Session Pricing and info

SabrinaO · Jan 4, 2011

What do you all charge for each session, or do you charge by the hour? Do you charge differently for each type of session?... (weddings, portraits, senior photos, boudoir etc). What's included in each of your sessions? Do you offer CDs/DVDs or prints and how much do you charge for each?
I just would like to know because I'm working on pricing and I just want to get a feel of what you all do.

redtippmann · Jan 4, 2011

I charge what ever I think they will pay and how long it will take. So it changes all the time. If there is a large volume of photos I make a CD but if there is 25 or less I host the full size files on my site where only that client can download them.

But most recently I did a quick studio session for a doctor who needed a new photo and that cost him $75 for the session and a digital file that was licensed for 2 years.

fsquare · Jan 4, 2011

I know i paid my wedding photographer(s) a crap load of money lol...was worth it though figuring they were with us from 6:30AM to 2AM and the work was fantastic.

KmH · Jan 4, 2011

SabrinaO said:
What do you all charge for each session, or do you charge by the hour? Do you charge differently for each type of session?... (weddings, portraits, senior photos, boudoir etc). What's included in each of your sessions? Do you offer CDs/DVDs or prints and how much do you charge for each?
I just would like to know because I'm working on pricing and I just want to get a feel of what you all do.

Weddings, portraits, high school seniors, boudoir, commercial are all priced differently.

The reason they are priced differently is because they are both used and produced differently.

Price = cost-of-doing-business (CODB) + cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) + reputation + profit margin.

You have no way of knowing what another photographer's CODB or COGS is. Consequently, using another photographers pricing could turn out being a way for you to actually lose money.

Don't forget your salary and retirement fund contributions are part of your CODB, along with all your other non-reimbursed business expenses like:

computer
display calibration
software
phone
Internet access
business insurance
utilities
taxes
accountant
bookkeeper
equipment depreciation
server hosting fee's
business management time
etc.

Prints are divided into 2 main catagories:

Desk prints
Wall prints

Desk prints have a much larger markup than do wall prints, because many more desk prints than wall prints are sold.

A popular consumer online print lab is Mpix.com. Their 5x7 will cost you $1 and their 8x10 will cost you $2, neither including shipping.
A number often bandied about here on the Internet is to multiply your print cost x3, which is a great way to go broke fast selling desk prints since a 5x7 would be $3 and an 8x10 would be $6.

I believe the pricing for desk size prints should be more along the lines of x30 to x50 and that the price of the wall prints decrease to be about x5 for the largest standard wall prints.

tirediron · Jan 4, 2011

I use an hourly rate ($75/hr; 30 minute min) for all work except for charity/benefit. My thinking here is that it allows the clients, especially for things like weddings to decide where their priority is (ie, do they really want me to cover the entire reception, or would they rather put that time toward post-processing and get more images?) Material (other than prints) are at cost+40% and prints are charged based on my own warped math. Unlike many, I have the luxury of not needing to make a living from my photography however.