Event photography: Time and prints?

Do you charge for time and prints (or dig. files) in event photography, or do you charge only one flat rate? I have in

mind various ceremonies, corporate events, etc.

For corporate events I chage an hourly rate for images on CD. If prints are wanted I add my bestguess to the hourly rate.

For instance, if it is an awards type thing, and hey want 8x10's of each award recipiant, then figure X amount of hours (which could include some candid coverage), plus the cost of the prints based o your standard mark-up times how many award recipiants.

One flat fee works best.

BIG caution: If the client says you will make all sorts of money selling reprints, chances are you will not. They grossly overestimate things, mainly because they have no experiance with such things. You, the photographer, DO have experiance in estimating print sales.

One flat fee including prints is the easiest. Just use your best educated guess on total prints, then add 10 or 20%. It's silly to charge one rate for the coverage, then nit-pick later on the nominal cost of the prints. If you are charging $1000 to shoot something, and guess about $100 in print costs, just leave it at that. The time you would spend adding up the actual prints, adding that to the invoice, keeping track, etc. is a waste. You may be over or under your estimate by a bit, but so what. The cost of the prints is typically such a small percentage of the total invoice it's best not to worry about it.

Of course, be very clear in the contract what it to be printed. You do not wantto have one thing agreed upon, then the client adds a bunch more shots to printed day of the event.

If you feel that may be the case, then have a side note in the estimate what the extra prints are per piece.

For mo

>>BIG caution: If the client says you will make all sorts of money selling reprints, chances are you will not. They grossly overestimate things, mainly because they have no experiance with such things.

True indeed. Boy have I learned that the hard way.