Pricing: You're worth It, Girl! | Rhode Island Portrait Photographer

Pricing; You’re worth it, Girl!

Heyy there again! (Or well hi for the first time if you neglected my previous posts….sad face)  I’m here to voice my opinion on a dirty little word called “pricing” ack! I said it! …. This may come as a shocker ladies and gents but…. WE ARE WORTH MORE, PHOTOGRAPHERS!!  Shout it from the rooftops, pat yourself on the back, go turn photobooth on and high five yourself - sit back in your computer chair and get to working out your pricing… and pronto. 

It’s no surprise that this post was fueled in part due to the two largest “fast food chain” of photographers calling it quits and realizing even their billions in recourses were not enough to make their undercutting worth it…. I give you the demise of Wal-Mart and Sears photo studios…

I’m not going to get into the costs of running a business… you know, how much equipment costs (a lot), website hosting, advertising, packaging- etc. etc. etc…. because this post is not for clients!  And it shouldn’t be!  You should not need to educate your client on why you charge what you do!  And yet I see posts on Facebook constantly about ‘why we charge what we charge’, and blog posts on what it really costs to be a photographer.  If we all, collectively joined together as an industry and began charging what we are WORTH, even this playing field out a little… there would be no need for these explanations!!  Which quite frankly- I have always found to be rather offensive to your clients, and tacky. 

Clients do not need to know how much your D700 costs, or how much that website of yours costs to keep per month- every career comes with costs, we chose this one, let’s suck it up…. I don’t go to a hotel for a night and get an itemized list of how much it costs them to run their business, therefor legitimizing my $175/night stay… the idea is that the service and quality will speak for itself- that, and their industry has a standard!

That it what I want to speak about- creating a standard.

It’s not your clients undervaluing you, or being uneducated about what goes into your pricing that has them straying…. It’s that photographer down the road giving sessions out for next to nothing.  It’s the lack of an industry standard.

I get it- you’re just starting out, and you are “portfolio building”… you don’t want to charge an arm and a leg straight out of the gate.  Here is my response:  too many beginning photographers consider the learning process to be the portfolio building process… these two things need to be separated.  If you are still learning how to use your camera, and understand the art of photography, that is perfectly fine, and bravo to you for taking this on, if I could high five you right now I totally would

- however that is not portfolio building- yet.  This is the time to practice on your family, close friends, even some still life displays!  This is the nitty gritty learning process- and it is unpaid.  Charging for a job you don’t yet know how to accurately accomplish isn’t only unfair to your client, but it’s unfair to your future colleagues.

  When a potential client is browsing the web for a photographer, and they see session fees ranging from $25 to $200… that has got to confuse ever loving sh*t out of them. 

 Of course they will see that the photographer charging $200 is a superior photographer (fingers crossed that’s the case!)… But what of that $25 session fee?  How can the difference be so drastic they will ask themselves?  The 87% (87.5 for those of you doing the math) difference in price will astound them… and it’s not the $200 photographer’s fault!  It’s the $25 session fee, a number that was given little to no thought that pollutes the industry and makes that perfectly reasonable $200 session fee look outlandish!  Like I said earlier, I’m not here to educate clients about the cost of doing business… but I will throw a small bit in here… that $25 for one hour of session time, and then 2-3 hours of editing time… you are now making  $6.26/hr.- go ahead and pay off your D700, website fees, taxes, license and insurance with that bad ass salary.  You can’t.  However a client would never assume that you would foolishly offer a price for a session that could never possibly support you, so, they are naturally left believing that $25 for a session fee is simply “on the low end”.

You may think to yourself, this is just a hobby for me so far, $25 is sweet!  All this does is undercut the future you.  Because I do believe you (yeah you girl) will one day be successful, and you will want to slap the ‘you’ from a year ago straight across the face… why do I know this?  Because I wish I could sucker punch Katie circa 2012.   I did not charge AT ALL- I made another big mistake… I did “free portfolio building”… awe fudgenuggets! What did this do?  It put a value on my work… that value was $0.00  

Portfolio building is just that- you are building a body of quality work to show to future clients.   Its OK TO CHARGE whilst truly portfolio building!  Now I was personally lucky and the majority of people I did sessions for while portfolio building saw the value in my work even though I did not.  That’s not usually the case.  Have you ever gotten something for free and then happily paid full price for it later?  Probably not.

So what do I suggest?

  What do you want to make a year?  How many sessions would you like to do a week?  What are your expenses?  Sit down and figure that out to find what your session fee needs to be.  Whether your prices are all inclusive, or you have your prints/digitals separate.. you need to figure out what your bottom line- your average sale NEEDS TO BE.  I can guarantee it’s nowhere near $25, it’s not near $50 either.  Keep goin sistah.  If you sit down, and figure out what you truly need to be charging and you are still uncomfortable… CHARGE IT ANYWAYS and offer discounts.  At least clients will have an idea of what your work is valued at, and when you finally put on your big girl pants (or your big boy boots) and decide you are ready to make that leap and ask for what you are truly worth… it’s not going to come as a surprise- and most of all… you will not be contributing to the over saturation of lowball session fees, that alone would be enough for me to raise a toast in your honor! 

So please.  Sit down and figure out what you are worth… I bet it’s more than you think.

It’s your time, it’s your talent… be compensated for it.