Service & Product Pricing

[Photos by Barbi]

I'm curious how others determine a price on both their services and final product (disc/prints/packages).

This Sunday will be my first profitable photo shoot, and it's for a friend, however, he's set a budget that I have to work with and he's looking for prints so that his family will purchase more prints from me, in turn generating more revenue for me.

Very curious what everyone charges and what criteria is considered to come to these prices.

If there is another thread that has price lists of various members, please re-direct me.

 

[bigtwinky]

There are a few other threads I remember seeing already on the forums in the last few weeks... I'd suggest using the search function to find them.

Things I remember from those threads:
- look at what others are charging in your area. Pricing in one city is not necessarily the same in all cities
- don't just think of the shooting time, think of the retouching time, the cost of equipment, travel cost, things you may need to rent,...

 

[Big Mike]

You need to figure out your business plan and work your price structure around that. What do you want your main sales item to be...it could be your service, so you might have a higher sitting fee. Or it might be your prints, so you might have a lower sitting fee but higher print prices. Or maybe you don't want to sell prints at all, just digital files. Maybe you want to push other photo products like albums, canvas prints/gallery wraps etc.

There really isn't a right or wrong way to do it...so you just have to find something that works for you.

The #1 advice is that you shouldn't charge too little...don't sell yourself short.

 

[KmH]

I'm curious how others determine a price on both their services and final product (disc/prints/packages).

This Sunday will be my first profitable photo shoot, and it's for a friend, however, he's set a budget that I have to work with and he's looking for prints so that his family will purchase more prints from me, in turn generating more revenue for me.

Very curious what everyone charges and what criteria is considered to come to these prices.

If there is another thread that has price lists of various members, please re-direct me.

Pricing has to be based on your Cost of Doing Business (CODB) or you won't be in business long. There are several CODB calculators online.

Frankly, letting clients set your budget is another quick way to not be in business long. In my opinion your friend is being disingenuous.

You need to get some business knowledge. A good start would be the book: Professional Business Practices in Photography. It's a collective work sponsored by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and has will give you a good grounding in some of the basics.

Another could be: Power Marketing, Selling and Pricing. A Business Guide for Portrait and Wedding Photographers. Amazon has both books: Click Here

 

[fast1]

do you have that book? seems great for someone who is trying to grow their business

 

[Photos by Barbi]

I'm curious how others determine a price on both their services and final product (disc/prints/packages).

This Sunday will be my first profitable photo shoot, and it's for a friend, however, he's set a budget that I have to work with and he's looking for prints so that his family will purchase more prints from me, in turn generating more revenue for me.

Very curious what everyone charges and what criteria is considered to come to these prices.

If there is another thread that has price lists of various members, please re-direct me.

Pricing has to be based on your Cost of Doing Business (CODB) or you won't be in business long. There are several CODB calculators online.

Frankly, letting clients set your budget is another quick way to not be in business long. In my opinion your friend is being disingenuous.

You need to get some business knowledge. A good start would be the book: Professional Business Practices in Photography. It's a collective work sponsored by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and has will give you a good grounding in some of the basics.

Another could be: Power Marketing, Selling and Pricing. A Business Guide for Portrait and Wedding Photographers. Amazon has both books: Click Here

Thank you very much for all these suggestions. CODB calculators - I'm quite interested to see what these are all about, understand the concept but never knew there are online calculators that could be used.

I do appreciate the book suggestions and will look into them for sure. However, are there any Canadians around here that can suggest books written for doing business here in Canada and/or Ontario?

I assume a lot of the general business related stuff is going to be very similar, it will be the government and legalaties that will differ greatly.

If anyone has any of their own price lists that they'd like to share with me, that would be great. I'm doing some research now, everyone's input, info and suggestions is of great help.

 

[KmH]

You're doing portraits?