Commission Rates?

[KayleighKins]

I've been shooting for about 4 years now, for myself, and I've finally upgraded my kit enough that I would feel comfortable working for commissions. I've never had a gig before and I don't do conventional portraits. If we're just talking about per hour, and not including gas prices and special equipment, what would be the min and max amount of money per hour that you would pay me for a commission?

Also, what do you charge per hour? What do you charge for commissions?

I've tried to look at the prices around me, but it's mostly traditional portraits and wedding photographers, which are vastly different from my style (I mostly do nature and "fine art").

[TPF Sponsor]

[tirediron]

I charge $75.00/hr for all jobs.

[tsblo]

For the studio I work for its 125.00$ an hour, basic editing included.

[KmH]

Commission Rates?

It depends what you are commissoned to do.

The commission fee for a fine art image would be a lot more than the commission fee for non-traditional portraiture, which would be still more than the commission fee for a nature shot. Fine Art would also require substantially different presentation and marketing than either portraiture or nature work for that matter.

All of your fees and prices have to be set in such a way that you recover all your non-reimbused business expenses, including your salary and retirement income (CODB, cost-of-doing-business), and your cost-of-goods-sold (COGS).

Your main problem is going to be that your chosen genre's, non-traditional portraiture, nature, and fine art, appeal to a relatively narrow market segment, which will make earning a regular living income from commissions alone, quite difficult.
I suspect you will be doing most of your nature and fine art work on speculation and then beating the bushes in the hopes of locating buyers.

You will not find all that many buyers for non-traditional portraiture, though it is possible once you have a body of critically acclaimed work you could identify and market to a high income demographic.

At any rate, you're going to need to develope a written business and marketing plan so you can antisipate your costs so you can effectively price your time and work.

The best marketing you can get is the word-of-mouth marketing you get from satisfied paying clients.

[Jeff Colburn]

I charge $100 an hour with a minimum of 4 hours.

Have Fun,
Jeff