Pricing your services

Wondering what people include in their wedding packages and what they charge. I'm

trying to determine how much to charge and what to include in my wedding packages.

 

Some factors to help determine what I should charge:

 

I live and work near Los Angeles. Worked for a well respected wedding photographer for 7

years. Have shot about a dozen weddings solo. Have a BFA in fine art photography.

Shoot digital on 20D and 10D. I know this won't tell you or anyone else what my

photography services are worth. I'm just trying to ballpark a price range and build

packages and was wondering what people charge for their services. Thanks!

Whatever the market will bear. Determine the cost for you to be in business and divide

that by the number of wedding you feel you can reasonable book in a year. This is you

base fee. If you can't get at least that amount per wddding, your business won't last long.

Once you have established this base you can periodically adjust it based on your workload

and overhead costs. But this single most important thing is to calculate your cost of doing

business and base your fees off this number.

We have a dead siimple formula, Andrew:

 

Divide your target income by the maximum number of weddings that you are

prepared to photograph in a year. i.e if you want to earn around $200,000

from a maximum of 25 weddings, then you need to turn over around $8000

per wedding. This will give you a starting point.

 

Technical ability, creativity, marketing, client care & service are key.

 

It's always worked for us.

Is that supposed to be a joke?<br>

As if we all make $200,000.00 a year.<br>

How many of you actually make $200K ???<br>

I would really like to know.<br>

<br>

What the heck happened with Supply and Demend?<br>

That's what I apply.<br>

Start with low price, and raise your price as you get more demend.<br>

Some people say "You'll never be able to raise your price".<br>

Nobody's putting a gun to your head, raise the price.<br>

It's only a business.<br>

If you are not business minded enough to raise your fee, you should work under someone else... or stay assisting for the rest of your life.

200K ain't what it used to be.

up to date wedding sites are the best market research i've found. bookmark them, copy and paste all the packages into a word document (lucky here becasue most wedding sites are html), then start disecting.

Times are a changin' ..at least in the wedding economics in our town. Lot's of new photographers --lucky to make $100k this season...My colleages had to raise their prices..to make a living. We basically will be working less hours - per wedding - to make the same profit....maybe only 25 bookings, this year. Some weekends will be 2 weddings in the same venue 2 ~~ > 3 hour weddings. Maintaining our hourly charge (including negs) just working less of the day.

 

A 5 hour wedding package (include an average of 10 rolls --including the negs & proofs ) should be under $3500..for starters. More if they require albums, reprints, etc.

Funny C JO, we're experiencing the same thing in our market. I've maintained our

packages and pricing, and bookings are way down for 2005 so far. We also are looking at

revamping the package descriptions to be less all inclusive. Reducing the "after the

wedding" inclusions is where we are concentrating. I'm more interested in shooting than

all the other stuff anyway.

 

Fortunately, commercial work is filling the gap and then some. Last year was a banner year

for commercial photography producing 4 to 5 times the income from weddings with a LOT

less work. This year seems to be shaping up to be similar.

Hey, digital capture is "free," right, so why pay for it? Maybe Jeff Ascough has the right idea... ;-)

The PPA has a 52 page report on Photographers' Business Practices. This is available as a download pdf file if you are a member. It was put together in 2000 so some of the numbers could move either way. But it does give a birds eye view of the photography business through the eyes of the photographer.

 

In 52 pages a lot of information with bar graphs and pie charts are presented. Wedding photography is a major component of the survey as well as portrait & hs seniors.

 

Mark Twain once said, "There are three kinds of lies. Lies. Damn lies. And stastics."

 

Enjoy!

Take a read on this:<P>

 

<A href="http://forum.montezucker.com/index.php?s=7407d55cddd37447d6bcd77c6696ce3f&act=ST&f=8&t=1309&st=0&">A Little Info!</A>

Just signed a wedding like that today Bill. Art type of client, one location, 6 hours, doesn't

want film. I hand over a DVD of all the keepers. Done. And they asked how many days

after the wedding they'd have to wait. Days not weeks.

 

When I subtract the expenses and labor of proofing, printing and assembling an album,

I'm making what I usually do in take home, with a lot less work. Suits me fine.

Just to possibly help Marc.

 

Pictage offers a DVD of 100 images for $199.00 to the client. There is a 50% commission to the photographer. The client and/or the photographer can pick out the images on line, put them in a folder that Pictage will use to put the DVD together. Additional images are extra, it's a small fee.

 

Pictage handles all the details such as music licensing fees, copyright etc.

 

All I do is offer the DVD as an add on feature with each wedding I put on Pictage. Pictage has just introduced three new packages for the wedding photographer, one is available with unlimited digital uploads. And you can move from one package to another as your business varies month to month saving some money.

 

 

Thought this might help as it saves quite a bit of behind the scenes time.

Thanks Bill. I'll look into that.

 

What I meant is they just want the wedding shot and the keeper stills burned to a DVD.

That's all. They'll do the rest. The part they can't do is shoot it. They're buying the

shooting style, and enough post work to get it to the DVD.

I'm still laughing.<br>

$200.000.00<br>

I remember some other guy's post way back, I didn't comment on that at that time.<br>

Whoever it was said "Make sure to pay your assistants' college tuition" something like that.<br>

I understand some people make a lot of money and try to show off... but... keep it real, people.<br>

Hey Marc --Booked a Sunday in August. The year is starting to look better..but deals are expecting to be made The bride had every known discount, susposedly given by photographers; in her bridal publications. She ended up referring a secure booking , in July, also. SO her creative package was 5 hours --- negs, prints & CD --8 rolls maximum >> for $3000. Looks like this year will be "less film & hours" contracts. Still cost under $200 --plenty of profit in there.

Thanks for all the great responses! I think I'll do some research on other photographers in

the area and check PPA. I've been meaning to become a member anyways. Please

continue to post if you have anything to add!

"I understand some people make a lot of money and try to show off... but... keep it real, people."

 

So we should all aim for the lowest common denominator? No thanks!

I'm glad to know that some people are still making real money doing this, and I don't mind hearing about it at all. Why complain about someone else's success?

I agree Kevin. One of the reasons I got into this was for the money after reading about a

shooter pulling down 250K a year and being booked 2 years in advance. I didn't need the

practice or extra aggravation. Money talks and bullshyt walks.

 

BTW, wasn't Derek the one touting how this was easy money and you don't need to assist

or anything, just go out and scoop up the dollars?

 

Well, some folks have a really big money scooper ; -)

Set your sights low and that's where you will stay. The figures I quoted previously are not at all uncommon in the UK and Julie & I achieve our target turnover of around $195,000 (?100,000) from a maximum limit of 30 weddings per year with ease. We do not accept further bookings once this limit is reached, because we don't need to. We photographed 3 weddings in the US in 2004 and have 3 more booked for 2005 and we will increase the US bookings because we own property in Florida. (Thanks, Mr Bush for your appalling economic record. It's given us Brits a great business and investment opportunity!!!).....

 

.....Still laughing?

First of all, I don't talk about politics at a Photography forum.<br>

<br>

Why am I the only person who say things as is?<br>

So.. your advice is "You should plan to make $200,000.00 this year"<br>

??<br>

If that's not a Bullshyt, I don't know what is...<br>

I understand making million dollars with a camera is possible.<br>

<br>

See how silly it becomes when people try to confront me?<br>

Now they are attacking me with the most unrealistic figure.<br>

We are failure if we don't make $200,000.00 ??<br>

Why am I the only person who say things as is...?<br>

<br>

So, we tell a newbie photographer "plan to make $200,000.00" ?<br>

Is that how it goes?<br>

Don't you think that's a bit unreal?<br>

Really?.. am I the only one who thinks that way?<br>

I give up.

You don't just get out of college and set your business structure to bring in $200,000.00 / year.<br>

So.. you have 10 customers this year, so charge them $10,000.00 each?<br>

A newbie photographer?<br>

That's not a good advice.<br>

I'm not the crazy one here.<br>

You guys are being silly...

Derek,

 

I don't think the $200,000 post said anything like "you should expect to make $200K your

first year." or anything like that.

 

Here's the quote:

 

i.e if you want to earn around $200,000 from a maximum of 25 weddings, then you need

to turn over around $8000 per wedding

 

It's just basically using that # as an example of how much you need to charge per wedding

to earn that figure. It doesn't really sound like people are saying that you need to make

$200k or you're a loser.

 

I'm also not fresh out of college and I don't consider myself a "newbie". I graduated 10

years ago and have worked full-time since then. I've worked alongside another

photographer for 7 years and have shot my own weddings. It's just that now, I want to

market myself with a website and want to settle on a solid pricing structure and print/

album package rather than try to drum one up for every wedding. There's no need to get

worked up over this thread.

 

One of the last posts said that they made close to $200k but it sounded more like, "set

your sights high and you'll be more likely to earn what you want." rather than "charge less

in the beginning and your prices will never get to where they should be". At least that's

how I understood it.

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

Andrew, as the author of both the posts that you refer to, it seems to me that

you are perfectly able to understand the points that I have made. From your

initial post on this thread, it is plain to me that you have the experience as a

wedding photographer, high intelligence and business acumen to

understand what I am saying. With your positive outlook, I am sure you will

fly high.

 

Unfortunately for Derek, the whole concept of making serious money from

wedding photography seems to be outside of his comprehension. Leave him

in your dust, Andrew. :-D

When people write and think in a bombastic manner, they tend to think and read that way

also. So any example is seen in bombastic terms rather than for what it is, simply an

example.