PHOTOGRAPHERS! Are you charging enough for your work?
Hey photographers! I have a question for you… Are you charging enough for your work? We all know running a photography business is way more than just clicking the shutter. We wear so many hats in this business and we need to make sure we are running a sustainable business.
Here are some signs that you need to raise your pricing:
1) You’re way overbooked, and have a ton of inquiries coming in...
2) You have no personal life, and you’re too busy for friends & family
3) You’re tired, and just want the shoot season to be over or (if you live in CA like I do) the season never ends and you are counting down the days until a vacation,
4) You can’t give your full experience to every client and you feel guilty about that
5) You have feelings of resentment
6) You live in front of your computer screen!
If this sounds like you, you may be in need of a reset on your pricing model.
Whether you’re new to the photography world, or you’ve been at this for years, everyone needs to look at their pricing annually to assess what should change. Many newbies however have trouble with figuring out where to start with their pricing. But the theory is simple; Economics 101 says: Balance supply and demand: Charge as much as the customers will pay but low enough that you’ll still have to turn away some customers because of how busy you are. Beyond that, you need to figure out, how to make this a career that is sustainable enough to support you.
First off, you should always figure out your cost of doing business (CODB). Check out this CODB CALCULATOR from NPPA.org (National Press Photographers Association). This should be a starting-off point. From there, you will need to figure out how much above your basic CODB you will need to charge per session by calculating approximately how many clients ideally want per year, and how much you will need to make ends meet. So, if your CODB is 25k per year, and you need to make 50k over your CODB to afford to put food on the table, pay your household bills etc and you have 70 clients per year, your ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM would be $1,071.00 per client (psst… you should be charging more than the bare minimum).
After you’ve figured that out, you need to survey your market. Is that pricing sustainable within your market? Can you adjust your hours worked to lower the CODB and move that pricing into net gains? Will there be photographers out there who are charging less? Yes, but they will eventually burn out or increase their pricing as well, because pricing too low is not sustainable forever.
You can also charge less for some packages, and more for others to balance out your offerings and attract more clientele.
. Depending on the business model you choose you can structure your business several ways:
All-Inclusive Rates
Tiered Sessions & Product Packages
Per Hour/Itemized
I personally use Tiered Sessions/Packages for my portrait clients and Per Hour/Itemized for my commercial work. This allows me to work in two genres of photography more seamlessly and diversifies my clientele from Headshots, to Teens/Seniors and Commercial Businesses which makes my business more sustainable. If you only sell digitals, remember digitals are a product that gives the client more usage than a print, therefore it should be priced accordingly!
There is no “magic number”, so don’t compare your pricing directly to others. You can only calculate what works for you. Focus on what your ideal clients can afford, and also what puts a roof over your head!
