Portrait Pricing Help

[rlconklin]

Greetings all, I've been taking photos for many years on a strictly non-professional basis. Anyway, I recently decided to start taking photos semi-professionally. I've done a few odd things here and there, such as little league photos at a tournament and manager portraits at a local grocery store chain.

I'd like to start doing portraits and was recently contacted to do a family portrait session at a local park. There will be a total of 10 people being photographed. They are: the grand parents (2 people), their two daughters and their familys (4 people in each family). I'll be doing the whole group and well as individual families.

Since this is basically my first real portrait job of this type, I told them I'd wave the setting fee in exchange for being able to use the photos in my portfolio (I'll get signed model releases). So my real question is what is a fair price for the photos (i.e. how much should I charge for 8 x 10's, 11 x 14's, etc.). And going forward, what is a reasonable price for setting fees.

I have a regular job and will only be doing photography on evenings and weekends, so it's not going to be my main source of income, but I want to be sure that I'm being fair to my clients as well as myself.

Thanks for any advice you may be able to give.

[Arved]

From my college economics classes, living here in a capitalist country, the answer is quite simple. "What the market will bear." I don't know your market. Hell, I'm not sure I know mine. How DO you get to know your market, especially when you're starting out?

Well, PPA says that cost of goods and services should be roughly 1/3 of your selling price. However, I wouldn't take that to mean that if you can get a print made for $1.99, that your 8x10 price should be (3x$1.99=) $5.97. The problem here is that you've got far more into the cost of a photograph.

OK, lets discount the sitting fee. Time scouting the location, setting up supplimental lighting (flash and/or reflectors), your time getting all your gear together, cleaning up the location after the shoot, etc. So we're just talking about what happens after you leave the park with your image in your camera on the memory card.

A lot depends on what you're going to do. What's your workflow, and how much time are going to be investing in those photographs? Unless you're going to shoot JPG and head over to Walgreens on the way home and have them print directly from your memory card, you've got some time there. What wages is your business going to pay you? Are you going to make minimum wage sitting at your computer retouching photos? If you're willing to do it for less - drop me a line. I could use a photoshoper who'll work for the love of the craft doing my retouching. Factor your efforts into your cost of goods and services. Even the time to backup those images - burn a CD/DVD of the session for your files, or the external hard disk - whatever method you use. It's a business - it has to be accounted for.

How about the sales process? All these people to deal with - how are you going to be presenting your images for them to order, taking the order, and finally delivering the print? Are you going to use online sales and order fulfillment tools, like SmugMug? They're not free. What sort of packaging are you going to provide? Just going to hand the print over to them? Leave it in the envelope that it came from your printer? Or are you going to use a folder? How about bags?

My last sales presentation - for a senior - lasted an hour, and her proof book included 45 images from a 1 hour shoot (which I did collect a sitting fee for). I got a big order, but the time I spent with the client has to be figured into the cost. I'm meeting with a bride this weekend to finalize her wedding album and take a print order. She's only seen the first draft of the album. We've probably got a couple hours of time sitting down and working together on the album, and then how long do you think it will take to go through the 300 final images (culled from 900 taken) to generate the print sales? If 45 senior photos took an hour, how much time is 300 wedding photos going to take? Someone has to pay for my time. I don't work for free. Arved Grass Photography is NOT a non-profit orgainization! If my business didn't pay me to work, I'd quit!

Then there's the accounting. One sale - no big deal. Maybe you can use some free software (Open Office OpenCalc) or something you have laying around (Microsoft Excel). Maybe you're going to upgrade to Quicken Home and Business, or Quickbooks (there is a free version, too, and it's a good start, but eventually you'll want the pro package at about $100 on sale). As a business, you'll probably be collecting sales tax (unless you live in Oregon?), and need to keep track of that. For many, an accountant is our first major business expense - don't discount it's importance or it's value to your business.

Insurance? PPA offers indemnity as part of it's membership. It's not real liability insurance, but it's a start. Now that your a pro, your homeowners policy probably will no longer cover your camera gear for loss, damage, or theft. Check with your agent. If you need insurance (and most of us do), then that's another cost to figure into your cost of goods and services.

You may need a business license. If you're running the business out of your home, you may need an occupancy permit - maybe even rezone your house. We ARE talking about doing this legally, and not under the table. If you're going to be competing with professionals who depend on business like this to make mortgage and car payments, send kids to college and take time off for vacations, we have to follow the same rules they have to.

The PPA recognizes that many photographers work out of their home. They even encourage it, noting that, on average, when you look at successful businesses, home based photography studios are more profitable than studios located on commercial property. Don't figure that home based or part time is semi-pro. You are either a professional, working to make a profit, or you're not. If you're going to be a business, do it right, and compete fairly. There's no shame in remaining an ammature. There's more shame in running a shoddy illegal business, making money by cutting corners.

Market forces also play a large role in pricing. That's how you get to the gist of "what the market will bear." In our guild (Professional Photographers Society of North Florida), people are a little tight lipped about their prices, and the guild can't do anything that even appears to look like price-fixing. I can tell you that, in our guild, among our members, the prices for an 8x10 range from a low of $9.97 to a high of $400. A common rule is to price the photo by the length of the longest side, such as $10/inch. So an 8x10 is $100, an 11x14 is $140 etc. This means a 20x30 is going to sell for the same price as a 24x30. Big deal. Look at the price of getting a 20x30 and a 24x30 printed, and tell me the difference is something to quible about when making a $300 sale. Just do it. Or price according to a 30x30, and anything smaller is more profit for you (and trust me, if you're not in this to be profitable, you have no business to be in business). Just an idea, but think about how much better YOU would feel knowing that you could get a 24x30 for the same price as a 20x30. Takes a little of the sting out of the sticker shock, doesn't it?

Another idea for pricing is to base the price on the size of the print - figuring out a cost per square inch. So if you round things off to $10/square inch, the 8x10 is $80, an 11x14 is $154, etc. Maybe a mixed model might work. Most don't realize than an 11x14 has nearly twice the area of an 8x10, so it's not intuitive that an 11x14 might be double the price of an 8x10.

But this is just a paper print. What's really going to distinguish yourself as a professional is to provide products of (perceived) quality. Me, personally, I've got a lot of problem paying $100 for an 8x10 that I know costs $1.99 down at the local drug store. Never mind it's had 30 minutes of Post Production work and represents the skill of a master photographer. It's still a 50x markup. Matting, Framing, gallery prints, canvases - these are the things that you can offer (and charge for) that set you apart from the printers your clients are familiar with. Your client won't be comparing to what she can get the drug store when you're selling them a canvas print. Your client probably doesn't know where else he could get a canvas print, so she's less likely to say "can you just burn me a CD? I've got a coupon for CVS..." (Yes, this happened to me before. Actual quote from an actual client.)

My goal is also to get away from the "piano top" photo business and into wall portraits. Using a D300 to produce 8x10s that will sit on a piano (or shelf, or mantle) is a waste. I could do that with my old Oly UZi (2 Megapixel Olympus C2100UZ). I bought the D300 to produce 24x30s and bigger. I want my images to be prominent decorative features in my client's homes. That makes them more than photographs - they are art. The photograph suddenly becomes more valuable, and commanding greater pay for my work. 24x30 canvases start, in my market, at $2,400 and go up (I know a guy in Tampa who does 30x30 canvases for $8,000). First 24x30 canvas I sell for $2,400, I'm gonna be thrilled to throw in a free 8x10. You betcha!

Best advice I ever received was don't be afraid to price your work higher than you can afford. You're not selling to yourself. You're selling to people who CAN afford your work. Just because I can't afford (rather, stomach) a $100 8x10 doesn't mean I shouldn't be selling my work at that price. You think the guys working at Boeing building 747s can afford them? Of course not. There's nothing wrong with being a Boeing employee building 747s. There's nothing wrong making products that you can't afford to own yourself.

I'll admit - I'm not getting $80-$100 for an 8x10. I was the guy in the guild giving my work away for $9.97. My mentor sat me down - took me out to dinner, actually - and gave me the "come to Jesus" speach. Peggy so and so charges $400 for an 8x10. Rick so and so charges $100 for an 8x10. He charges $80 for an 8x10. Then he took out one of my photos and asked me - how could Rick or Peggy have done a better job on the photograph I took? The only reason my products were cheaper was because I was pricing them cheaper. I was my own barrier to higher sales. I had a real hard time overcoming the idea that as artists, we shouldn't - CAN NOT - compete as if we were in a commodity market.

So I compromised with my mentor. I quadrupled my prices. I'm no longer the cheapest photographer in the guild. And you know what? I'm happier. I'm no longer frustrated by "Cathy the Coupon Clipper" trying to badger me for a discount, or making me compete with the Walmart Portrait Studio weekly special. When she starts, I know who to send her to.

Oh, and that's another point to consider. Those $9.97 packages at Walmart. Take a good look at how they market those. They upsell like crazy. I have it on good authority that the average price a customer pays at those places is just under $200. Apply a little statistics here. For a $200 average sale, given that there are people who take them up on thier offer and walk out with only the $9.97 package, keeping the average low, there must be a significant number who are paying MORE than the average. We're not competing with a one-pose shoot at $9.97 for an 8x10. They've to a tremendous client base who's buying more than $200 from the sitting. I mean, I ASSUME you want to be better than Walmart, don't you? I sure do. I know I can do something better, just on the passion for photography that I have, than the minimum wage kid they've trained to take the photos (who'll jump ship to the nearest burger joint in nothing flat for an extra nickle an hour). We're entitled to make more, per customer, than Walmart! THAT is knowing your market. THAT is figuring out "what the market will bear."

Do NOT sell yourself short. It's easier to drop prices than to raise them. Even if you're not going to take my advice, I'd rather see you price your work at $40 for an 8x10, and offer it as an introductory special at $9.95, than to just price it out at $9.95. It'll make it a lot easier when you come to your senses, and realize that you, too, need to price your work for what it's worth, rather than for what you'd pay for it.

All the best in your new venture,

[KmH]

Welcome to the PC.

What country are you in?

The Internet went global dude!

We have Photo Camel members from virtually all continents and some from islands too.

USA? Asia? Europe? South America? Oz? Middle East?

Flesh out your profile.

[rlconklin]

I'm from central Pennsylvania in the US

[Divegirl]

Arved - Absolutely a thought-provoking and logically written reply. It makes perfect sense and will inspire me to think deeper on the same issues.

Thanks so much.

[HighMark Adventures]

Originally Posted by Arved

Another idea for pricing is to base the price on the size of the print - figuring out a cost per square inch. So if you round things off to $10/square inch, the 8x10 is $80, an 11x14 is $154, etc. Maybe a mixed model might work. Most don't realize than an 11x14 has nearly twice the area of an 8x10, so it's not intuitive that an 11x14 might be double the price of an 8x10.

,

I`m not much of a mathematician but an 8x10= 80 square inches so at $10 per square inch that would be $800 for an 8x10. Or maybe I just really embarrassed myself


Good read

[Liza]

Originally Posted by rlconklin

I have a regular job and will only be doing photography on evenings and weekends, so it's not going to be my main source of income, but I want to be sure that I'm being fair to my clients as well as myself.

Thanks for any advice you may be able to give.

Be fair to everyone by keeping your prices competitive with other professionals in your area. Once you start charging for your work, you are legally obligated to pay taxes, so keep that in mind as well when you try to formulate your price list. And don't sell yourself short by charging less just because you have another job. I have one, too, but I still average around $450 per portrait session. Just remember that higher prices = greater perceived value.

[iflynething]

Originally Posted by Arved

From my college economics classes, living here in a capitalist country, the answer is quite simple. "What the market will bear." I don't know your market. Hell, I'm not sure I know mine. How DO you get to know your market, especially when you're starting out?

Well, PPA says that cost of goods and services should be roughly 1/3 of your selling price. However, I wouldn't take that to mean that if you can get a print made for $1.99, that your 8x10 price should be (3x$1.99=) $5.97. The problem here is that you've got far more into the cost of a photograph.

OK, lets discount the sitting fee. Time scouting the location, setting up supplimental lighting (flash and/or reflectors), your time getting all your gear together, cleaning up the location after the shoot, etc. So we're just talking about what happens after you leave the park with your image in your camera on the memory card.

A lot depends on what you're going to do. What's your workflow, and how much time are going to be investing in those photographs? Unless you're going to shoot JPG and head over to Walgreens on the way home and have them print directly from your memory card, you've got some time there. What wages is your business going to pay you? Are you going to make minimum wage sitting at your computer retouching photos? If you're willing to do it for less - drop me a line. I could use a photoshoper who'll work for the love of the craft doing my retouching. Factor your efforts into your cost of goods and services. Even the time to backup those images - burn a CD/DVD of the session for your files, or the external hard disk - whatever method you use. It's a business - it has to be accounted for.

How about the sales process? All these people to deal with - how are you going to be presenting your images for them to order, taking the order, and finally delivering the print? Are you going to use online sales and order fulfillment tools, like SmugMug? They're not free. What sort of packaging are you going to provide? Just going to hand the print over to them? Leave it in the envelope that it came from your printer? Or are you going to use a folder? How about bags?

My last sales presentation - for a senior - lasted an hour, and her proof book included 45 images from a 1 hour shoot (which I did collect a sitting fee for). I got a big order, but the time I spent with the client has to be figured into the cost. I'm meeting with a bride this weekend to finalize her wedding album and take a print order. She's only seen the first draft of the album. We've probably got a couple hours of time sitting down and working together on the album, and then how long do you think it will take to go through the 300 final images (culled from 900 taken) to generate the print sales? If 45 senior photos took an hour, how much time is 300 wedding photos going to take? Someone has to pay for my time. I don't work for free. Arved Grass Photography is NOT a non-profit orgainization! If my business didn't pay me to work, I'd quit!

Then there's the accounting. One sale - no big deal. Maybe you can use some free software (Open Office OpenCalc) or something you have laying around (Microsoft Excel). Maybe you're going to upgrade to Quicken Home and Business, or Quickbooks (there is a free version, too, and it's a good start, but eventually you'll want the pro package at about $100 on sale). As a business, you'll probably be collecting sales tax (unless you live in Oregon?), and need to keep track of that. For many, an accountant is our first major business expense - don't discount it's importance or it's value to your business.

Insurance? PPA offers indemnity as part of it's membership. It's not real liability insurance, but it's a start. Now that your a pro, your homeowners policy probably will no longer cover your camera gear for loss, damage, or theft. Check with your agent. If you need insurance (and most of us do), then that's another cost to figure into your cost of goods and services.

You may need a business license. If you're running the business out of your home, you may need an occupancy permit - maybe even rezone your house. We ARE talking about doing this legally, and not under the table. If you're going to be competing with professionals who depend on business like this to make mortgage and car payments, send kids to college and take time off for vacations, we have to follow the same rules they have to.

The PPA recognizes that many photographers work out of their home. They even encourage it, noting that, on average, when you look at successful businesses, home based photography studios are more profitable than studios located on commercial property. Don't figure that home based or part time is semi-pro. You are either a professional, working to make a profit, or you're not. If you're going to be a business, do it right, and compete fairly. There's no shame in remaining an ammature. There's more shame in running a shoddy illegal business, making money by cutting corners.

Market forces also play a large role in pricing. That's how you get to the gist of "what the market will bear." In our guild (Professional Photographers Society of North Florida), people are a little tight lipped about their prices, and the guild can't do anything that even appears to look like price-fixing. I can tell you that, in our guild, among our members, the prices for an 8x10 range from a low of $9.97 to a high of $400. A common rule is to price the photo by the length of the longest side, such as $10/inch. So an 8x10 is $100, an 11x14 is $140 etc. This means a 20x30 is going to sell for the same price as a 24x30. Big deal. Look at the price of getting a 20x30 and a 24x30 printed, and tell me the difference is something to quible about when making a $300 sale. Just do it. Or price according to a 30x30, and anything smaller is more profit for you (and trust me, if you're not in this to be profitable, you have no business to be in business). Just an idea, but think about how much better YOU would feel knowing that you could get a 24x30 for the same price as a 20x30. Takes a little of the sting out of the sticker shock, doesn't it?

Another idea for pricing is to base the price on the size of the print - figuring out a cost per square inch. So if you round things off to $10/square inch, the 8x10 is $80, an 11x14 is $154, etc. Maybe a mixed model might work. Most don't realize than an 11x14 has nearly twice the area of an 8x10, so it's not intuitive that an 11x14 might be double the price of an 8x10.

But this is just a paper print. What's really going to distinguish yourself as a professional is to provide products of (perceived) quality. Me, personally, I've got a lot of problem paying $100 for an 8x10 that I know costs $1.99 down at the local drug store. Never mind it's had 30 minutes of Post Production work and represents the skill of a master photographer. It's still a 50x markup. Matting, Framing, gallery prints, canvases - these are the things that you can offer (and charge for) that set you apart from the printers your clients are familiar with. Your client won't be comparing to what she can get the drug store when you're selling them a canvas print. Your client probably doesn't know where else he could get a canvas print, so she's less likely to say "can you just burn me a CD? I've got a coupon for CVS..." (Yes, this happened to me before. Actual quote from an actual client.)

My goal is also to get away from the "piano top" photo business and into wall portraits. Using a D300 to produce 8x10s that will sit on a piano (or shelf, or mantle) is a waste. I could do that with my old Oly UZi (2 Megapixel Olympus C2100UZ). I bought the D300 to produce 24x30s and bigger. I want my images to be prominent decorative features in my client's homes. That makes them more than photographs - they are art. The photograph suddenly becomes more valuable, and commanding greater pay for my work. 24x30 canvases start, in my market, at $2,400 and go up (I know a guy in Tampa who does 30x30 canvases for $8,000). First 24x30 canvas I sell for $2,400, I'm gonna be thrilled to throw in a free 8x10. You betcha!

Best advice I ever received was don't be afraid to price your work higher than you can afford. You're not selling to yourself. You're selling to people who CAN afford your work. Just because I can't afford (rather, stomach) a $100 8x10 doesn't mean I shouldn't be selling my work at that price. You think the guys working at Boeing building 747s can afford them? Of course not. There's nothing wrong with being a Boeing employee building 747s. There's nothing wrong making products that you can't afford to own yourself.

I'll admit - I'm not getting $80-$100 for an 8x10. I was the guy in the guild giving my work away for $9.97. My mentor sat me down - took me out to dinner, actually - and gave me the "come to Jesus" speach. Peggy so and so charges $400 for an 8x10. Rick so and so charges $100 for an 8x10. He charges $80 for an 8x10. Then he took out one of my photos and asked me - how could Rick or Peggy have done a better job on the photograph I took? The only reason my products were cheaper was because I was pricing them cheaper. I was my own barrier to higher sales. I had a real hard time overcoming the idea that as artists, we shouldn't - CAN NOT - compete as if we were in a commodity market.

So I compromised with my mentor. I quadrupled my prices. I'm no longer the cheapest photographer in the guild. And you know what? I'm happier. I'm no longer frustrated by "Cathy the Coupon Clipper" trying to badger me for a discount, or making me compete with the Walmart Portrait Studio weekly special. When she starts, I know who to send her to.

Oh, and that's another point to consider. Those $9.97 packages at Walmart. Take a good look at how they market those. They upsell like crazy. I have it on good authority that the average price a customer pays at those places is just under $200. Apply a little statistics here. For a $200 average sale, given that there are people who take them up on thier offer and walk out with only the $9.97 package, keeping the average low, there must be a significant number who are paying MORE than the average. We're not competing with a one-pose shoot at $9.97 for an 8x10. They've to a tremendous client base who's buying more than $200 from the sitting. I mean, I ASSUME you want to be better than Walmart, don't you? I sure do. I know I can do something better, just on the passion for photography that I have, than the minimum wage kid they've trained to take the photos (who'll jump ship to the nearest burger joint in nothing flat for an extra nickle an hour). We're entitled to make more, per customer, than Walmart! THAT is knowing your market. THAT is figuring out "what the market will bear."

Do NOT sell yourself short. It's easier to drop prices than to raise them. Even if you're not going to take my advice, I'd rather see you price your work at $40 for an 8x10, and offer it as an introductory special at $9.95, than to just price it out at $9.95. It'll make it a lot easier when you come to your senses, and realize that you, too, need to price your work for what it's worth, rather than for what you'd pay for it.

All the best in your new venture,

You got some K's for that post dude. Freakin awesome information. You got the K's and I bookmarked this thread.....for your post. Wonderful information

~Michael~

[Arved]

Originally Posted by HighMark Adventures

I`m not much of a mathematician but an 8x10= 80 square inches so at $10 per square inch that would be $800 for an 8x10. Or maybe I just really embarrassed myself


Good read

No, you caught my error, and I sincerely appologize for my error. $1 a square inch is what I meant, and that works out to the intended $80 for an 8x10 and $154 for an 11x14. If that's the worst mistake I make all day, things aren't so bad after all, are they?

Yet another thing to consider is that you'll be paying income tax on the money your print sells for. So lets assume your "day job" puts you in the 25% bracket (i.e. making between $33,950 and $82,250 per year). That $10 8x10 that cost you $2 to print gives you a nice $8 profit. Then Uncle Sam comes along and takes 1/4 of that away, leaving you with $6. That 8x10 print didn't cost you $2, it cost you $4, twice what you originally thought it did, and it was all because of your "day job." That's just the Federal Income Tax. Most states impose an income tax as well (although, thankfully, not Florida - Thank You Mickey Mouse!). You must, absolutely, factor in how taxes are going to eat into your profit margin.

And thanks to all those that provided feedback to my post - especially those of you kind enough to leave Karma.