Pricing for Prints - is mine too high?

[ronocnikral]

Originally Posted by photopam

This is good to know. My smaller prints are a little lower priced than this, but my larger prints are higher. They use to be around this price. Thanks for the additional thought process on pricing!

another thing to think about is compressing your price range of your smallest size to your largest. if the marginal cost of the next size is smaller, you are likely to push the client into a bigger print. if they do go for the smaller size, you should be profiting more. if they go bigger, you are making more money. do this within reason of course.

also to echo what i think tom and todd were getting at (correct me if I am wrong). photographers are good at telling other photographers to "charge more." And rightfully so to a degree. But on the other hand, if you are paying your bills (yourself included) and you are happy, set your prices so that if people walk away or don't buy anything, you are still happy.

[Emma]

Then let her back out unless you need the portfolio images. If you want to offer a discount (friends and family are buggers, aren't they?) then still print them an INVOICE with your REAL prices on it, with a discount column so they appreciate what you're doing. When they refer you out, or come back next year and don't need the business, they can pay your real prices or find someone else.

Frankly, I'll always do a friends/family discount or barter, but the longer I'm in business the less the discount is! And if I don't have time to do rinky-dink jobs, I tell them I don't have time, and it's not a big deal. I'd rather do 10 $1000 jobs than 100 $100 jobs, and enjoy the extra time with my kids.

[kikiluv]

I wish I had, Emma. Ended up being a complete nightmare. She complained until I gave her 10 images on cd. Then she never even bothered to confirm receiving it. Some people are unbelievable.

[CaptainTom]

This has been a story I tell a lot about pricing.

I had a friend in Connecticut who rebuilt Steinway Pianos. He had a couple of assistants, and always proclaimed how he was "booked three years ahead".
His prices were in line with other rebuilders.
I suggested he raise his prices at least 50%.
He raised his prices and now declares he is "booked two years ahead".
He works at full capacity and is now making 50% more than before.
He is considering raising prices again and just being booked "one year ahead".
In reality the higher your prices, the more perceived value the customer is getting.

[Emma]

The problem is that most of us JSO are no where near capacity, and we don't have adequate bookkeeping to identify if we're in the red or not (which we are!)

You know if that's you if you still get embarrassed when people "show you off" by calling you a "proFESSional photographer!" You know if that's you by asking, "Are my prices too high?"

I tell people that I'm semi-pro and then feel bad about charging them for portfolio work. My prices are in the mid to low range for Austin, which my work reflects, but I know I deserve what I charge because sometimes people say I should charge more, some say I'm too expensive, and most just pay it.

There's no way to know if they're too high or low until you hit the marketing hard and see if you're booking.

[PIC]

You will be compared to Walmart's prices unless you totaly break any such connection.
If you can't break that comparison and charge up to the sky -
have them get prints from Walmart.

[bondarnes]

In my opinion, if one third of your clients are not complaining about your prices, then they are too low.

[kayumangi]

I don't want to hijack Kristi's thread but I'm somewhat in her situation too, so please bear with me =)

So, how should I break that connection/comparison with Walmart etc?

I just did a shoot with a couple of friends over Halloween, they liked the pictures so much that they posted image links from my gallery to their Facebook pages (free advert for me because the images were water marked) and requested several prints.

After placing the order and telling them how much the final bill costs, they balked. I was charging them my print costs, no session/sitting fees.

So now, there is this awkward moment where they kinda don't want pay anymore but are embarrassed not to do so coz the order has already been placed. And I just checked their facebook pages and all references to the said images have since been removed.

Plus, why do I get that slight guilt that I'm over charging my friends, even if I know MPIX prints are way better than walmarts?! and that I've spent some time post processing their pics?!

Deep down, I'm starting to resent accepting their print orders.

[texxter]

"Better Business Practices for Photographers" is an excellent book on the business of photography. While the focus is on commercial, not retail photography, many of the principles are generally applicable to any freelance photography business. Check out this Cost of Doing Business Calculator just to get an idea what it costs to just be out there.

Photography is a necessity for many businesses, but it's a luxury for consumers. Hence, the freelance photographer wanting to run a profitable photography business has no choice but to find a high-end niche. Being a volume photographer can be done, but forget about it being fun and creative. And when you're talking about selling someone a $1,000 photograph, you've got to be a lot better at sales than at photography. I personally find it a lot easier to create great images than to sell them! I think a lot of photographers share this sentiment - it takes salesmanship to really make money.

[ChristopherCoy]

tag for good info...

[Outlaw]

(Emma) ...I know I deserve what I charge because sometimes people say I should charge more, some say I'm too expensive, and most just pay it.

There's no way to know if they're too high or low until you hit the marketing hard and see if you're booking.

I'll concur with this entirely. Photographers can wax poetic about pricing all night and day, but whatever prices you go with, you don't know if they're right until you're actively in front of your market.

If you're booked solid and nobody's complaining, raise your prices.

If you're booked solid and some people are complaining, consider raising your prices.

If you're just starting out, consider lowering your prices until you're in one of the two above situations.

When you're booked as much as you want (which may not be booked solid), and you're making (after all expenses considered) money that leaves a smile on your face at night, you're in the sweet spot.

The better your art, the greater value your services have. The better your marketing, the more potential clients will see your art and its value.

So long as you're working diligently on these two aspects of your business, you can use pricing to pace your bookings (price less for more shoots, price more for fewer - but more profitable per - shoots).

I'm a full-on advocate of charging less (indeed, less than the prices you've listed) when you're starting out - so long as you're maximizing your potential from every shoot you book early on:

- Get model releases so you can grow your portfolio and marketing materials

- Do the best work you can with the tools you've got; severely restrict expenses until your bookings are up and consistent

- Get your low-cost, high-yield marketing efforts in place: business cards, web site + blog, social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter - get your photos on their profiles!)

- Get permission from every client to add them to your e-mail newsletter list, then get a newsletter out twice a month

- Read Seth Godin + John Jantsch to grow as a marketer

And when your bookings are up and you're getting a steady flow of clients who say, "Oh, I saw your beautiful work on Jane Doe's MySpace..." or "Jane Doe said you were really great to work with..." - then start playing with pricing and working yourself into higher-profit markets (and margins).

Whatever your prices, deliver them to your potential clients with confidence. You don't have to bend, and they don't have to buy.

As others have said, you'll always get people who think you're overpriced. If you get too many of those, consider that it's your marketing, who you're getting your work in front of and how, that may need tweaking: not your prices.

[Emma]

As someone who just exiting the JSO phase into the JSO business phase, my advice is

POST YOUR PRICES!!!

They should know when they start what your prices are.

If you lower your prices to attract more clients, only do so in a discount column on your invoice like a coupon.

The parttimephoto.com blog has a good article on this practice
http://parttimephoto.com/what-should...series-part-3/

I agree with it completely.

Making an invoice is as simple as opening Excel, choosing New>from Template>Invoice, and customizing it. Put your logo on top. Print them up as Estimates, and hand them to people when they book you. No money changes hands until prints are ordered, but they KNOW before they order what your real prices are, and what the discount they're getting will be. I do 50% off for people I know, 80% for people who are close to me, and at-cost prints if I approach them asking for a portfolio shoot. Even then I give them an invoice with their discount in the discount column.

Get a blog, trick it out using online tutorials, and have posts with your prices. Don't get too many packages or get too complicated.

We can avoid all of this by having standard discounts, posted prices, and invoices/estimates with our prices that we give at booking or at least at the proofing session.

I would NEVER hire a photographer w/o knowing his prices, much less make an order. But people assume we're cheap and they do that, and it's our job to inform them ahead of time, just like a real pro would.

Emma added 7 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

oh, and to set yourself apart from wal-mart, I simply ask, without any sarcasm, which is really difficult for me, "Do my photos look like what you get at WM (or Sears, or Penney's?)" Or if I cannot keep the sarcasm from dripping off, I state it: "My photos don't look like what you get at WM, so I don't charge what they charge."

And that's only for non clients. Clients never ask stupid questions like why I cost more than Sears!

The better I get, the less people ask me to do rinky-dink shoots, no matter how close we are. I'm having to offer, and I'm starting to have to beg because they feel so guilty.

[DoublyDan]

Love this thread!
This is such good info! Thank you all...

[Emma]

BTW, thanks for your blog James, it rocks for just those of us here on this thread!

[kayumangi]

Thanks Paco for the book, I just placed an order =)

Thanks James/Emma for the blog links and insight.

I do have a blog, and I do have section that details what I offer. I also have a shopping cart for my online proofs and printing costs are clearly posted there.

Looking back, I think I didn't inform my "friends" enough and how the costs are. I was going over my SMS and e-mails to them and I did mention the unit prices (I was charging $8 for 4x6 and $12 for 8x10) they are pretty cheap compared to you lot but they are or were "friends" of mine.

I never intended to charge for the Halloween shoot, we just decided to have some fun in my garage. And it just so happened that they were so "happy" with the results that they ordered. And I guess I wasn't prepared for the ramifications hehehe.

Anyhow, I will follow Kristi's route and do the discount thing in the future. Appreciate the thread Kristi, it's somehow comforting that I'm not the only one experiencing this "drama".