So what about this Session Fee?

[jbernthold]

I am going to try my best to word this so nobody that answers is confused. I am wanting to start a photography business. I have watch hours upon hours of courses and tutorials with some being on the business side for a photography business. When it comes to pricing, I get somewhat confused about the session fee and the actual prints the client would be buying.

Typically is a session fee separate from the prints you would buy? I have heard in videos about discounting the session fee, offer a free session, etc. because that's where you are making your money is in the prints and not the session fee.

So are a majority of established photographers charging to have the actual photo session (session fee) and then the client pays for a package or a la carte on top of the session? Is the session fee included in a package etc.

I am not trying to get into pricing or anything just more of a structure question I am confused by I guess.

I hope you see where I was going with this and can explain in some detail.


Thanks

 

[Light Guru]

You can do it however you want.

Some photographers charge little to no fee but hike up the price of prints while others charge a sitting fee then deliver a set number of edited images digitally and don't bother dealing with any printing.

There is no right or wrong structure in how you should do things, just pick a way that works for you.

 

[Overread]

As Light says its up to you how to approach this.

Consider:

1) The most important thing is that you know your minimum costs. Know how much you have to earn so that you can break even. It's a very important value to know because from there that defines how little you can take before you're losing out financially from a shoot - that's important because it means you can measure how effective your methods are - if you're always scraping close or under chances are something is wrong.
Don't forget that in an ideal world you want to not just break even but profit from shoots.

2) If you price a high sitting fee you might scare away some clients, but on the flipside you get the bulk of your money up front and in your hands. You might already have some print sales inside the sitting fee; if so then it needs to make all your break even costs and a little more.

2) If you price your sitting fee lower you might find it easier to attract clients; but on the flipside this relies more strongly upon you being good at selling your product. Because you've then got to turn around and convince your clients to buy prints off you; and not just one print.

3) Consider that either approach might come with a booking fee paid up-front before the session. This can be important in ensuring that if someone books your time and cancels you've still got money from a shoot you otherwise wouldn't have had (wasted time). It also helps commit people to come - to actually turn up because they've already part paid for it.

 

[jbernthold]

Thank you both for responding.

Without getting to much into pricing, how do you "know" your break even point? What key factors should be considered? Just your time on the shoot, editing, cost of product?

 

[vintagesnaps]

You could try ASMP for business resources for photographers - guidelines on determining cost of doing business, pricing, etc. Or try looking up PPA, I think they may have resources as well.

American Society of Media Photographers

 

[KmH]

Thank you both for responding.

Without getting to much into pricing, how do you "know" your break even point? What key factors should be considered? Just your time on the shoot, editing, cost of product?

You do the math and calculate it.

Your cost of doing business (CODB - includes your salary) and your cost of goods sold (COGS) determine your break even point.

Regardless the business model you choose to use you can make some basic assumptions.

A well run, one person, home based retail photography business will earn salary at about 25% of revenue.
If you want to make $30,000 a year before taxes, you can figure out how much revenue you need to have in a year - $30,000 / 25% = $120,000 a year in revenue you need to have ($10,000 a month).
With about 25% of your $30,000 going to income, social security, and use taxes your take home pay would be about $22,500 a year.
$40,000 a year before taxes - $40,000 / 25% = $160,000 a year in revenue you need to have. (take home about $30,000)
$50,000 a year before taxes - $50,000 / 25% = $200,000 a year in revenue you need to have. (take home about $37.500)

About 75% of your time needs to be devoted to doing business management tasks like accounting, marketing, promotion, pre/post shoot customer interaction, etc.
If you work 6 days a week figure you'll only be able to shoot an equivalent of 3 days a week.
Out of the 52 weeks in a year, and being a 1 person business, plan on 2 weeks of personal/vacation/sick days, 4 days for business/photography seminars, etc.
Based on real life, I would suggest you plan on only being able to shoot about 45 weeks a year.

At 3 shooting days a week that would be 135 shooting days a year.
Being very optimistic lets say you are able to average 3.5, 1 hour sessions per shooting day.
135 shooting days x 3.5 sessions per day = 473 sessions per year.

If you need to have gross revenue of $160,000 a year - $160,000 / 473 sessions = you need an average per session sale of $338 just to break even.

It turns out that to keep a retail photography business going today, and to earn a living income your average sale really needs to be about $1000 per session.