What to charge local company to use one of my photos

<p>A local insurance agent would like to use one of my photos of our local town on his business home page. Normally I just sell prints through my Zenfolio home page so this is new territory. What would be a reasonable charge for this? Should I ask him what he would be willing to pay or do I set the price? Should I limit the amount of time he can use the photo (e.g. 1 year)? Thanks.</p>

<p>Never ask what he's 'willing' to pay. Yes, you need to limit how he can use the image. Come up w a number that you can live with w/o giving your work away.</p>

<p>Thanks. I thought I would charge $50 to use the electronic image for one year. I know that's not much, but this is just a small insurance agent, and there is value in just having my image displayed to help me sell more prints through my website. This has been a very popular image.</p>

<p>Are there recognizable faces in the photo? If so model releases will be required before the insurance agent can use it for commercial usage.<br>

<Chas><br /><br /></p>

<p>$50? That's not even a dollar a week. Insruance agents make a lot of money, even in small towns. I'd be tempted to quote him $50 a week. As a major component of his home page, it should be considered part of his advertising budget to show his connection to the town and help pull in new customers. If he advertises in the local paper, he's probably spending several hundred dollars per ad. If having the picture on his page draws in even a couple of new customers a year that would cover the $2,600.<br /><br />"there is value in just having my image displayed" -- No, there probably isn't. Look through posts on this section of photo.net and you'll see countless discussions about business people "offering" to use a photographer's images for free and how that seldom generates any income for the photographer.<br /><br /></p>

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<p>"there is <a id="itxthook1" href="/business-photography-forum/00bzLR?unified_p=1" rel="nofollow">value<img id="itxthook1icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" alt="" /></a> in just having my image displayed to help me sell more prints through my website. This has been a very popular image."</p>

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<p>Popular can mean many different things depending on the context. It could mean many people that you show the image to say it is very nice or maybe its a big seller. In any event, will customers or other professionals visiting an insurance agent website really stop to ponder a purchase of such an image or other images and even be able to instantly go to your site if they did? It seems unrealistic. Is there more to it than we are being told?</p>

<p>Sure fifty bucks is low especially if he or others are willing to pay more but, if that's all that they are willing to pay, its still money coming to you which is more than no money at all. </p>

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<p>I'd be tempted to quote him $50 a week.</p>

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<p> <br>

I can buy unlimited rights to a stock photo of almost anywhere at web resolution for a couple bucks. It's an insurance agency, not Vogue.</p>

<p>I don't think he is likely to pay more than a few hundred. He doesn't need <em>your</em> image, there are other alternatives.</p>

<p>How special is your image? A special viewpoint not accessible to most people? Unusually beautiful? Can he just pay another photographer to take a similar shot?</p>

<p>I don't think he will be happy with a 1 year contract. What if he wants to keep the same webpage for more than a year? What is he supposed to do, track you down and renegotiate another contract?</p>

<p>You should limit what he can do with it. At a minimum, limit it to promotional use for his business. You could limit it to his webpage, but do you care if he wants to put it on a calendar or a coffee mug?</p>

<p>You probably want a non-exclusive contract, so you can still sell the image to others.</p>

<p>Do you have a sample contract? Writing and negotiating a contract will take a few hours, what is your time worth. $50 will not cover most people's time. </p>

<p>If you think it will help your business, be sure the contract specifies that you will be given credit.</p>

<p>Pricing is always tricky. One way to get an idea both about licensing terms and pricing is to go and price some photos yourself. You can give this a shot on stock agencies such as alamy.com, gettyimages.com, corbisimages.com/ etc. I agree with the others that have said $50 is pretty low, and again that a credit under your photo will not likely lead to more sales for this as a print.</p>

<p>I must weigh in with all the above posts, $50 is way too low. Matthew Muskovac's post above is really the way to approach it. If you are feeling very magnanimous, you could ask for at least $600 for the year (50 a month).<br>

One caviet though, if it is so popular, and the client wants exclusivity (or partial exclusivity), then it would not be unreasonable to ask for 10x that amount.<br>

Don't shortchange yourself, your skill or your work. I have seen too many photographers do that.</p>

<p>Of course if you charge him $600 you will lose 100% of what you would have made otherwise and everyone here will say you are the real winner because you stood your ground. <br>

$50 is a little low. I would go with at least $100 knowing that 1. you do not have a big name, 2. you feel uncomfortable charging $600 and it would show 3. you will get more money down the road and free advertising.<br>

Sure $100 is STILL low to some but not to you. Charge what you feel comfortable with and as you sell more and more you can raise your prices. <br>

I agree - charging too low cheapens your work but I see way way to many photographers shoot garbage and charge way to much for a photo my mother could take. <br>

Evaluate your image, is it something special that you could charge more? Or a common shot. </p>

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