Product Photography

What is a decent price to charge for small Product photography. There are no prints involved, but heavy editing. The final images will be placed on a memory card and sent to the client ?

How many products are there? What is the delivery format, TIFF, JPEG, ?? What equipment do you plan to use? Will you have to rent lighting, props, camera? What are your hard costs? What is your cost of overhead?

 

Too many variables for a simple answer.

As above, no simple answer. I just spent the better part of three days working out how to shoot what should have been a "simple" product, and I haven't even shot it yet. Other jobs are done in ten minutes. Price by hours and if you need special equipment. When they see the number they'll probably go away. If you price less than cost, make sure you have a good day job.

Simpler answer - been there done that - How much is it worth to you? How much cash do you need now. Did some not great shots of a device that a company used for nearly a decade. A good deal for both parties. I paid the bills.

Simple approach ---

 

What do you value your time at? What would you otherwise do with that time?

 

As a ball park, and if this is an ad hoc arrangement, why not price the job at US$150 per hour of your time, that is: after taxes and all expendables are deducted.

 

Back of the envelope quote - for example: an hour to set up and shoot, three hours to edit, that's $600.00 as a base cost.

 

Hire of lighting gear $100; Purchase of memory card $10; Travel, Telephone and incidental expenses $40; income tax you will pay $150, that's $300 in outgoings.

 

Total of quote: $900.00. Add 30% because, unless you do a lot of quoting, you probably will spend more time than you originally estimate: Quote $1170.00

 

If you value your time, less, or more than the rate of $150 per hour, then adjust accordingly: or you might want the job for reasons other than fiscal reward, and then value your time downward.

 

A Fee for the Licence (Rights) to Use the Image(s) is another question.

 

WW

We settled on a price after some brutal negotiating. I'm not really happy and probably neither is she. Next time I will provide my prices up front.

make sure you have a good day job

 

Absolutely!

I'm afraid that what once seemed like a secure opportunity for photographic services has turned into an exercise for computer graphics these days. This means that the jobs that are left over are small and so many people on that level will not appreciate what the true costs really are. Besides, Freddy in the mail room has a digital camera....

 

John Kenneth Galbraith called small-scale outfits/sellers who don't understand what their real costs are, philanthropists. :oops:

That's the sad reality nowadays. People see this as a simple job, not realizing the time and effort that goes with it.