What to charge?? - Starting out

[dieselbear]

Saygee,
I'm in Iowa and we paid a photographer $100 for an hour of shooting and she gave us a CD with 60 edited photos to do with as we please. This is what I planned on doing. Charging one flat rate and let the customer order what they want at whatever photo place they choose.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Saygee,
I'm in Iowa and we paid a photographer $100 for an hour of shooting and she gave us a CD with 60 edited photos to do with as we please. This is what I planned on doing. Charging one flat rate and let the customer order what they want at whatever photo place they choose.

It's a race to the bottom!

Read this: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...as-getting-busier-i-need-help.html?highlight=

 

[dieselbear]

I agree bitter,thanks for sharing the thread. I've changed my mind about trying anything other than hobby shooting. I think i have a lot to learn, and some dues to pay before I consider myself that good to charge anything.

 

[camz]

Read this: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...as-getting-busier-i-need-help.html?highlight=

 

[KmH]

Saygee,
I'm in Iowa and we paid a photographer $100 for an hour of shooting and she gave us a CD with 60 edited photos to do with as we please. This is what I planned on doing. Charging one flat rate and let the customer order what they want at whatever photo place they choose.

So people are selling photographs as if they were a commodity. A little math shows that 60 edited photos for $100 comes to $1.66 a photo.

Think about how much that photographer actually made on a per hour basis. How long did it take to edit 60 photos? How much time was spent with you, the customer, pre shoot and post shoot.

15 minutes pre shoot with customer. 15 minutes equipment prep for the shoot. 1 hour of shooting. 15 minutes spent with the customer post shoot. 30 minutes to upload the images to the computer and cull/organize/sort them. 2 hours to edit the 60 photos. 15 minutes to burn them to a disc.

So say about 4 hours work and $100 pay, so $25.00 an hour.

Not bad huh?

Oops. We are not done yet. Out of that $25 per hour the photographer has to pay their non-reimbursed business expenses, state sales and use taxes (if applicable), state and federal income taxes, unemployment insurance taxes.

What are non-reimbursed business expenses?

• phone costs
• computers
• software
• office supplies
• advertising and promotion
• web site
• business liability insurance
• equipment insurance
• health insurance
• Internet access costs
• salary
• and more

So the customer goes to Wal-mart/Walgreens/Staples to get prints made. You put 3:2 aspect ratio photos on the CD but the customer is wanting to get 5:4 and 7:5 aspect ratio photos printed, and parts they want to print are getting cut off because the aspect ratios are all different.

Anyway, they get the prints made but the local place didn't do a real good job and the prints came out ok, but not really good. But, they show those less than high quality prints to all their friends and say that the photo was taken by XYZ Photography.

But sure, go ahead and just give a CD with photos on it.

 

[orljustin]

Lol, another MWAC thread. Sorry I missed the fun ...

 

[dieselbear]

U guys have good points. Didn't think of it that way.

 

[KmH]

85% of small businesses fail. The #1 reason they fail is because the business owner didn't know how to run a business.

A successful retail photography business owner spends much more time doing business tasks than doing photography and photography tasks.

 

[spacefuzz]

85% of small businesses fail. The #1 reason they fail is because the business owner didn't know how to run a business.

A successful retail photography business owner spends much more time doing business tasks than doing photography and photography tasks.

Isnt that the unfortunate truth, spent the last two weekend not shooting because of it

 

[Redeyejedi]

Saygee,
I'm in Iowa and we paid a photographer $100 for an hour of shooting and she gave us a CD with 60 edited photos to do with as we please. This is what I planned on doing. Charging one flat rate and let the customer order what they want at whatever photo place they choose.

So people are selling photographs as if they were a commodity. A little math shows that 60 edited photos comes to $1.66 a photo.

Think about how much that photographer actually made on a per hour basis. How long did it take to edit 60 photos? How much time was spent with you, the customer, pre shoot and post shoot.

15 minutes pre shoot with customer. 15 minutes equipment prep for the shoot. 1 hour of shooting. 15 minutes spent with the customer post shoot. 30 minutes to upload the images to the computer and cull/organize/sort them. 2 hours to edit the 60 photos. 15 minutes to burn them to a disc.

So say about 4 hours work and $100 pay so $25.00 an hour.

Not bad huh?

Oops. We are not done yet. Out of that $25 per hour the photographer has to pay their non-reimbursed business expenses, state sales and use taxes (if applicable), state and federal income taxes, unemployment insurance taxes.

What are non-reimbursed business expenses?

• phone costs
• computers
• software
• office supplies
• advertising and promtion
• web site
• business liability insurance
• equipment insurance
• health insurance
• Internet access costs
• salary
• and more

So the customer goes to Wal-mart/Walgreens/Staples to get prints made. You put 3:2 aspect ratio photos on the CD but the customer is wanting to get 5:4 and 7:5 aspect ratio photos printed, and parts they want to print are getting cut off because the aspect ratios are all different.

Any way, they get the prints made but the local place didn't fo a real good job and the prints came out ok, but not really good. But, they show those less than high quality prints to all their friends and say that the photo was taken by XYZ Photography.

But sure, go ahead and just give a CD with photos on it.

very helpful post in helping me truly realize the bigger picture.