As photographers, most of us love what we do, but that can make it difficult to tag with a monetary value something that, if money weren’t a necessity, a lot of us would do for free. So here’s a little crash course in pricing your work so that you can have a job you love and feed your family too.
Basic Formula:
Expenses + Time + Profit = Price
Expenses:
Start with what it costs you to produce a finished product. These are your expenses. This includes your salary. Salary is not a perk, it is part of the cost of doing business. For the purposes of this article, we’ll build prices based on a single year of expenses:
- Annual salary
- Photography gear * (Anything needed to create a finished image… right down to batteries and body caps) + backup gear
- Gear repair and maintenance
- Post processing and storage *(Computers, software, hard drives, cloud backup services)
- Travel costs, including gas, car maintenance, rental cars, hotels, food, and mileage
- Insurance
- Attorney’s fees for creating/managing contracts
- Accountant and bookkeeping fees, or bookkeeping software
- Office space, furniture, utilities, internet, phone (if working from your home, then partial rent, utilities, internet, and phone)
- Office supplies
- Shoes, clothes, and other personal items that are used for business
- Marketing (website design, hosting, domain registration, logo design, collateral materials, networking dues, paid advertising, trade show fees)
- Packaging and postage for delivery
- Continuing education
- Venue shooting fees
- Subcontracted services, assistants, second-shooters, models, etc.
- Savings. Like salary, this isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential. Many banks have free automated savings programs that transfer a fixed amount of what’s in your checking account to your savings account every month so you don’t even have to think about it.
*The costs of large items like cameras and computers will be divided over several years, since you won’t be buying new ones every year.
You’ll also need to factor in small business taxes and/or personal self-employment tax (to best manage your finances, know how to reduce your self-employment tax, and how to manage deductions).
This is already a huge list. And while I won’t attach numbers to it since everybody’s expenses and taxes are vastly different, you can easily see that you might already be charging too little. And we’re not done.
Time:
It’s more difficult to put numbers on this group because we tend to see time as somewhat subjective and personal, but that’s the point. It’s personal. Time you spend on photography in any capacity, from meeting with your accountant to bleary-eyed middle-of-the-night editing is time that costs you. It costs you time away from a significant other, children, pets, hobbies, and the not-so-delightful but necessary tasks like vacuuming or doing laundry. If you want a business that you control instead of the other way around, each of these time-takers must be limited by attaching a value and adding it to the cost of doing business:
- Researching and purchasing gear, software, furniture
- Prepping/packing gear before each session
- Travel to and from shoots
- Time actually shooting
- Downloading, editing, and backing up photos
- Maintaining websites, blogs, social media sites
- Design of logo, branding, and collateral materials
- Communication with potential clients (a portion of whom will never hire you or buy anything)
- Communication with current clients
- Bookkeeping
- Working with accountants, attorneys, and insurance companies
- Repair and maintenance of cameras, computers, office equipment, and vehicle
- Networking with peers and potential clients
- Packaging and sending products to clients
- Continuing education
The time you spend on these tasks is essentially what makes up your annual salary. I encourage you to set a timer the next time you sit down to edit or to write an email to a client. Does it really “only take five minutes”? Most bookkeeping software programs have a time tracking feature and there are also apps that will help you get a clearer view of how much time you’re spending on different tasks.
Profit:
With the exception of registered non-profits, all businesses need to make profit to be sustainable. Profit allows you to be innovative, to grow, offer new and better products at lower prices (and therefore healthy competition), invest in new technologies, and support causes you believe in.
When you attach costs to all of the above items, you’ll find a number close to what you need your annual revenue to be. Divide by 12 and you’ll find what you need to make each month. You can break these numbers down further to determine how many jobs you need to take per month and roughly how much each should cost. Sometimes it’s easier to have a set number of working hours each day and that will help you price your services based on a general hourly rate. Keep in mind that you will need to collect sales tax from your clients if you deliver tangible items.
Adjusting prices:
I have raised and lowered prices several times throughout the last decade of business. Although I’ve raised them more often, there have been times when my local market just wasn’t buying. Sometimes it’s the economy, sometimes it’s the season, and sometimes there’s an abundance of competition. Whatever the reason, in those cases I advertised discounts, incentives, referral bonuses, and free add-on items to fill the lulls. And yes, it usually stings a bit. There have also been times when I am so inundated with work that I am forced to raise prices to keep growth under control and maintain my mental health. It’s during these times that I can put extra in savings, set aside for a vacation, or make non-essential equipment upgrades.
Charging family and friends:
There’s a great general rule that has been circulating around the photography community for years, so I’ll quote it here because I’ve found it helpful. The scenario goes like this, “Pretend you’re getting married tomorrow. People in your wedding get no charge. People invited to your wedding get a percent discount. People not invited to the wedding pay full price.” It’s a great place to start when deciding when and to whom you will offer discounted rates.
I hope this article is helpful and can serve as a worksheet to build a pricing system that works for you. As always, happy creating!
