you should be aiming for given those upper and lower parameters?
There is YOUR price.
Everyone knows these numbers and no one else can tell you what they are so as far as I can see, there is no problem in anyone knowing what their price should be.
The other thing that amuses me with these questions is the people that come up with ridiculous reply's about licensing and usage fees and calculating the wear and tear value on their socks and deodorant they will be wearing during the shoot and depreciation on their computer for editing etc and put it all together and come up with a figure suited to a national advertising campaign when the client is a local cafe that just needs a shot of the front of their shop to put in a local paper ad!
It seems to me people spend endless time learning and reading up on photo related things but completely ignore the fact that they are in business and that over rules all else.
I used to help a guy in another state get his business going and he got a LOT of work through his website. Often people would ring him from my area and he would pass them onto me because the Job wouldn't be worth him traveling for. He'd often tell me there wasn't much in it or the client was tight but if I were interested give them a ring.
Sooo many times he would have had one figure in his mind what the job would be worth and I'd get 4-5 times more out of the client with no problem. After a couple of years he finally had the guts to state the obvious and tell me that he thought my pics were not as good as his ( which they weren't) but how could I always get so much more money and repeat work out of the clients when he struggled?
That was the point where what I had been telling him all along that he needed to spend 90% of his time on learning about business and 10% on photography finally sank in and his business started to really take off to the huge money earner it is now.
I have also become aware of huge discrepancies in the wedding market in my area. There is a guy here charging in the order of $20K for work I consider average and like my own. There is another guy I think consistently does some of the best work I have ever seen and he's getting around 1/4 of what the other guy does even though he's an established and awarded studio!
I know my work is nothing like his but according to what he has told me, I'm taking at least 25% more on every job and I know my profit is way higher because he's spending about 4 times more on his albums alone than I am and I know his overheads would be way higher as well. At the end of the day, he cannot be putting any more than about $1500 per job in his pocket and I expect it could be a lot less.
Brilliant Photographer, crap business man.
I would love to go into partnership with this guy and run the front end for him while he did the shoots because I know we could split the profits and both make more money than either of us had ever seen before!
There seems to be a real irony in the fact I have far more confidence and faith in his work than he seems to himself.
OTOH, the first guy with the average work must be some sort of super salesman or hypnotist to get what he does for what he produces. Having seen his work, it took a few people to reassure me that someone hadn't made a gross mistake in telling me what he charged for what I was seeing which was competent but nothing like justifying the money he was getting.
I thought I was half a chance as a salesman but to get what he does for the work he delivers, this guy is wasting his time in photography and should utilize his skills in selling private islands, luxury jet liners and personal cruise ships!
Now if he and the other shooter got together.... They would re write the book on worlds richest photographers!
Anyway, whenever I see these fundamental " How Much" questions, I can take comfort that while ever people are still asking them, there will be opportunities in the market that I can easily cash in on and render an amount of the over saturation in this business irrelevant.
Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
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Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
Being a good salesperson is an art - it is about making the purchaser feel great about the purchase - before, during, and especially after. Not everyone can do this. You need to know your people. It is all very well to have disdain for the selling process and believe that great art will speak for itself. Van Gogh couldn't barter his paintings to settle his bar bills and his self-respect was low at the end, and he was a truly great artist.
The kind of photographer who believes their photos speak for themselves better have another source of income.