Charging customers

[Mare333]

Hello, Marianne here. I am in the process of launching my photography business and I have a question: How do you charge your customers? I looked on quite a few photographers' websites and it looks like they charge PER SESSION as opposed to PER IMAGE. The average price I found is $400 to $600 for a 2 hour session (and they specify for example 50 to 70 images). However, there is also cost of printing. So do you charge the flat fee ($400 or $600) PER SESSION and then ON TOP OF THATT you PASS ON to them the printing fees NOT making a profit on the printing fee just whatever the lab charges to print you pass that on to the customer. And I guess you wouldn't charge anything for downloaded images they want to keep in digital form because you already charged them a flat fee. What practice do you find best from your experience? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you,
Marianne

[Shadowman]

Marianne,

Usually (and not every time) those flat fees cover both a print package and the photographer's time for the shoot and any editing/printing the photographer does. If using a lab then you have a couple of choices, charge customer upfront price of print that covers the printing service, plus delivery, plus usage or utilize a lab service that does all the pricing (taxes, delivery, etc.) and interacts directly with the client. Another thing to consider is state taxes for your services and if you are doing the printing sales tax on prints.

[Manfred M]

Marianne - there are no rules on charges or the way you package your products.

Some of the photographers I know charge a fee just for the shoot (usually 2 hour minimum) plus any travel time involved, if the photographer has to get the the client's site. Sometimes the fee is for the shoot only, at other times there is a limited number of images built into that fee as part of the package (don't forget you will be spending time to edit and prepare those images, so this should be something you need to get compensated for). Anything above that number of images should be charged as an extra.

Prints take a lot more work and have additional costs, whether you print your own or have a commercial printer produce them. Typically the markup is 2x what you pay the commercial printer for the actual print plus you may need to add some additional retouching costs in, especially for larger format images that do take a lot more work.

Finally look at what the competition is charging as that will give you an idea of the local cost structures.

[Mare333]

Marianne,

Usually (and not every time) those flat fees cover both a print package and the photographer's time for the shoot and any editing/printing the photographer does. If using a lab then you have a couple of choices, charge customer upfront price of print that covers the printing service, plus delivery, plus usage or utilize a lab service that does all the pricing (taxes, delivery, etc.) and interacts directly with the client. Another thing to consider is state taxes for your services and if you are doing the printing sales tax on prints.

Thank you very much for your advice.

[Mare333]

Marianne - there are no rules on charges or the way you package your products.

Some of the photographers I know charge a fee just for the shoot (usually 2 hour minimum) plus any travel time involved, if the photographer has to get the the client's site. Sometimes the fee is for the shoot only, at other times there is a limited number of images built into that fee as part of the package (don't forget you will be spending time to edit and prepare those images, so this should be something you need to get compensated for). Anything above that number of images should be charged as an extra.

Prints take a lot more work and have additional costs, whether you print your own or have a commercial printer produce them. Typically the markup is 2x what you pay the commercial printer for the actual print plus you may need to add some additional retouching costs in, especially for larger format images that do take a lot more work.

Finally look at what the competition is charging as that will give you an idea of the local cost structures.

Thank you very much for your input. I found it very helpful.