What to charge for headshots?

Lately I've been approached by friends who model or act wanting me to

redo their headshots. I started doing it for cost (10$ for the roll,

20$ for the prints), but now I'm wanting to do this on the side and

am wondering what to charge. One girl showed me her headshots that

she wanted redone (she paid 200$) and they were aweful. Is this a

resonable fee? I have quite a few contacts who I can market through -

and they would be using the headshots for movie auditions and

modelling auditions, so I want to make sure I'm paid a resonable

price.

There is no easy answer for your question. You can look at it as what the market can bear or you can price yourself to be at the low end or what your competors charge. Get out your pencil and paper, figure costs of film and processing, depreciation of equipment, travel expenses (I dont get the impression you ahve a studio), taxes (yes them), payroll (pay yourself) and profit. There is more than one book on the subject, "Photography focus on profit" comes to mind.

 

I hope this gives you a starting point.

A friend of mine paid over $1,000 for photos for a ZED card (took about 30 minutes of shooting) and he got about 200 cards with mediocre photos on them. I know of others who paid $200 - $300 for average headshots and got 100 - 150 8x10s. I always figured I could do better for less, but I can't compete with the quantity. I.E.: I could produce a good headshot with a 15-20 minute shoot for $100 (a fair profit), but all those prints would ruin it for me.

 

Are you trying to price just the shoot, or the prints too?

I have done a couple of shoots recently (my first two). In both cases, cost was a big factor for the model. i.e. they had no money. I first worked out what my expenses would be. In one case I needed to rent lighting, the other was outdoor. I shot digital to keep my costs down. I came up with a rough guideline of $100 per hour (that's CAD). I would provide them with digital files to view online or on a CD. Prints were extra. I found that I could make some money at this fee. But then again, it seems that I am the low cost alternative. In each case, the model said they looked around and no one would do it for less than $300. BTW, they were both happy with the results.

I'm mostly thinking of what I should charge on top of cost - for the labour involved. What I have done is charged 10$ per roll (of 36), and then the client pays for whatever type of prints they want. When one charges per hour, is this over and above cost? or should this include film or something basic?

My per hour charge is all inclusive (costs + labour). I talk to the client ahead of time to get their preference and explain my costing. If it is film, then I include all related film and processing costs plus labour and my charge goes up. If it is digital, it is my labour. For film, I provide prints. For digital, they get the files.

I'm an amateur and do quite a few paid shoots (I advertise a lot and have a good google

ranking with my website). I shoot about 2-3 rolls of film for my clients; depending on

their needs. Last year I charged $250. This included two 8x10 prints and a few images on

a CD.

 

This past December, I raised my rate to $350 (base) which includes two prints. additional

prints are $25. Since I've raised my fee, the phone is ringing off the hook. I dont

understand it (could be from my gorilla marketing tactics).

 

I have a strange feeling I will be raising my rates again by mid-year to $450.

 

I've been reading about many pro photographers charging $1000 per session and booked

all the time. I'm not there yet :D

Regarding the comment:

 

" I.E.: I could produce a good headshot with a 15-20 minute shoot for $100 (a fair profit), but all those prints would ruin it for me."

 

I would shoot digital (or film and then scan), add the artwork in photoshop and then turn the file over to a commercial printer. I found you could have them do plates, which yield much superior prints than ones produced on a digital printer, for about $70 for the first 100. The unit cost went down dramatically as the quantity went up. That's because it costs them about $50 to do the plate and set up the press. After that the additional marginal costs are just for ink and paper...practically nothing.