pricing

By The Hour

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Another basketball photo because I seem to shoot a lot of basketball. This fisheye photo was shot from my photo seat while waiting for the game to start.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Imagine if a restaurant charged for its meals based only on the time it takes to prepare the food. What if clothes were priced based only on the time it took to sew that piece of clothing? How about a grocery store that priced by the hour: for example, you get all the groceries you can grab for a rate of, say, $200/hour.
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Wide and Flat or Narrow and Deep?

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If you chase every type of customer, you can end up not knowing which way to turn. Wedding customers, family portrait customers, high-school seniors, social event organizers, business headshots, real estate customers, retail web sites, consumer publications, corporate customers, etc. Who gets your attention? Everyone?

Of course you want as many customers as possible but do you want your customers to be wide and flat or narrow and deep?

Having a wide and flat customer base means that you do many types of photography to appeal to anyone and everyone. This type of customer tends to make only occasional or relatively small purchases.

A narrow and deep customer base means that you do certain types of photography that appeal to a specific type of customer. Customers in this category tend to make more frequent or higher-priced purchases.
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Value Is A Two-way Street

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Over the past month, I lost photo jobs to photographers who quoted:

1) $1,200 for a two-day shoot in two cities 100 km apart, including 22 business portraits, 11 environmental portraits, and up to 66 finished images delivered.

2) $1,500 to photograph a four-day business conference.

3) A photographer, self-described on his website as the “best professional headshot photographer in Toronto,” who quoted $3,000 for 120 business headshots. That’s just $25 per headshot.

Whenever a customer declines your quote, ask what the winning photographer charged. Some won’t share that information, but they might if you explain that you’re simply trying to understand where your pricing fits in the market.

Was I disappointed to lose these jobs? Of course.

Was I upset? No.

What I can’t figure out is how these photographers make money.
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Give Yourself A Hand

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Ontario’s minimum wage will rise 31.6% from today’s $11.40/hour on January 1, 2019. How much of a raise are you going to give yourself?

The average, full-time, hourly-paid, Canadian employee makes $58,136/year, assuming a 40-hour week.

You should be earning the same $58,000 if you consider yourself average, *plus* enough to cover your overhead expenses. For example, if your annual overhead is $25,000, then you need to earn about $83,000 per year.

Using the same example as above, if you do 100 jobs per year, then your average invoice should be at least $830 plus expenses. If you do 50 jobs per year, then your average invoice should be at least $1,660 plus job expenses. I said “at least” because (a) your fee should be based on the value of your work and not on time or a flat rate, and (b) employees get paid benefits and you don’t.
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Splitting a Photographer

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Splitting Time

Sometimes a photographer might be asked to split up a work day into non-consecutive hours. This can happen with weddings, business conferences and other full-day events where the customer wants the photographer to cover only certain parts of the event. The customer usually expects the photographer not to charge for any downtime.

For example:

• A bride might want the photographer to cover her afternoon wedding ceremony from 1:00pm to 2:30pm and the evening dinner from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. The photographer would then have a 3-1/2 hour split in their day.

• A business conference organizer might want the photographer to cover the opening speeches from 9:00am to 10:30am, a keynote presentation from 1:00pm to 2:00pm and an evening reception from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. In this case, the photographer has two blocks of downtime.

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Worth Every Cent

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When someone asks you to work for free, they want photography that’s good enough, pictures that are better than nothing, photos that are worth what they’re paying.

When someone hires you to work for pay, they want photography that’s good, pictures that are better than anything, photos that are worth what they’re paying.

 

 

 

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