How to price a photo?

EDL

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Here's the scenario:

Hobbiest, no intention of becoming a professional photographer and I don't market my photos, but how do I price a photo if I am contacted by someone, or even a business asking to purchase one of my photos and I'm interested in selling it?

Is there a general guideline, or is this a scenario where you would just WAG it? I assume there is copyright considerations too.

I was actually contacted a number of years ago by a company wanting to purchase a photo I had up on one of those free websites (don't even remember the site host). It wasn't "pro" quality by any means, but they were still interested. I had no idea what to tell them. It never happened as I didn't have the original in the size and format they wanted, but I've always wondered what others would have done in that situation.

The picture was a rather mediocre at best macro of an ant lion I shot with my old Olympus C3030 with a Raynox 2x lens screwed on the front.
 
Let them make an offer... since you aren't worried about doing it professionally! If you don't feel the offer is high enough... make a counter! They can say YES or NO!

Or just decide on set rate for any photo.. at a particular size. Price will vary on how they want to use it.

I would still do a contract with whatever rights they need, and whatever limitations you want.
 
Ok, makes sense, but as for the "decide on set rate"...that's where I have no idea. I wouldn't be out to scalp them, but I'd certainly not want under sell it either.
 
I can tell you how I have done things in the past. I usually will charge the cost of the print with maybe a 10% mark up for my time if they want me to print it for them as I use a photo lab and do not print photos in house. I have to pay taxes and have to charge taxes. I also will charge an hourly fee of what it took to process the photo. With my graphic design and printing business I charge $40 an hour for graphic work. I can process photos pretty quick and so I do not take longer than an hour ever. So I know my set rate is about $40 per photo profit. If they want a download of the high res file I will offer them at just the cost of processing and followed up by an email with rights to print one print and give them a time frame in which the print is valid for. Some printers will need this to print if they think its a professional photo. I will include my business info and contact info with a number for them to call for questions, this is for non commercial use. IF it is commercial use then there are licensing fees and it depends on what it will be used for. I have a had a few pictures sold with licensing for use of print for some advertisement. I charged a set % and a limited license fee in which case it was only to be used for the job purchased for. I sold one full licensed photo and had to release rights to print or sell it to any one else including me and the company took ownership and was able to use as they please.

I pretty much use the same method as I would logos, I have a few set prices for logos and use of logos I design for clients.
 
I base my sales on what the clients budgets are. I do have base rates for images being used for publication, TV, commercial uses. But I do ask the clients what their budgets are, in most cases they offer more than I would charge, and then tell them that's around what I was looking at. On occation I will charge them slightly less than their offer, it brings them back in the future.

In other cases people will offer far less than what I am looking for, if they aren't willing to negotiate, then they can find the photos someplace else, which in most cases, I know they can't. I don't like turning away any sales, but sometimes, it has to be done.
 
Actually, you don't sell a photo, you license rights to usage of a photo.

Licensing a photo to a business for use in promoting their business is very much different than licensing the same photo to an individual. A creative fee is also usually billed in addition to the use licensing fee(s)

Copyright is actually a bundle of rights that can be licensed piecemeal.

A use license you sell to a business defines how, where, what size, how long they can use the photo. You need to know if they want exclusive or non-exclusive use of the photo. Exclusive use costs a lot more than non-exclusive use does.
Over what geographical area do they want to use photo? Use just in a region of the US costs less than use nationwide, costs less than use in north america, costs less than world-wide use.

Many commercial photographers charge a % of the total media buy for whatever ad campaign an image(s) will be used in. Which brings up anpther part of use licensing - media types. For print advertising a use license usually defines how many copies of each print media type can be made. Obviously a regional business would want to have fewer copies made than a multinational company.

So what it boils down to is that when licensing a photo to a business you have to ask a lot of questions.

The reason businesses approach amateurs about using their photos is because the business knows it can take advantage of the amateurs lack of business knowledge so the business can save themselves a significant amount of money.

Since use licensing rates are so variable, many commercial photographers use license pricing software like fotoQuote ? Stock and Assignment Photography Price Guide

You might also visit www.ASMP.org and on the left click on 'Business Resources' and then look at their Pricing Guide tutorial and other information.
 
Pro photogs may license photos depending on the use or print size.
 

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