What do you charge family?

[MicWayWal]

I read all the comments and no one suggested what I do now. So I will throw it out there. My family can not afford my normal prices. I have tried giving very large discounts or charging just what it costs me. Nothing seemed to make me and them happy at the same time. So I did what my brother in law suggested.

He lived near a large hill in Missouri. When it would ice over people would get stuck at the bottom of the hill in the ditch. He would pull people out of the ditch for $50 with his jeep, half of what a tow truck would charge. People would get pissed that he would charge them at all. They thought he should do it as a good neighbor. So his dad suggested to let them pay what it was worth to them to be pulled out. Some would pay $10, some would pay $50, most would pay $75. He made more money by letting them decide what to pay themselves. Everyone was happy.

I adapted the same principle for my family. I tell them I will do exactly the same work for you that I do for my clients. I will only charge you what it cost me to produce the product AND I will also share with you how much time it took me to produce what I have done. I include every moment that I work for them, total time. Anything they want to give me for my time and talent involved, will be a gift from them to me.

It has worked beautifully. When someone knows that I spent six hours producing their images they usually are very generous. The ones in my family that can afford to give me more; do. The ones that can't; don't. I am now happy, they are happy. Most of the time I make more money than I would have charged them in the first place. It is a great way to handle it.

[mike78628]

Great feedback on the topic. I have lots of family and struggled with how to approach this.

Mike

[ngoduyviet]

Mine or my wife's immediate family gets everything free, relatives get them at cost, friends get discount.

[bondarnes]

When my parents were living they paid nothing. They are gone now and I would never charge my children or my grandchildren. My brothers and sister pay half price. If it is a wedding the album is our gift to the couple and all other orders are half price. Close friends are still clients and pay full price, but I will probably give them a bonus or two.

[Tom]

I either print them, or give the files to immediate family.

I have special deals with some close friends. I shoot my old roommate's kids, and then he and I go out for sushi (his treat) when I deliver the disk of files. His wife loves the pics, and he and I get nice sushi. It works great for everyone.

[dliveleyphotography]

I am close with my family including my aunts and uncles and all my cousins. Everything is free/at cost, if they feel like throwing in extra cash cool, if not I don't care. I have never done anything for family and expected to be paid for it.

[J Eddington]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

5x as much! Just kidding. Parents are free. I just give my siblings what ever extras I ordered b/t the lot of GPs and us.

I was thinking 6x! OR agree not to do it!

[epoh]

I've actually run into this situation before. I gave my parents some nice 8x10s of the kids easter photographs and they wanted me to mail copies (4x6s) to everyone in the family. I sucked it up and ordered the super cheap prints from snapfish.com. Not the best quality, but family members just want to see your kids and have a picture for the fridge. They aren't worried about archival quality paper for 50 years from now.

[janikphoto]

Everyone else has chimed in, so I guess I will. I don't charge family for anything small, but you mentioned you can't afford to carry this cost yourself. When printing something that cost a few hundred dollars or more, I couldn't easily carry the cost and charged that exact same cost to family.

[rebardwg]

all my family and freinds get their pictures free. Since you're taking pro shots, i'll assume you also have a printer. If anything, to cover the cost of the ink, i'll tell them they owe me a Fourbucks coffee, but never hold them to it. At the very least, give them the files so they can print it themselves.

[jenmazy]

If a family wants a print of my kids I give it to them free. I would never charge my grandma for a copy of a print of her grandchildren.
Now if someone wants me to take pictures of their kids I charge. I used to just charge cost, but I started getting calls from 2nd cousins that I hadnt seen since I was a child. Even at COST one second cousin didnt even order. I was livid. I had driven to her house in Dallas (30 min from me), set up my equipment in her house, spent around 3 hours total there working and she did not seem to even appreciate that. I know she was hard up for money, but I was doing it for cost! After that I insisted family come to my house and then an aunt did not order. There was nothing wrong with these pictures either. After that I figured that if they are paying something then they will not waste my time.
Now friends and family get a free session if they come to my home or $25 for outdoors, and then 75% off prints. That is still a damn good deal, but I make a little money, not much, but a little. I look at it this way, I have a cousin who is a dentist. Do I get free cleanings? No! I am running a business just like other businesses and I am tired of working for free.

[CallMeAl]

We give the grandparents photos. For everyone else, we email them a photo and if they want to print it out (they never do) then that's their choice.

As for portraits of their family, that luckily hasn't been an issue. I've done some senior photos for my nephews as a gift and tell them they can order through me at my cost or print them elsewhere. They always say they want to pay me my regular prices...until they find out what those are...then they accept the gift offer.