How much should one charge for a wedding album?

[john_meyer14]

Hi

 

What's your approach to pricing a wedding album?

 

I'd like to start using GraphiStudio in the UK for 'coffee table' type albums, but I'm not too certain as to what

I should charge. Can you help?

 

I've only been photographing wedding for about two years, and my normal fee to photograph a wedding includes 150

off 7 x 5 loose prints.

 

A mother of a bride (who's daughter's already had her 150 prints), would like a GraphiStudio-type album for

herself with about 90 prints. The delivered cost to me for what she wants is likely to be about 400 GBP.

 

In addition to this, will be my time spent designing the album with GraphiStudio-supplied software; the time

taken liasing with the client and GraphiStudio, etc; shipping cost to the client; AND the 'value' of my images used.

 

If these 90 images were ordered simply as 7 x 5 reprints, I would be charging her about 600 GBP for them alone.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Reagrds

 

John

[savagesax]

triple the price and see what happens.

[William Michael]

Cost of Goods which is the wholesale price (W) = 400

 

Time designing the album (T) = Your standard rate per hour x Guestimate of time required

 

Shipping cost (S) = Find out exactly how much

 

'value' of my images used (V) = 600 – (your wholesale cost 90 loose images)

 

[you have already established this, by the information in your question]

 

***

 

One Basic Formula you might consider for establishing the Total cost of Album (A)

 

A = (W) x 27.5% + (T) + (S) x 10% + (V)

 

Formula must include all appropriate taxes.

 

``Liaising Time`` is not included in the formula, because it would be figured as a standard overhead. Similar Standard

Overheads might also be: selling time, telephone time (time items) and telephone account and electricity (purchased

items). These costs are there all the time, and not particular to any individual job.

 

 

Standard overheads are best calculated over a quarter or year, and then equally dispersed to each (expected) service

or product class , as part of a general margin (on services) or mark up (on goods) and these are represented by the

two (suggested) % additions, in the formula above.

 

 

WW

[William Michael]

Ha Ha.

 

I just posted the above answer and then I did a quick calculation with my guesses as follows . . .

 

Designing time: three hours at 50 per . . .

 

shipping total cost 50 . . .

 

27.5% mark up on the initial 400 . . .

 

and 100 for the Wholesale cost of 90 prints

 

 

 

Into the formula and the Total = 1210.

 

So . . . why don`t you just triple the price, and see what happens.

 

WW

[bill.akstens]

William, I think your formula has two typos in it. I think you want to take 127.5% of W, and 110% of S, otherwise you're giving a very nice discount! A = 127.5%*W + T + 110%*S + V.

[david_schilling___chicago_]

Quick and dirty answer....take your cost and time and then mutiply by a factor between 3 to 5.

[William Michael]

``I think your formula has two typos in it``. . . .

 

Yes it does, but I didn`t notice it, until you mentioned it. Thank you for that.

 

***

 

You interpretation of what I meant, is correct, i.e.: A = 127.5%*W + T + 110%*S + V.

 

Sorry for the mistake, thanks again, Bill, for picking it up :)

 

WW

[steve_c.5]

John, with Graphi, you won't use any proprietary software from them, as they don't provide any. They do provide a

design service, and you should be able to get the pricing per page from their website/trade area and figure it up,

based on how many pages the album will ultimately cost.

 

Their design service will typically build in 1 to 3 images per page, and will create it based on several different

layout "styles" they offer, samples of which can be downloaded as PDFs from your trade area on their website.

These sample style PDFs will show you what a typical finished layout style would look like. In the US, a 40 page

side album would cost about $150 on an 8 x 12 album. Understand that a "page" is one side of a piece of paper in

the album, so figure your costs appropriately.

 

With Graphi, there are two things that affect the cost of the album; quantity of page sides, and size of the book. Their

documentation can give you a rough idea of how much the album should cost, and I'd have your client pick about 40

or 50 images that tell the story of their album, including a cover shot. Simply upload these images to Graphi, and

they'll do the design, and send you a PDF to approve. You get one revision, and if you need any more, you can buy

up to 10 revisions for an additional $100US. You'll have to figure the GBP for yourself, sorry!

 

Anyway, I'd factor in a healthy profit for yourself, to cover your time as an intermediary between Graphi, and the

client. I'd do album cost x 3, as suggested above.

 

If you have graphic design abilities, you could design your own pages with some good software, like LumaPix

FotoFusion Pro. Then, you would not have to rely on Graphi's designers.

 

Hope this has been helpful!

 

Oh, and if you figure it a little low the first time, you'll learn from it for next time.

[john_meyer14]

Hi Steve

 

Thanks for all that info.

 

I did in fact go to a 'Roadshow' this week held by Grpahistudio in London. It was very interesting.

 

They will be releasing their OWN software for FREE by the end of October. I knew it had been promised for about a year, but, so they told us, it will be available for download from their Trade website very soon.

 

The three hour seminar spent a lot of the time describing the use of the software in detail. There's a vast range of templates, and all are modifiable and you can create your own as well. It's been shown and described in their trade book I've had for a while. I think it might be the same software they've used in-house in Italy.

 

You can also create your own pdf's from it, so your in total control of the design. I like that idea.

 

As for pricing, having heard what others have said here, I'm going with a cost x 3 ish approach. In the last day I quoted the mother mentioned in my first post £1200 for a 60 page album and she accepted it. I'm well pleased.

 

So, all I've now got to do is design it! Wish me luck.

 

Regards

 

John

[steve_c.5]

Hey, John, I'm in the US and had not heard about the software. Thanks for filling me in on that, it's news to me.

 

Again, if you're doing the page layouts yourself, and you're PC-based, you should try the LumaPix FotoFusion software to design it. I've tried everything almost, and it's money well spent! Makes the design process go so much faster!