Selling Digital Negs ?s

[HotHolly]

OK - I had been originally been thinking I would archive all my clients sessions and keep them until judgment day. Mainly, b/c Im nuts. We dont offer too many opportunities to purchase the digital negatives. Some high end wedding packages offer them, but that is about it.

So, after deciding I don't actually want to keep files around for more than 6 months of inactive ordering, I decided to offer my clients the opportunity to purchase their negs. And here's the question - how much do you charge?

I don't know if we will do this again or not, so this may be a 1 time thing. But I'd like to have an idea what you all are charging for digital negatives for weddings and for portrait sessions. I know prices are all over the place, so just shout out so I can get a few ideas in mind.

I mentioned the idea to a few clients yesterday, and a couple of them already contacted me back VERY interested. Sessions are about 8-14 months ago, and all but 1 wedding already ordered paper prints a while ago. Ordering stagnated and has been inactive for 6 months. Thanks for your ideas!

[HeatherLou]

I offer it as a 99$ add on with a portrait session and did with a Wedding also, but I'm gonna raise my price on Wedding CD's to 175$

[HotHolly]

Thank you Heather! Is that a percentage of your sitting fee? Total sales? Or what? How did you arrive at that number?

[HeatherLou]

For my portrait sessions it 99$ and comes with 6 sheets, then 99$ for the CD, and I have never had anyone NOT get the CD. For the weddings, I decided to go up from 99$ to 175$ more for the work and the shear number of images more for a wedding, and have not had anyone say no to that either. That being said, I don't do a lot of print sales either, unless there wanting 11x14 or bigger.

[Ahh!]

I am starting to get my first paid gigs and would like to hear more thoughts.

I paid a photog by the hour to shoot my daughter's wedding. He charged $100/hr including on-site and 2 hrs of PS. I was pleased with his work and was happy with the service. From that, he burned one copy of the negs...It took 2 DVD's to do it.

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by phorn45

I am starting to get my first paid gigs and would like to hear more thoughts.

I paid a photog by the hour to shoot my daughter's wedding. He charged $100/hr including on-site and 2 hrs of PS. I was pleased with his work and was happy with the service. From that, he burned one copy of the negs...It took 2 DVD's to do it.

Wow! You got a deal! Right now, the magic number to release the negatives at the time of the event (from Belle's) is $3K. It kills all print sales and local printers are horrible. Especially with our funky dark colors. Yes, Im a control freak. So many people did not get the negs, so I just have them sitting here. They are taking up a lot of room - triple back up for each shoot.

Since these people already printed, most of them just want the negs to have them.

I've seen prices on old negs all over the place - like $25 - $2500. I was thinking about making it a % of the total sale. At the same time it kills all future sales...which is why I was only choosing accounts that have been dormant for 6+ months.

I'm hoping to hone in on something, so more comments would be great!

[LoungeLizard]

All I can say about this is to price it according to what your business model calls for. Your business model should assume that photography IS your income.

I'm still rather amazed at how willing photographers are to give their work away. Seriously, $100 an hour for at most 8-10 hours. That's a $1,000 a week revenue - not profit - revenue. Take taxes out of that, pay for your insurance, pay for advertising, pay for your gear replacement, and what do you have left over? Zilch. Nada. Zero.

Come on guys (and gals). Treat it like a REAL business that needs to stand on its own, that needs to feed you and your family. If you're doing it on the side, great - but plan it as if it WAS your only income. In today's environment, it could be at any time.

I'm in an industry that has consistently killed itself by constantly lowering prices to the point where all the freaking jobs are now in China or India. Why, because along came a new player who offered the stuff for a few bucks less...and it started a spiral.

For what it's worth - and you should all do your own homework, not look at others to give you answers - my digital negatives are priced at $750. I raised the price on that from last year when it was $500. Last year I had about 30-40% get them. This year none. Is that good or bad? When I was in marketing, I was told that the best way to sell a product is to give it away for free...

Think about that and then price your services and your products accordingly. Price them as if your livelihood depended on it - because it will.

Cranky LoungeLizard out...

Oh, Holly, I've thought about going back to previous couples and for their 1st anniversary doing a 50% off deal on the negatives. I haven't as the last bride that I made a special offer to (60% off albums since I had already done the layout for a sample and she had referred three other weddings) never even gave me the courtesy of a response. Again, 40% of the retail price was not cheap enough...think about that when you all (not Holly, but everyone else) price your products and services.

[Solstice_Photography]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

Wow! You got a deal! Right now, the magic number to release the negatives at the time of the event (from Belle's) is $3K. It kills all print sales and local printers are horrible. Especially with our funky dark colors. Yes, Im a control freak. So many people did not get the negs, so I just have them sitting here. They are taking up a lot of room - triple back up for each shoot.

Since these people already printed, most of them just want the negs to have them.

I've seen prices on old negs all over the place - like $25 - $2500. I was thinking about making it a % of the total sale. At the same time it kills all future sales...which is why I was only choosing accounts that have been dormant for 6+ months.

I'm hoping to hone in on something, so more comments would be great!

I've been burning the negatives onto a DVD to get them off of my comp. I asked a local photog how much she charged for her negatives and I was quoted a $1 per neg. But, she doesn't let you pick and choose. She sells the whole lot. She typically shoots 800+ frames.

[HotHolly]

Thanks for the ideas. We certainly don't give anything away. The only reason why Im thinking about selling them 6-14 months after the fact is b/c I dont want to store them any longer and so throwing them out seemed foolish. We're in this to make money right?

We flat out do NOT sell negatives to those that spend less than $3K at the initial sale - portrait session or otherwise. The poor print quality at WalMart freaks me out. Since this is far long after the shoot, I doubt too many will print them. And if they do, they have lab prints in hand and will show off those anyway - they are framed all nice.

So, back to the question - what do you charge AFTER the fact? I would think it should be something significant. They are negatives. Jesus - why did you choose 60% off? That's the homework part of this - Im wondering why people offer what they do and checking to see what is working well and what isnt.

And I'm bad, but I told all these people Im purging my archives - so its buy them now or they are gone forever. Maybe that's why I got quick responses.

[brad]

I sell a CD of digital negatives from weddings for about what I would expect in print sales from that wedding.. knowing that the CD sale will mean I likely won't see any more print sales.

I am thinking about sending them an offer of $99 for their CD, though on their first anniversary.

[Ahh!]

Originally Posted by LoungeLizard

I'm still rather amazed at how willing photographers are to give their work away. Seriously, $100 an hour for at most 8-10 hours. That's a $1,000 a week revenue - not profit - revenue. Take taxes out of that, pay for your insurance, pay for advertising, pay for your gear replacement, and what do you have left over? Zilch. Nada. Zero.Come on guys (and gals). Treat it like a REAL business...Cranky LoungeLizard out...

We'll cut the photog some slack, because I intimidated him with the familiarity of the business, and later, the display shot of the bridal I did of my daughter. Also, as a work-for-hire, $100 is reasonable. Not to low, not too high. While he did a great job, it was not his photo-sweet-spot. He does sport bike races as his mainstay, but he had the personality that my daughter liked. She and her hubby is into sport bikes.

[NathanJK]

My current offer is:
DVD with 50 of your favorite images, at full resolution: $200 **
DVD with 200 of your favorite images, at full resolution: $400 **

**Please note: Full resolution DVD's will not be delivered until 90 days after the wedding.

That is pretty much copy and pasted from my pricing sheet, and since I'm just starting out thats the MINIMUM I will take. I fully expect to raise prices on those and extend the time until delivery in the year or so to come. I also simply will not sell ALL of the digital negatives, thats ridiculous. To meet my quality standards I would have to retouch every single image to a higher degree than I do for 4x6 proofs (what they have to look at to choose their favorite images) and most of the pictures wouldn't even be used by them, they just want them to have them. I also offer a DVD of all the proofs, sized for sharing online with friends and family for $50.

[Digital Daddy]

The Diva and I had words, I didn't get to use mine. Besides she was absolutly correct. $199. And that was after all print sales. We had thought of doing a shoot and just providing a DVD of corrected images, but don't want to ever deliver images without prints. They go get some bad prints and then they are blaming you for bad images. We now only sell negatives after the fact.

[dtscds]

Well, from someone who has never made a dime doing weddings...
From a business perspective, by 6 months I would figure you have tapped that well for all it's worth. The honeymoon's over (literally), her "Queen-for-the-day" buzz has passed and anyone who wanted prints has long sense ordered them (my assumption!). You said your goal was to get them off your hands and maybe make a little bread as well (how very 70's was that!?). So, practically, anything you get from the negatives, 6 months out, is bonus. Since you said that no one gets the chance to buy negatives at the event unless they spend 3k+, why not use that as your baseline? Something like 10%--$300 for as many negatives as you want to let them "have". That could be for the sub 3k packages. Maybe make some kind of 'special deal' for those that went over the 3k threshold?

[LadyShutterBug]

digital negatives come with all of my wedding packages. it's figured into the total price. when i got married, i only looked at photographers who offered this option. it was a complete dealbreaker for me otherwise.

i make what i want ot make, free and clear, before prints are ever even ordered-- prints are icing on the cake for me.

it never ceases to amaze me how much people will spend on print orders, KNOWING full well they will be getting the files and permission to make their own prints (i never release full copyright-- only permission to reprint for personal use).

once proofs are up online, it's still a good month or so before my wedding client has the digital negatives in hand. in that time, i find that mom & relatives will buy, buy , buy (one of the advantages of online proofing). i had a mom who knew she was getting CD's with the files on them, but still spent $700 in simple 4x6 and 5x7 prints from wedding candids.

for regular portrait sessions, there is an option to purchase a CD of images. the price varies with the type of session but is usually in the neighborhood if $200.