What is fair pricing?

[f._suarez]

Hi all. So I'm in the portfolio-building stage of my wedding photography business, and I'm reaching the point

where I'm booking way too many weddings next year for my comfort and at a price that I know is too low ($500...

my portfolio building price). I want to raise my prices, but I'm not sure what would be fair for someone who has

only shot 4 weddings thus far.

 

I'm from Virginia Beach, which is waaay oversaturated with amateur photographers (one of whom was a back-up

photographer at my first wedding that the couple hired in case I bombed... he didn't know what an aperture was).

I feel like I'm easily better than a lot of the photographers that charge $1000-$1500, but nowhere close to the

ones who charge $2000+. Right now I'm thinking of going for $1000 for just the basic all-day wedding and a DVD of

images, just because of my lack of experience, but would I be undercutting myself?

 

Eventually I want to be able to build albums into my basic packages (probably from Asuka and Zookbinders) because

of my photojournalism and graphic design background and general love for albums in general, but I'm worried if I

market to the $1000 crowd, I'll never get the chance to make those albums because most of the clients are looking

for the cheap shoot 'n burn method.

 

What do you all think?

[preston_harper]

I charge in that neighborhood and you would be surprised how many people still are interested in albums. While I do not do the albums myself (I have a professional graphic artist handle this part), it has worked out well that when I am asked about albums, I offer different levels to match the different price ranges. Good luck.

[l_e]

If you think you are better than the $1000-$1500 photographers then charge more. Try this strategy if you want... raise to $1000, after you book 5-7 weddings at that price raise to $1250, 5-7 weddings later raise to $1500, 5-7 weddings later raise to $1750, and so on. If you are worried about lack of experience this allows you to raise prices while gaining experience. It also keeps referrals from being shocked at your prices (assuming they don't wait a long time to book you). By the time you reach the $2000 price you will hopefully be 'as good as' the other $2000+ photographers. Keep increasing prices incrementally until you achieve the number of weddings and the dollar amount per year that you want to be worth. There are two things to keep in mind - first, you might not reach your goal, second, weigh the dollar amount against the number of weddings.

[jeffrey_blake_adams]

You determine pricing not by what others charge, but by what YOU need to charge to thrive/what the market will bear. You determine this, as a biz person, by doing a biz plan and marketing plan. NE other way of determining pricing is guaranteed to help you lose your family and friends as you GIVE away your work, and SPEND the time and extra income you would have shared with your family, on client you are PAYING to do work for. You can always charge too little and TRY to upsell, as it will be great practice for when you have to ask; "Do you want Fries with that?" In your better paying career.

 

OKAY, now if yougot past the humor inthat and really thought about it, hit up the SBA, SCORE, PPA or WPPI and learn how do do the biz part of your biz. Thousands of "pretty good" photogs, hundreds of really Great photogs, very FEW photogs with a great photography biz. Be one that is good at both. J

[kiva]

Fair price is what your market will allow and what your skill and service will attract.

 

America is a wonderful place to live.

[gerund]

Fareine,

 

You are excellent at capturing the private, intimate moments and expressions in the wedding setting.

Do not underestimate yourself. This is an ability that many wedding photogs simply do not have no matter how many weddings they shoot. It is priceless. You are definitely worth more than you are charging in my book.

[www.roelandebruijn.nl]

I am the same stage as you are re building a business. So I can't help you on that front. I have looked at your website. It is nice, looks good, good pictures to, but....

There is always a 'but'.

 

1 Your site is sloooow, if I were a client I would have walked away. is there a way in which you can speed it up, maybe load only the first 3 photos, then whilst people are looking, continue loading the other pictures?

 

2 I dislike the word 'investment' for prices. An investment in my book means I stand a chance of getting my money back after several years of being paid interest. This off course is not the case.

 

An investment sounds to businesslike to me, I want people to become emotianally attached to me as their photographer, not see me as a cost-decision.

 

Good luck on building your business. On both points: YMMV

[William Michael]

> What do you all think? <

 

Very, very similar to what JBA wrote.

 

WW

[f._suarez]

Thank you all for your responses-

 

Preston: That is good to know. Makes me feel a lot better.

 

Jeffrey and William W: I know exactly what you're saying. I got so used to doing event photography for my university for free, that charging for a wedding felt so weird to me at first... but I got way past that after doing the first wedding :) I will definitely look up all of those sites and write up a business plan... it's just hard to really figure out what the bottom line figure is that I need to be making at the moment because I am still a full-time student, and in six months I'll be a full-time employee (hopefully) and a part-time professional photographer, eventually working my way up to be a full-time photographer (again, hopefully). Too many projections and not enough concrete information. But a business plan is definitely in the works.

 

Gerry: Thank you.

 

L E: I think until I get that business plan and all those figures worked out, I'll do the 'incremental' increase... thanks for the idea.

 

William Morgan: Amen.

 

Roeland: You know, thank you so much for telling me that my site was slow. I hadn't even thought about that... on most of the computers I've tried it on, it's loaded up within 30 seconds... but I will see if I can minimize the amount of photos in each gallery or even if I can create a non-flash site.

[art_tatum]

I had a look at your site/photography. I don't know your market/competition but without hesitation I would recommend

$1500 for your day rate and shorten the window of opportunity for your 'Early Bird Special'.

[William Michael]

> it's just hard to really figure out what the bottom line figure is that I need to be making <

 

Um, actually no, there are concretes, it is just perhaps you are not looking in the correct places and you are

convincing yourself it is difficult. It is easy to build the overview, this is one simple approach based upon my NEEDS:

 

I need $F pa as a take home salary (after tax) base for food, basic clothes and shelter and to ensure my good

ongoing health (the last but is often forgotten: sick = no income).

 

I need $L pa for my living standards (like to buy a coffee at Starbucks and the odd Red Gucci Handbag)

 

Therefore I need, today, an annual TAKE HOME salary of $(F + L) = $T (let`s assume that is $26,000)

 

So, on today`s prices, if I were Full Time in Photography, the business would have to provide me with a NET salary of

about $500 per week: just as a beginning for me to live, with no extra business profit or growth.

 

Let`s say my tax rate, plus health insurance, plus superannuation (or some compulsory savings plan) totals 33% of

my Gross, therefore the business needs top pay out GROSS $750 per week: which is $39,000 pa in my salary.

 

But I need $B pa for the set up and ongoing running costs of my business. And let`s say that is $20,000 pa to run

the business and the additional costs for each Wedding is 40% of the Price of it (that is to say 40% of the Price I

charge for the Wedding goes to buying the Album, having the prints done, the petrol I use etc, particular to doing that

specific job, in addition to the general running costs of the business).

 

So even with simple arithmetic (no complicated equations) I need to have at least turnover of $39,000 + $20,000 =

$59,000 from my Photography Business, just to exist.

 

So if I do one Wedding a week, and charge $1,000 (total income stream for the year, after the cost of each wedding

is deducted is $31200), at that rate, I will be in soon be in very large debt.

 

But if I do one Wedding a week and charge $2,000 (total income stream for the year after cost of each wedding is

deducted is $62,400): at that rate I will be building a business.

 

So there is one very simple base as an example.

 

There are other ways to build a bottom line requirement and to get an idea of the number of jobs necessary to

sustain it and business growth.

 

IMO there is no point having an arbitrary starting figure and just increasing it by an arbitrary percentage.

 

I would strongly encourage you to do a practical small business course, and seek the advice of professionals,

especially an accountant who has other Photographers as clients.

 

The above example is not that advice it is just random numbers pulled out of the air to provide a worked example of

the arithmetic involved and how really simple it is to do to get a basic starting point: but it is important to accurately

include ALL the costs.

 

The costs of the business and one`s own living costs are often overlooked or greatly underestimated . . . those

Starbuck`s Coffees and Gucci handbags add up over the course of the year.

 

:)

 

WW

[wedding-photography-denver]

How do you compare in all aspects of the biz? Images do not a business make.

 

I would think you need to set your pricing based on your overhead, ability, profit desired and sell-ability.

 

Not all 2k+ photogs are worth that by looking at their work, but they are great with the marketing and business. Not all 500 dollar photogs are that bad, but they suck at business and marketing/confidence. How would you see yourself here.

 

Personally, I feel that in any market in the US, 2K is on the low end of what should be charged. A reasonable income for a full time wedding pro should (I think) exceed $60k net. So add to that the cost of marketing (lets say 10k), the cost of kit per year (another 10K ish) and the cost of product (say at least another 15k), and you have the gross needed for income. Now, can you book 30 weddings for 3k to get what is an average living? Or perhaps you get 2k, making the need to book 45 weddings necessary, or if you shoot as you plan to, for 1k, you should need to shoot 90+ weddings just to do OK.

 

Now what do you think?

[f._suarez]

Yiiikes. I think I need to graduate first before I can think of making more than $60k a year :)

 

Seriously, though, I do want to take this business one step at a time. I'm not looking at jumping into being a full-time pro even in the next 4-5 years... it is something I eventually want to do, but the truth is that I just don't have the money/resources/experience yet. To go full-time right now would just be asking to land a golden opportunity at everyone's favorite fast-food chain.

 

William W... do you mind if I shoot you a PM about the business plan? I know you might be busy but I value your opinion and just want to make sure I'm starting on the right foot.

 

Thanks to everyone for their advice... it's very much appreciated :)

[dave_shilling__sacramento_]

Based on your input regarding how involved you would actually like to be, it sounds like you have some room to experiment. If photography is not something you need to pay the bills, you can simply raise your price to $1000, $1500, etc and see when people stop booking. If you're building a portfolio and buying equipment, and not paying bills, use your actual operating costs as a guide, not your bills. So you want to get $20,000 of gear for 2010 and you dont feel comfortable doing more than 20 weddings? $1500 should do it. You obviously need to make it more detailed financially, but thats my 2 cents. Suddenly you cant stop the phone/email, and people are banging down your doors to shoot their weddings for $1500? Maybe thats a sign =) One more thing... The only time I;ve ever heard someone declare that they only did a certain amount of work per year, they have been very good at what they do. I suspect that if you advertise that you only book 20 weddings per year, it would only increase your perceived quality. Now a Fareine wedding album is a limited edition!

[wedding-photography-denver]

heh, I like Davids thinking here too.