Pricing PS work

I apologize if this has been answered before, but I cannot find any

specifics by searching the archives for "Photoshop rates

pricing".<p>I have already established rates for shooting and for

prints or CDs, but haven't got a clue about pricing Photoshop

work.<p>When shooting the pics myself, I include basic PS work

(brightness/contrast/cropping/resizing) in the shooting rate, but I

am often asked to do photo restoration, touchup, cloning,

adding/removing image objects, etc from a customer's own photos or

digital files, or to design photo labels for printing directly on

the CDs I burn.<p>A local grocery store's photolab charges $65 just

to digitally repair a simple torn photograph, and I am asked to do

much more PS-intensive work.<p>I figure the rate needs to consider

my investment in equipment and software, as well as my time. What

are some of your ideas for calculating hourly PS rates? (Also, I am

expected to pickup/deliver all work - what should I charge for this

convenience?)

For delivery, the IRS allows a bit over 35 cents per mile. You expect to eat and pay your utility bills: what do you consider a good 'hourly' wage in your area?

 

 

 

 

For your question on Photoshop charges: if a good auto mechanic gets $70.00 per hour at a dealership garage (but in your area the rate may vary.....) and a dentist gets well over that -- you have to make the business decision on what to charge. If you have been in business for a couple of years, you should have a rough estimate of how much 'labor' is involved in fixing images. Then be prepared to give the 'cost' to your customer when he asks for your 'expert' modifications to meet his needs.

Thanks Gerald.<p>A couple of customers are actually owners of new car dealerships and auto service garages, and they do charge in the $65-90/hour range. Do people get that kind of money for PS work? (I was raised by a businessmoron who believes computer work should never cost more than minimum wage - you may know the type, he has my mother do his bookkeeping by hand for minimum wage, because computers are "a waste of money", and bookkeepers "don't bring any money into the business".)<p>My work has reached the point where I should be properly compensated, and I would rather "do nothing" (and not make any money) than "give away" my PS work for minimum wage (my past rate, and I now see how hard it can be to ask for considerably more, but it must be done).<p>Any other suggestions? What do some of you actually charge?

Paul-- What someone working for another person should get as an hourly wage, and what a contractor should charge as an hourly fee to do a task, are two related but separate things.

 

Assume you are a one-person shop. You have to do your own billing and bookkeeping and filing, etc. If you were Wal-Mart, all these things would be built into the prices you charge, and by golly, as a one-person operation, they have to be built into your pricing structure, too.

On average, a one-person operation has 20 hours of billable time per week for 40 hours of work--in short, you spend about half your time doing work directly for clients and the other half taking care of your own business. That might vary a little bit, but it holds surprisingly true across a large swath of professions.

 

Oh, also figure in how long it took you to learn to use your software and compter, the time it takes you to figure out why your da**ed file won't print, scooting to the store to get supplies, and so many other things that you probably don't take into consideration. That gets lumped in with your average 20 hours per week of unbillable time. Some weeks the percentage of each might swing greatly one way or another, but but I'll bet that over a year it averages out to about that much. And that's not mentioning the cost and time you spend getting the business from the client in the first place.

 

Assume your target rate is $15 per hour, which is a moderately cheap rate for a low-skilled computer employee. To meet that rate--NOT including your other overhead--you would have to bill your time at $30/hr. If you add in all your costs of doing business, like the cost of your computer, the amount you would pay for rental space if you weren't working out of your home (remember that you pay that anyway--if you didn't have to set up a home office you could get a smaller house for less money and lower monthly payments), electricity, social security (you're paying all of it, if you weren't self-employed, your employer would be paying half), office supplies, software, upkeep and etc., it's closer to $55 an hour. I used to kid myself that the costs of these things were not very high, but when I actually did the calculations, I was stunned.

 

The fact is that if you want to make $15/hr, you have to charge at least $55 per hour to the client. And that's low compared to what most business-to-business contractors charge for outsource personnel who end up making $15/hr.

 

You also need to figure in the cost of taking in the work to begin with. Except for the common manipulations of color balance, exposure, and contrast, I'll charge at least $65 per hour for digital retouching, with a half-hour minimum (though I won't charge for things like filling in backgrounds if a corner or edge of one of my shots goes off a bit--that's my problem).

 

Camera repair shops won't even look at cameras for less than a $100 fee. My local garage charges $30 just to put your car up on the hydraulic lift and take a look at what the problem is. Heck, my local landscaper charges me $70 to cut my yard, and with his riding mower and industrial-powered string trimmer it takes him a bit over an hour. I have about the same amount invested in computer equipment as he does in his commom landscaping tools, and we both end up making about as much on a per-hour basis, at least for retouching (I make a lot more than that for photography, retouching is something I do as a service to my clients).

 

You, too, should make at least as much an hour as the guy who cuts your grass. If your clients don't like that, then they can hire the lawn boy to straighten out their images.

 

Bill C.

I am told that people start with whatever they can get, but experienced freelance PS retouchers/restorers often charge $50+ and very skilled ones $100 per hour and perhaps more (that's the guy-that-wrote-the-book type of person). Another pricing factor is, how much do you need to live on? How much would you consider successful? Wildly successful? Price accordingly, while also considering the market of course. Call a few folks who do it and ask their prices. Don't know any? Try calling the local junior college photo department. (I'm currently in this process too.) Good luck and thanks for asking the question!

Thanks for the advice! I have some ideas as to how much to charge for my work now, and the points you have all raised support some of my own thoughts. The way I figure it, I'll lose some work because of higher prices, but the increased money from the work I still get will hopefully offset such losses.

I look at the actual job; and quote the customer a price in dollars. <BR><BR>Some jobs are simple; others require a HUGE amount of work. <BR><BR>Most customers want quotes in dollars; not dollars per hour.

I quote on the job, (with 80.00per hour in mind) so if I think it is a 2 hour job I will quote 160.00.