How much should an amateur photographer charge for photos?
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at
2:25 pm
Hi, I am trying to start a photography business, and have been doing photoshoots for people for almost a year now. I still consider myself to be amateur so I have only been charging around 40-50 dollars for each photoshoot. An experienced photographer looked at my work and said that I need to stop undercharging people for good quality prints. How much did you charge when you first started taking photos? Or how much would you expect to pay someone that you consider to be new to the business?
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Tagged with: photographer • photography business • photoshoot • photoshoots • quality prints • taking photos
Filed under: Baby Photography
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There’s a simple calculus here:
A. You need to charge what it takes to compensate you adequately for your time, given your expenses.
B. Your clients will pay what they feel your work is worth.
Hopefully, B will exceed A.
Here’s the thing, though: almost every amateur photographer or young professional dramatically underestimates their costs of doing business. Wear-and-tear on equipment, computer upgrades, insurance, and so on seem like abstract concepts when you’re just doing a shoot here or there on the side. However, as you get serious, you’ll begin to realize that cheap photo shoots may be making you less money than you would make flipping burgers for Ronald McDonald.
If you’re serious about running a photography business, you need to sit down and really figure out how much this is going to cost to do it right, and how long you’re REALLY going to spend on every shoot, between client meetings, editing, and so on.
If I tried to charge $50/shoot, I’d be broke pretty quick…
Don’t try to figure out what everyone else is charging. Don’t listen to grumpy old people like me who think you need to charge more. Sit down and compute:
-How much will I spend on camera gear this year
-How much will I have to spend on upgrades as I continue with this business to remain competitive
-How much will it cost to keep my computer up to date to edit these images
-How much will the storage (and BACKUP!) cost to keep these images?
-Do I need liability or other kinds of insurance? how much will this cost?
-How much of a cut does uncle sam want to take?
-etc etc etc.
I think it totally depends on the shoot, and how much work you’re getting as a photographer. If you have a waiting list, you should be bumping your charge higher. Ask other photographers in your area what they charge for studio shoots.
If you are getting a few jobs here and there throughout the year, you should consider yourself an amateur. But if the job takes you more than 5 hours I’d say go by an hourly wage of $15-20. If it’s less then stick with a base charge.
This is coming from a freelance artist’s perspective, which is related, but is a different field. Hope it helps
Amateurs aren’t paid for their work just so you know.
And if you cannot figure out cost on your own then are you really prepared to shoot for pay? Probably not. Do your research on other photographers in your area to see how they charge and what they offer.
Do you have a way of showing the community here what your work is? Without seeing the actual quality of your work it’s hard to judge one way or another.
Honestly, it would depend on the person’s portfolio and the quality of their prints. Right now, find photographers whose work isn’t any better than yours but are established and price yourself a little below them. Pull in some business that way, build a name for yourself, build a portfolio, and then gradually raise your prices to their level…and go more expensive when you get better than the competition at your same price level.
$350 per session
A starting point for charging for the prints.
5×7 – $10
8×10 – $25
11×14 – $40
16×20 – $120
20×24 – $145
20×30 – $160
As your reputation gets better, increase the cost of the prints you sell