Pricing Prints... I'm working on a real answer for this.

[manaheim]

So hey, I've been selling my prints for a while now... I'm not going to make a living off it or anything, but I've probably sold a dozen or so in the past couple years. Nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway, as I've been going through the process I've been (like many people) struggling with what to charge for them.

I think I'm coming fairly close to a real nearly scientific conclusion on this but I have a few questions that I'm hoping the masses here can help me sort out. Once I have this all together I'd be very happy to post my final conclusions and... if you can believe this... I'll even post the prices I'm charging!!!! YES!!! I WILL BREAK THE LAW OF TABOO!!!!!

My reasoning is simple... I think the big reason (or a bit part of the reason) why everyone is so hush-hush about what they charge, is that no one can really explain it. In my opinion, once you get it down to a consistent formula, there's really no reason why anyone shouldn't be able to explain it- even to their customers if they were so inclined to ask.

I've also stumbled on an interesting answer to the people who poo-poo expensive art photography, btw, but I'll share that with you later as well.

So what I have so far for my formula basically breaks down to this... (numbers to come later after I get some more opinions) I'm also open to any differing opinions on how I've broken this down, btw.

1. Cost of materials needs to be factored into the product and should be transferred to the buyer, but there is no need to mark that up. You're not selling retail products, you're selling art.
2. Cost of your labor to frame the item should be included and passed on to the buyer. I factor in 1/2 hour at my usual "work fee" (and everyone may have a different number for that)
3. ART PRICE- so now is where you decide how much your art should be worth on a per-piece basis. Multiple this out by the maximum number of prints you plan to make for this piece and you have the total money you're going to make on this piece.

So for an 18x12 print framed (23x17 approx finished size) piece... archive quality mat, mounting and backer board, simple black metal frame, standard glass, signed and numbered... I come up with $230. This includes a $100 art price and $50 in labor. The rest is materials.

I also have a "special art" price for any piece that really stands out in one way or another. So something that was particularly hard to get or something that I think is REALLY killer, I charge $150 as an art price instead of $100.

Now my philosophy behind this way of doing it is they're buying value in a piece of art... not materials. This means that whether they buy a 5x7 or a 24x36, they're paying for the artwork.

So here are the questions...

1. Do you think $100 and $150 is enough?
2. Do you think there should be a premium for larger prints? This method seems to make sense to my mind for a 18x12, but a 30x20 comes in at $330, which feels a little light to me. I wondered if I should put in an upcharge based upon size, since a larger piece could have more impact.
3. Do you think there should be a premium for prints that are selling out? After all, if I only have 10 left to sell, the piece is clearly popular... whereas if I have something with 45 left to sell, it's either not popular or not demonstrated itself to be so. What would you think makes sense here? 5% more for every 10 sold? So that $230 image would be ... $240 at #11, $250 at #21, $265 at #31, $275 at #41-50.
4. What about charging something big for the last one? (I wonder if I'll ever get there - lol) But maybe like 1.5x for the last one?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks, all!

 

[pic_chick]

I do not feel that this is a bad plan to choose the price of the prints I would factor in how meany prints i would make a year total and how meany of those prints you sell in a year and how much you want your income to be a year break down like this.
I want an income of 30,000 a year
to get that income you would need to sell 91ish prints a year
if the all cost 330.00
that would be about 8 prints a day

Is that a doable goal if you market yourself online and IRL in shops?

 

[KmH]

That all sounds about right to me.

For standard wall size, standard paper prints I charged by the square inch ($0.50)

 

[PhotoWrangler]

Its really simple actually...

Total hard cost x 3 + Hourly rate = Total Price.


Total hard cost = what you pay the lab (printing, paper choice, mounting, shipping, etc.)
Multiplied three times = roughly broken down - 33.3% hard cost, 33.3% sales taxes & overhead, 33.3% profit.
Hourly rate = basically amounts to what you want to be paid. (ex: half and hour to shoot, half an hour to edit/create = 1hr/$20)

PPA has studies that show what a photographer should be charging. Those studies show different amounts for different setups. Full retail brick and mortar locations should be making about 35% profit from sales, and those photographers without brick and mortar studios should be making more like 40-45% profit - if I remember correctly.

 

[CCericola]

Since you are not making a living at this charge whatever you want. I think your method is fine for your circumstances. I might charge even more. People always seem to want what most people can't afford. Go after the bored housewives that think art is a status symbol and you could clean up.

 

[amolitor]

It sounds to me like you're cheaping out, frankly. I would at least try adding a substantially higher "art price" to see how it flies. People don't value what they don't pay pay for.

Consider contacting the people who bought your prints in the past, and having a conversation with them. What would they have bought if not from you? Are you competing and winning against nicely framed posters from Target, against $1000 paintings that didn't quite go with the couch, or with actual honest to god art where what matters is: do I love it, and can I afford it?

You can probably segment the market for framed photography up like, uh, lemme take a whack at it:

- one dimension is definitely price sensitivity. there's always a budget in play (don't forget, some people have a BOTTOM figure as well as a top -- they want something expensive)
- another dimension is probably why they want the piece

- decor, it needs to match the couch and be so-and-so big
- themed decor, I want pictures of <thing> and you have some of those
- collectors, casual, I want numbered and signed prints that more or less cohere as decor
- collectors, serious, I want numbered and signed prints that fit in to my collection, decor be damned
​

Something like that. That's the 60 second segmentation, not the good one. Imagine a checkerboard, since I only got 2 dimensions here, with price categories left to right, and "why" categories up and down.

Which square are you in (where do the people who bought from you fit, that is)? Which square to you want to be in? You probably cannot leap 10 squares in any direction, but you can probably go one each way, if you want to. Adjust your prices, adjust your materials and presentation, adjust your subject matter to fit where you want to be, and figure out how to get your work in front of those people. Correct segmentation of the market informs everything else: How you put your product together, how you market it, how you market yourself, and how you price it.

 

[amolitor]

I guess it's worth mentioning this as well.

There are generally two ways to approach pricing, one is "cost based pricing" which is what you're doing. Add up the cost of making the product, add a selected markup to it, and there's your price. The other is "value based pricing" which is to determine how much value the product provides to the customer, and charge them some percentage of that.

In reality we apply a bit of both.

I, and others, are advocating a "value based" pricing model, rather than a "cost based" once. This is pretty much the norm for luxury goods (which framed photographic prints are). What's really interesting about luxury goods is that the "value" is pretty much entirely emotional, and depends to a degree on the price -- the higher the price, the more value you're obtaining, in a very meaningful sense. A good market segmentation, followed by an achievable selection of target market should give you a pretty good handle on the dollars-and-cents of whatever "value" you think you can provide. Then package and sell to hit that.

 

[gsgary]

I had one in an exhibition (Derby Open) i was going to price it at £200 but the judges said it would not sell, they told me to put it up for £500 and it sold

 

[manaheim]

Great feedback so far, folks, thank you.

On the low vs high thing... One thing I've noticed is that when my prints have sold it seems like the price was almost irrelevant. Those people likely would have bought if they were 2x the price. One guy didn't even know how much they were and when I told him he said "oh is that all?"

Because of that I've been creeping them up, but I'm not sure where they should be. $350-500 feels good to me, but who the hell knows. Lol

Btw, I'm actually not trying to do a cost based approach as I am trying to 1. Have a clear sense of my hard costs and 2. Ensure I'm getting something for the actual art element of it. Still, I see what you are saying.

 

[KmH]

One guy didn't even know how much they were and when I told him he said "oh is that all?"

On No! Big money, left on the table.

Some say you know your pricing is just right when 1/3 of your buyers complain the price is to high, but buy anyway.