Senior Portrait? How much? And with what?

[Fotographie-Junge]

Excuse my ignorance, but would anyone in the DFW area, or elsewhere for that matter, mind filling me in on how much to charge for senior portraits? And should I, the photographer, also include prints? Are there any "standards" to this service? I'm a noob, so any info would be great!

[alamoshutterbug]

Have you looked at some local photographers' websites to get a feel for the market, prices and offerings and what-such. I would presume they are all a bit different given what I have seen in my local market.

[brad]

I'll give my standard answer from when I was in the custom programming business...

"a hunnerd million dollars"


Seriously, until you know what you want to offer, how much your costs are going to be (including overhead for operating expenses), and then how much you want to make... that answer is as good as any other guess... actually, its better, because its almost certain to have some profit built in.

Do some research into what others are offering and what seniors are wanting.. decide what you want to offer.. and go from there.

[toverman]

You won't be able to compete with the "standard" among established studios. But some of those I've seen offer the same old, same old to everyone who walks in the door. So your job is to distinguish yourself from everyone else. That doesn't mean giving anything away to get business, because that defeats the purpose.

As Brad said, until you know what you can produce and would like to offer, pricing is going to be a hazy mystery. Don't just pull a number from anywhere. It could end up costing you your business. As Brad said, you need to figure your costs (including in time).

[photonewb]

Originally Posted by brad

I'll give my standard answer from when I was in the custom programming business...

"a hunnerd million dollars"


.

I like 11ty billion dollar better, and said with the Dr Evil emphasis on billion

wanna buy a pie?

[brad]

Heh, my "standard answer" predates Dr. Evil by about 5 years.

[Fotographie-Junge]

Hmm true..thanks for the input guys..looks like I have some figuring to do!

[eRoc]

Originally Posted by brad

"a hunnerd million dollars"

hahaha...That sounds like my first response to anyone who asks me to do anything Thats my flat rate for getting off of my butt, and people have to talk me down from that price. Friends and family included.

[brad]

Exactly... an actual conversation I had with a client once...

"Can you write me a program for that?"

"Sure, a hunnerd million dollars."

"Ha ha ha. Can you come down on that?"

"Can you be more specific as to what it does?"

(They became one of my best clients, btw.)

[Ahh!]

Even averages are all over the board...I have one friend who averages between $4-500. I sat in class last month and the instructors were saying they were averaging $1,100. The big difference seems to be wall portraits, but there is more than that. Look over brad's website, and a few more, and take a stab. There is no right answer. BTW: I don't post my prices, because I don't have a set package and I want people to come in for a consult and get a feel for how much they want to do...

[Jeff Lane]

My real job (at least until I save up enough to take the rest of my life to go broke farming) is offering legal and business advice to small business people, so here goes. (It's almost certainly not exactly what you thought you were asking, but bear with me -- it's really the best way to answer your original question.)

If you're really trying to start a business in any field, including photography, it's a VERY helpful exercise to do what's called a "business plan" -- a self-generated document that helps you think semi-out-loud about what you want out of your new enterprise, and what you are willing to do to achieve those goals. You should do this even if you're only going to do this part time, or as a very rare sideline. There are plenty of resources out there to help you write a good business plan for different purposes, but here's a good place to start:

http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/writeabusinessplan/SERV_ESSENTIAL.html

One really big part of that exercise is to figure out what your real costs are. Do have a good place to make quality prints that the customer will be willing to pay for? How much will that vendor charge you? Can you charge a markup on that cost? (I'd suggest you do.) Are you planning to do post production on each shot before you print it? If so, how much time do you anticipate spending in front of that computer, and what is that time worth to you? Are there other costs (like renting extra lighting equipment, or paying for gas to get to the shoot, etc.) that you need to account for?

One other really essential part of the business plan process is to research the competition. For senior portraits, you might try Googling (how did that get to be a verb?) around awhile to see what others might charge, then determine whether you're going to compete on price or quality or additional servivces or just on reputation. Given that you're just now getting into the pricing question, I'm guessing that you'll not be competing on reputation yet, but nothing enhances revenue like a bunch of gossiping satisfied customers.

Good luck

[ggeen]

There was another thread in here not to long ago. I remember some really good advice coming from that one. Charge for your services, not so much for the prints. -- if I may paraphrase. I can have a package deal printed at a photo lab for $20 and up -- depending on the package. That, however, will hardly cover your time and other expenses.

You need to figure out what your time is worth to you. One place to start is calculate your hourly rate from you day job -- if photography is not your primary income source. That should give you a clue to how much you think you are worth. Now, calculate how much time you think it will take to perform the photoshoot, and the post processing. Then add on what the photo lab is going to cost you to create the prints package. Now, compare all that to what others in the are charing. Are you in the ball park? If you are too high, figure out where you can cut cost. If you are way under, maybe you are not charging enough to cover your costs.

Good luck. -G