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Pricing Help
DianeH
Registered Users Posts: 4 Beginner grinner
Hello to the group. I'm an intermediate photographer. Just now venturing out into business. From OKC, OK. I do mostly horses (stock shots and action events). I also do some dog agility. And I'm just starting to venture out into senior portraits, pets and people, etc.
My problem is that I have NOOOOOO idea what to charge per print. I'm thinking about signing up with SmugMug (cuz I love their site!), but I still need to have some basic idea where to set my prices.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks, Diane
My problem is that I have NOOOOOO idea what to charge per print. I'm thinking about signing up with SmugMug (cuz I love their site!), but I still need to have some basic idea where to set my prices.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks, Diane
0
Comments
I realize this may sound like a simple question to you, but it is anything but a simple question.
I would suggest you go online and search all the photographers in your area and see what they are charging. Then realistically compare your images to theirs.
What are you offering that the other guys aren't? If your offering prints do you have any experience with printing? Is your monitor color calibrated? Do your prints match what you see on your monitor?
As an example if you look through various SmugMug sites you might see 8X10 prints on one site for $2.00 or $3.00 and on another $45.00 or so.
As you move forward with your research and refine your questions I think you will get more responses.
Sam
Also look at what your cost of doing business is, and how much time involved in doing the portrait and processing and figure out what you need to make an hour to cover that and create a starting package that will cover your time. Dont give them a cd of full res images, unless they pay alot for it.
For example, doing a senior portrait.
30 min of talking to the customer via various media to answer questions and get the booking scheduled
15 min to travel to the shoot
15 min to talk to them and get things going
60 min to photograph the event
15 min to travel back
2 hours to process and sort the images to make them look their best.
15 min to travel to show the pictures
60 min to show the pictures and help them decide what package and options best suites their needs
15 min to travel back home
30 min to process the images to get them print ready and sent off to the lab
So thats 6.25 hours and thats probably underestimating the time involved. And doesnt include talking to other people about pictures that do not end up schduling a portrait. Basically a days work for the one portrait. I know some people can do this much faster and some may take more time.
Now the fun part. figuring out what your monthly expenses are for your business, and how much you need to live on. Between computer and camera upgrades, power, travel, printing, advertising and software. Say your monthly expenses are $300 a month *random number* and your living expenses are $3000 a month, with 20 working days in a month, thats $115 a day. But since you are just starting out getting the word out there, odds are you do not get appointments every day, the min package may need to be increased. Oh forgot to factor in health care and retirement as well as a savings for rainy days *slow months*.
Diane
Diane
in relation to pricing and being professional. I think there are some very good points in there.
Personaly, i think that if you believe that your work is only up to charging $4 for a 6x4, you should wait until your comfortable charging something that is more worthwhile for your time and also does not degrade the market for others.
You should also sped some time looking into Advertising, marketing and sales.
this will help you understand that people buy the person, the product and the price in that order.
I honestly think if they will hire you and pay $4 for a 6x4 they will pay something decent like $20. My personal prefrance is not to offer 6x4s at all. I think they are the best way to make a pros work look like an amateurs because they relate exactly to what the amateurs are used to seeing themselves and there is noe wow factor in that size at all, in fact I believe it removes most of the impact and quality of photograph.
You don't have to do things just because the other guy does or hasn't thought things through for themselves.
I believe you may as well start at a decent price as a low one because before you know it your going to be wanting to raise your prices and then having the dilema of " What If I loose customers because they now think I'm too expensive?"
Avoid the problem ans establish yourself as a pro rather than a wanna be from the start by charging prices that are on a profession not an amateur level.
If you are not comfortable with that, I suggest you may want to wait and build you confidence or wexperience untill you do. In the end it will make things much easier and fast track you to getinng where you want to be much faster in the end.