Industry standard for photo profit margins. What is it?

Hello,

 

I've been selling my work regularly, as I make prints from my

slides. I have been doing well, but I don't think my profit margin

is high enough. I shoot a roll of Provia or whatever, get the

transparency scanned at 200MB, and print out a 11x14 at high

quality. I'm shooting medium format Contax from all around the

globe and selling these prints double matted and framed with UV

glass for $400. I make about $200 profit from each sale. What is

the industry standard? I've heard cost x 3, and if that's the case,

we're going to raising some prices round here! All my work is from

overseas and I backpack with a tripod and it is hard work, not to

mention the plane tickets... I just want to know if I am charging

enough, people never question the price, and I am selling a finished

product with a nice black wood frame. What do you think?

Raise the price and find out?

I don't think there is an industry standard.

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Costs vary widely. Volume varies widely. A school photographer

shooting hundreds of portraits a day isn't going to make the same

amount per portrait as a well established artistic portrait photographer

doing occasional commissioned work, and that's just among portrait

photographers. Cost structures and sales opportunities for

travel and nature scenics are very different.

<p>

When you say "cost x 3", which costs are you including? The marginal

costs of producing one more print from the same negative? Or

the total costs of gear, travel, business insurance, etc., amortized

over all your sales?

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Other things to consider: How much money do you make per

hour of work you put in? How much can your customers expect to

pay for similar quality work by other artists? If you raise your

prices, how badly will that affect sales? And how much more

free time will you have with the reduced volume? If you lower

your prices, how many more photos will you sell? And how much

harder will you have to work to meet the demand?

Richard,

 

I was referring to the cost of scanning the transparency, printing and framing an 11 x 14 multiplied by three.

Adam:

 

Richard makes some interesting points. I suggest you raise prices to see where the "pain level" is. See what others are charging for similar work; if yours is at least that good, you should charge the same.

 

A few years ago, my wife was selling some crafts she had made at a local craft shop. The shop owner said everyone liked them, but nobody bought! So, the shop owner tripled the price and sold all of them within a week. The point of the story is that people really don't know the value of art and photography; if the price is low they will think the value is low - and vice versa.

 

When I was charging $50 for an 11X14 b&w enlargement of a customer's negative, I sold about 2 per month. After I raised the price to $75.00, I sold about 5 every 2 months. Go figure!

 

If you raise prices substantially for framed and matted prints, you need to have a good story to go with them. Perhaps a write up ( a few paragraphs) of the background of the shot or its location or what caused you to take it would help.

 

Finally, if you DO raise prices, you should make all those who bought prints earlier that aware their "investment" commands a higher price now - that can have some interesting results in creating a "buzz" for your work.

 

Just remember, all of us purchase items based on percieved value; otherwise we'd all drive Yugos and buy our clothes at Wal-Mart!

 

Good luck

That is the best answer above! Not that there is anything wrong with wal-mart, but I definitely like shopping at Banana Republic instead. You make some great points. In fact I got this shot from the desert in Algeria and I was wondering how I substantially raise the price on that shot versus the others. I was up all night with long exposures tweaking it just right, and got the shot I wanted with a 2 hour exposure time. It's wicked!

Hi Adam,

 

I have been selling my 6 x 17 panoramic work for over 2 years now and in that time I have raised the price of my work once as I wasnt happy with how cheep I was selling it. I feel, make the price what your happy with. Other panoramic photographers charge tripple my price and the work is basically the same. They just want to sell it at that price.

 

I sell a fully framed 30 inch print for $390 Australian. But framing was my biggest killer, so I thought, Arr what the hell and I bought my own professional framing outfit. Now my profit margin per framed print has almost doubled, without increasing the price to the customer and now I draw additional income from framing other peoples prints.

 

As with all the hard work you put into your shots, I look at it like this. I just did a trip to the 12 Apostles here in Australia and the total cost me around $4000 (film, fuel, processing, food, accomodation etc). Every print I sell makes that trips cost less and less. I can't expect to pay it off in a year by raising prices. But in two years I will be breaking even and from there it is all profit. Mean while the trip I did two years ago is already in profit.

 

My idea on pricing my work is this I want your everyday customer to look at it and think, "Wow thats nice I can afford that" other than "Wow thats nice, I wish I could afford that."

 

Hope this helps. All this is just my look at how I run and operate my business.

 

Matt

 

www.mattlauder.com.au

Adam-- I have worked in many different types of businesses, and been everything from a publisher to a publications distrubutor to sales consultant (besides running a studio in the meantime) and I can tell you that there has been one equation that has held true no matter what business I was involved in.

 

It is this: Whatever you are selling, the retail price should be four times the raw manufacturing price. Note that that does NOT include the price of marketing and selling the item, as that is figured into the costs represented by the other three-fourths.

 

In other words, if I want to sell a calendar for $12 a copy retail, I need to keep my printing/collating/binding and initial delivery costs at $3 each. If I use an independent distributor, then I sell it to him for $6 each, and hopefully the additional three dollars I get won't be eaten up by my administrative overhead. The distributor will sell it to retail outlets for perhaps $9 to $10, but it will be on a consignment basis so that there will be no cash outlay and no risk to the retail outlet.

 

To keep your business healthy, you should figure in your costs of camera gear and time and money it took you to take the shots, as well as how much it costs to frame, mat, etc. Multiply that by four to get minimum suggested retail price. If you can get more than that, go for it. -BC-