How to tell clients they need to expect to spend a certain amount

Hi All! I'm new here and though I'd ask a question I sometimes struggle with. Most of my clients spend 800-1500$ on products and

prints through me (I'm mainly a children/family photographer). I recently had a client who loved all his pictures and said he wanted to

buy them all, but ended up only spending 295$ plus my $75 session fee. So after lab fees and taxes I end up making close to nothing!

I spent 2 hours on location shooting, 3 or so hours editing (I edit them all in PS to make them more appealing when ordering so they

hopefully spend more) and probably 3 hours answer questions and emails. Obviously this isn't a profit I want, and I know it's

impossible to avoid this completely in the future, but how and what can I say to let clients know what they should expect to spend so

they're prepared and if not then they won't book me which will leave the spot open for a more profitable client. Thanks I appreciate

everyone's feedback ahead of time!

<p>Two things. Put on your website "most clients budget between $1100-1800 for the entire process"; it puts people in a frame of mind that they can spend less than that and still be ok, but their "less than that" is still decent for you. Second, charge more upfront. Your session fee is your filter.</p>

<p>Unless you set a minimum purchase amount - it's very difficult. I've seen some photographers do the session fee is $75.00 - $100.00 but to get that rate there is a minimum purchase required - usually $500 + (for those that do that) </p>

<p>When I see a $75.00 session fee - I'm not thinking $1,000 plus for photos - I'm thinking more the $200 and under market. I'd second the suggestion to bump your session fee to say $250 - $400. </p>

<p>Brian is right that session fee will filter out the people that don't want to spend a small fortune on prints. </p>

<p>The budget amount can also help filter clients. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

I wouldn't edit all of them.

 

Your session fee is way too low. I'm not even pro, and my photoshoot charge is double that.

 

Offer a $300 session fee with base/intro package included. The customer can figure out budget for themselves, I

would think. I don't like sales people telling me how much I should spend, big turn off. That is so 70s.

 

A sales person in a car audio store did that to me two month ago, I just turned around and left without saying anything. As he was stammering, "wha wha wha...".

<p>How long is a session? If I photograph a wedding (i.e., church, reception/cocktail and the 'nice' posed photos, it will take me four hours. Categorically, I'll charge EUR 400 if it's close, and some more if it's further to cover expenses for car and additional time.<br>

For fashion/beauty or portrait, I'd be more in the range David suggested with EUR 250 and up.<br>

There is no question about editing: I'd never ever hand out an unedited photo!<br>

How is the rest of your calculation? Do you offer packages containing X number of photos in Y size for a fixed price plus the additional photos someone may buy afterwards? Do you stand out by using a particular paper? Even if different paper may seem a bit more expensive to you in the beginning, it has a sexy factor and sticks out from the typical plain photo paper.<br>

Do you offer images in presentable cardboard sleeves / passepartouts that you just need to put into a frame? You may want to rethink these factors, too and leverage your income through that.</p>

<p>thank you all for the feedback I really do appreciate it! As far as the $75 session fee, I do agree that it is too low, and honestly it was $150 and I just couldn’t get enough people in the door, so I dropped it hoping to raise as I build my business. I have almost doubled my client work and I do have a lot of clients who spend a lot of money, someone just spent over 2500k (my highest sale yet yay!) because I know my quality is there and people just want to buy everything (thats what they say anyways lol). I do give my product guide to all clients which shows all my print and product pricing, so they do know my prints and products aren’t “cheap”. So anyways, I do agree I need to raise it, but I want to do it once I build a bit more because I do agree that isnt boutique session fee pricing, but hey I have to start somewhere! :)<br>

I also dont like the idea of a min. spend either because I think that is hinting to people that they should spend not too much more than that. So say I have a min $500 spend in place, I think people think ok I’ll probably spend about 650-700 then. I guess I think of it as when you see an answer box where you need to write an answer, if the box is small, you dont write a lot, if the box is large you tend to write more, it’s sort of a guideline. Anyways I could be totally wrong about that, it;s just my thinking, so I try to avoid a minimum spend...I guess there is no good answer for this and I will just have to keep raising my session fee to filter out the people who may not have the budget to hire me...thanks everyone!</p>

<p>High-end photographer Tim Kelly has a theory: Clients will purchase up to 2.5 times the session fee before they start to feel they've spent too much. <br>

He's kind of tongue-in-cheek with the specific factor, but his point is that the "buy-in" amount for a photographer's service has a direct influence on how much the client is eventually likely to spend. To use his quip factor as an illustration, if the session fee is $50, it's going to be difficult to get a client to spend more than $150. But if the session fee is $500, you can get the client to spend $1500.<br>

This is kind of using the session fee as a filter, but it also establishes the value of the photographer: Are you a $50 photographer or a $500 photographer? A client who is ultimately willing to spend $1500 on a portrait will more likely gravitate to the $500 photographer than the $50 photographer...because she will believe she's actually getting her money's worth with the $500 photographer, even if she spends the same amount of money.<br>

I personally don't charge a session fee. I approach my portrait photography the same way a portrait painter approaches his commissions. My minimum portrait is a framed 16x20 of a set price...we can go upward beyond that. I take half of that amount when we schedule the session, but it's not a "session fee," it's a partial payment on the minimum purchase.</p>