Photography pricing: A 3 part Equation and series

Hello to all of you lovely readers, and welcome to all of you that have not joined me here before! Today, we’re going to get a little nitty gritty with the truth of photography pricing, how that relates to the industry, what that means to our customers, and how that could say more about us than we think. This post is not written exclusively for photographers, but for everyone that has had a photograph professionally taken, or may have a need(you always have need for photographs!).

Part 1: industry Expectations

Many photographers will tell you there is an industry standard for photography pricing. It is a standard of which your pricing is dependent on what others around you, and of greater skill/more experience/success, charge. This standard of expectation for everyone claiming professional status, of what you charge, should be based on top down practices, meaning the leaders in the industry set the tone for what we should all charge, based on criteria they set forth. This is industry standard, right? While industry standard seems astronomical to some, lofty to others, and for those that run profitable businesses, necessary, only one thing I have just written here is true. Industry standard is an illusion if you are basing your pricing on anything other than running a business. While I want to jump directly in to the meat of the subject, I am going to give you some examples of the wrong way to price your services.

If you are in 1 photography group, let alone many, you will see people constantly asking what they should be charging for their photography services. It usually starts something like this, “I have been charging $150 for my sessions. I provide a 2 hour session, unlimited outfits, unlimited locations, and I give my clients all the files. I am not making as much money as I would like, I am burnt out, and people are constantly taking advantage of me. I am thinking of charging $275, do you think this is too much, or should I do $325? I don’t want the better photographers in my area to think I am better than them, or that I think I am as good as them. I have only been doing this 2 years, and it is not my main job. Help, Please!” I recently read such a post, and the replies varied wildly. While I saw some photographers attacking the person asking the question, stating they had no business charging above $250 due to their level of skill, or years of experience, and due to concern for clients’ pockets, other photographers were saying, Yes! They confirmed this $325 is great pricing, it’s what they charge, and people might not want to pay this, but it is feasible pricing. Then you had a select few, that pointed out factors like CODB(cost of doing business), profitability, business health and longevity.

Another group I am, someone could tell you that $5k is their minimum session price, and that if they aren’t charging that minimum of $5ooo, with multiple sessions a week, then there is no way they could have a business. That is a crazy difference with one group thinking that charging $325 is sustainable, to another group stating that anything less than roughly $10 k per week is not sustaining. Most photographers fall somewhere between those numbers, but what is really the right place to land? Is it this imaginary industry standard price, the price you can live with charging your clients for your services, or the price that provides you a client wardrobe closet with an upscale luxury service? Two of these are actually correct, and maybe the third is too.

The industry standard, is NOT a concrete number, but a concrete equation. When you are actually running a photography business, you are not pulling some arbitrary numbers from the sky, nor are you looking at competitor’s webpages to see what they charge so you can too, NOR should you be asking total strangers what to be charging, based on their opinions and their reasonings as to why you should charge what they think. Legitimate businesses do not run on the opinions of others, at all. No, legitimate businesses run on numbers with cost of goods, variable/fixed expenses, etc. factored in. If you do not look at these numbers, you won’t know what you will need to charge to break even, let alone make a profit. Remember those $325 photographers? I guarantee you that none of them know what it actually costs to run their business. They may be thinking in terms of hourly time, and specifically only 2 of those tasked hourly timeframes. Well, I spent 1 hour of shooting, 9 hours of editing, that has me making $32.50/hour. That’s pretty good, right? Who doesn’t want to make a nice hourly wage? Um, but this is not accurate, so how do you determine what you are making as an hourly wage? Let’s look at things from a better business perspective, in a quicker, easier aspect.

If I charge you $1500 for your photography session, you receive product, and I spend 20 hours with you from start to finish, let me tell you what I make, based on quick math. It is a good assumption in the photography industry, to break your income in to 3 portions. 1/3-goes to pay income taxes and sales tax, immediately, always. In Ohio, if we deliver a physical product, we MUST collect sales tax on product and session, and remit accordingly. 1/3-goes back to the business. Again, the business does not run itself, it takes a flow of money to keep it running. You can’t squeeze juice from an empty orange, just like you cannot pay for business expenditures without a business fund. Gear doesn’t magically appear, editing software is not free. Gallery and web hosting both have costs….all aspects of the business cost someone something. If you are not putting funds back for your business, you have another source that pays for the business, at that point you have a hobby. 1/3-the business pays you for your work. All that time you put in on consults, shooting, editing, delivering product, working admin for the business, you receive 1/3 of that…so, if I am paid $500, and I have put in 20 hours, I am then making $15/hour. Clearly not the same as $32.50/ hour, that is a lie someone tells themself to justify their hobby parading as a business. When you hand me a check for $1500, my business receives that, I get paid by my business. I am not my business, and it is not me. I am Erin Robinson, agent for E.robinsonphotos, LLC.

Listen, we have all pretty much been there to some degree, in this type of thinking or place in the process of becoming a legitimate business. If you are doing photography for charity, you are well aware of why you are doing it and who you are looking to benefit, and that is perfectly okay, great even to give to others. If you are doing photography as a hobby, which I also did for years, then you know you are not in it to make money, you are doing it for the joy it provides you and others. You may recoup some costs, but you truly are not recouping what you think you are. You are actually funding your hobby with another career, and you are okay with that. When you actually decide to look at your photography as a career, that is when you realize that $325 is not $32.50/hour solely for the hours you put in. It has taken me years to actually understand the importance and value of photography, how to run a business, and how my mindset all factored in.

On Friday, I will tell you how pricing relates to clients/client experience, how we can facilitate our clients with purchasing, and why pricing should not be the biggest factor in choosing your photographer.