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01/03/2009 05:54:04 PM · #1 |
It's January, so that means we are in the process of adjusting our prices and packages as we do every year.
Right now, we charge a flat $50 sitting fee for whatever the client needs done that day (unlimited outfits, props, etc.) That goes for senior, family, and child sessions.
Many people have told us that we need to raise our prices because our work is worth more than a mere $50, but how much more should we charge? What do you all charge?
Thanks :) |
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01/03/2009 07:17:50 PM · #2 |
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01/03/2009 08:04:46 PM · #3 |
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01/03/2009 08:15:03 PM · #4 |
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01/03/2009 08:38:54 PM · #5 |
| I charge $85 for an hour sitting fee. I think it really depends on what you charge for prints, though. Sometimes it seems that photographers have low sitting fees but higher prints, or vice versa. I'm fairly inexperienced so I have pretty low to middle of the road prices for both. |
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01/03/2009 10:11:29 PM · #6 |
| I would suggest surveying the local competition and charge within the typical range. Go too low and you are leaving money on the table. Go to high, and you may not be considered. |
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01/03/2009 10:28:08 PM · #7 |
Yeah, survey the local compettion - your potential clients will so you should know at least as much as they do about what everyone charges and what they put on that.
You need to make a minumum amount of money from every client. This is usually done with packages, the smallest package beign the least you can work for and make a profit.
For example, if a wedding takes 30 hours of time and you also have to do bridal show, bookkeeping, and all that stuff you can shoot one a week. If you need $40,000 in income and $10,000 for the albums and prints and $20,000 in overhead (computers, software upgrades, lenses, etc, etc) you need $70,000. If you can shoot 50 weddings at 30 hours per you have 1500 hours you can work, or sell. SO if you can sell every hour then you need $47 for every one of those hours ($47 * 1500=$70,000). These are ballpark numbers, but the principles will apply to any photography.
IF you track your sales and expenses by category (wedding, senior, family, baby, etc) then you can figure out what you are making NOW, for each area of photography you sell.
I am making about $66 an hour for seniors, and less for weddings. Just to give you a comparison figure. (I just went over my '08 numbers to see what I need to change pricing wise for /09, if anything. I discoverd my average wedding sale went up nearly $300, but the net money in my pocket is only up $80 (over '07).
YOu need to figure out what your average customer buys, and what that costs you in product and time.
So add up the time it takes: to get a phone call to schedule the session, prep for the session, allow time to meet and chat when they come in. Shoot and chat as they leave, schedule the prooginf session. Now you DL, edit, etc in preparation for proofing. Now you have the sales session. You take their order, deposit the money, final edit the images, crop, etc, order them (or print them), frame anything that needs it, package it for pickup, call them (at least once...) and then there's 10 minutes when they come it to pick it up. Add all that time up and see what you get. It may surprise you how much time you invest in a client.
For example, my average senior session is 2 hours. That really 'costs' me 7.6 hours. Here's why: A senior for me is the call (10 minutes), meet and talk (10 minutes 'what outfits, what do you like, etc), the 2 hour shoot, DL/rough edit (2 hours, sometimes less), proof and sales session (averages 90 minutes), final edit/order (1 hour), get in order, frame it, call them (30 to 40 mnutes), pickup is 10 minutes. So if they buy $400 in stuff I'm losing money. If they buy $800 in stuff I'm making a nice profit. ($60/hour times 7 hours is $420 in labor, plus the prints, albums, frames, etc product cost)
So will a $50 session fee work for you? depends on what they else they buy and how long it takes you to do it.
And you may not book all 1500 hours a year or however many hours you can book. So either you make more per hour through increased prices/sales per client or you take home less money on payday.
Message edited by author 2009-01-03 22:35:43.
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01/03/2009 10:57:09 PM · #8 |
I'm changing my basic rate to $100,000.00 per hour. I figure if I can bill 2 hours at that rate, then I can quit my other job.
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01/04/2009 12:09:34 AM · #9 |
We've had a sitting fee of $50 for two years. Most people buy an average of $300 worth of prints. Sure it's paying the bills now, but we need to start SAVING more money. We can't eat ramen noodles forever :P
Most studios around here charge an arm and a leg, and we're well known for being the "cheap" studio with edgy, cool images. I want to start raising our prices to get rid of the person that think of us as 'one step up from Sears.' |
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01/04/2009 01:41:32 AM · #10 |
Prof_fate gave you some excellent advice and I just wanted to echo it.
I assume that you are running a business to make money, and therefore you need to have a business plan. That involves looking at your spending, your profit margins, making some real targets and projections for the next year, and setting your goals accordinly so you know what you need to aim for and also so you know when you've exceeded or are not meeting your goals.
If you're looking for someone to type "you should charge X", that's not really a proper way to run your business and you're just asking for trouble! With a little time, patience, logic, critical thinking (and a tiny bit of math), you'll figure out what the magic numbers need to be in order for your business to be profitable. |
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01/04/2009 11:57:27 AM · #11 |
My background is more business than art, and my wife often tells me i spend way too much time going over numbers and analyzing my pricing.
I fret over things like a new product. The idea is to make as much money per client as possible, and to keep more clients coming in. So having a neat new something that no one else sells is a Good Thing. I went to a trade show and saw a 'flip book' - basically 4x5 prints that are spiral bound like a proof book, about 40 of them. And there's some edges/graphics on most of the pages as well. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd seen in months.
I take the idea, pick a price as an 'introductory' price and offer it to seniors. 95% buy it. It's a HIT! But am I making any money? No, not really. I have it set up as a template, but I have to sort out the 40 images from the 80 or 90 I show them, edit some if they have a face blemish (or i'll look bad when they show the book to all their friends). So it takes time to do this. At the $49 sale price I'm barely breaking even. As you called it 'savings', well I got none from this. So raise the price, right?
I can offer it 'free' if then spend $800 (upping my average $250 is the idea).
If I up the price to say, $80, will they buy it? And if they do, will they buy it instead of my Art Collage frame that costs me a lot less time? If they choose the book over the frame maybe I can adjust the prices again, over and over until I find a nice balance. But you have to have enough clients to get accurate feedback on pricing on stuff like this, and how often can you really change prices? If Janey sends in Suzy and the book price is $40 more than Janey paid are you making money or upsetting / confusing customers?
I say to think like a business person and not a customer when pricing stuff, but at times you have to think like a customer. If McDonalds changed their prices every month, up and down and new combo meals and the like would it help sales/profits or hurt them? I think it would hurt them. Consuemers, people in general, don't like change all that much.
Also consider things like coffee. Go to McDs or Starbucks and look a the coffee (or coke or milkshakes or fries). They have a small, medium and large. A small coke is 20 ounces for $1.49. There is cost in the cup, ice and soda, plus of course labor and overhead (the store, coke machine, etc). The medium coke is $1.89 and holds 32 ounces. 60% more coke for 30% more price. The large is 48 ounces for $2.49. Way more than doulble the small but no where near double the price. Ever wonder why they do this? Cause the cost of the overhead is the same regardless of what you buy. The increase from a small to large is $1.00 in revenue but only 15 or 20 cents in product. So a small coke might have a profit of 80c, but the large has a profit of $1.60. And there's no more labor involved.
So to make a session longer costs very little, You've already dealt with the phone call, chatting, the DL and final product time and packaging, etc won't change much if at all. But say you spend an extra 15 minutes on the session - one more pose, one more lighting setup, one more outfit - it's something else they might buy. Perhaps you can take a minute more per pose and move that stray hair or straighten teh ring/necklace so you have less retouching later (saving you time).
What should I charge has sooooo much more behind it then it at first appears.
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01/05/2009 02:43:25 PM · #12 |
After evaluating my own experience over the last two years and reviewing some the practices of other photographers, I'm moving away from a sitting fee and simply collecting a deposit based on the number of hours I'm expected to shoot. The deposit can be applied to prints and basically assures that everybody is serious about the project. What I want to get away from is the thought that people pay for the time I shoot and move them towards the idea that they pay for the final product. I haven't settled on the final number, but $50 - $75 / 45 minutes seems like the right range. If that's all they spend, I'm losing money... but then again if that's all they spend after seeing the final result I shouldn't be in this business anyway.
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01/05/2009 03:15:34 PM · #13 |
| What does your business plan say regarding price setting? |
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01/06/2009 12:15:19 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by d56ranger:
What does your business plan say regarding price setting? |
Not exactly sure who the question was for, but I'm working on a new price sheet that is between 2x and 3x last years prices. This increase is to cover the fact that I'm going with a deposit rather than a sitting fee and because my prices were very low to help gain entry into the local market. I know that still doesn't tell you what the final prices are, but I'll have no problem sharing once I have finished making those decisions.
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01/06/2009 01:38:03 PM · #15 |
Prices vary by geography as well as market (the one you want to be in) segment. Confidence on the part of the photographer, or should I say lack of it, often is the biggest influence on prices.
"Why would anyone pay me $___ for a photo?" Well, because you asked for it. I've read, and you can too, many many many many many forum threads, blogs, books, magazine articles that all say the same thing - "I raised price and got busier!".
Unless you really suck (and not always even then) raising prices will NOT drive off your customers, up to a point. Sure, some will not pay your prices, but that's life. Not everyone will pay $4 for a McDonalds coffee or $65,000 for a lexus. Not everyone is your ideal customer. Advertising and marketing is used to let your ideal customer know where and how to find you.
You have to look at your costs and find out what you need to make, at a minumum, to pay the bills, get paid, and have some left over to invest in the business to make it grow. You can certainly make more, but you can't make less for very long or you will go bankrupt.
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