Approach to pricing

[Trey Neal]

I"ve been asked by a customer that I did some family photos for to price collages to them. What I'm looking for is not prices per se, but a logical approach to pricing collages. Should they be priced relatively cheaper or more expensively than an equivalent sized single shot. And what are the justifications for each approach. I have my ideas but am looking for other thoughts.

[Killeenguy]

i think u can claim labor and profit. if that makes sense.
but just in case. i've done it where i add the price per image size. ex. one 5x7 is X amount and so on. if there are but always limit the number per collage to keep a standard.
such as the common 3 images on a long 5 x 20 i think is the size.

or you could just charge per hour like others do. but i always seem to find customers want a set price. which leads me to the my last unpopular option of charging them a flat fee for creating a collage. which are always custom.

[Killeenguy]

so how did your customer take to your price quote? and if she did..what was the final product?

[Elsaspet]

Charge more Trey. You will have to build the collage, and the printing for collages is actually higher than a normal print (at least at my lab). A general rule of thumb is 4x price. Say if the collage is 10x10, asking $30 is not out of line with the portrait market. In fact, some ask, and get, much more.

[Dsheree]

Never Ever forget to include your time in all your pricing....after all you are just selling paper--that is cheap--it's the image on that paper that you are really charging for. Now how much did it take to create that image weather it be 1 image or a collage. collage will take longer to create then that one image so it should cost more.