What Should I Charge?

Author: James Jackson

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Tags: Photograph pricing , how to , placing bids , bid amounts , how to bid

How much should I charge asks the newbie photographer? And the best answer we can often give is "It depends".

What does it depend on?

Why does "it depend"?

Why can't we just get a straight answer?

There's a few reasons; ethically, realistically, and situationally. Ethically, no one should answer the question of "how much should I charge" with a solid number because of a simple concept called price fixing. APA, PPA, and other professional photography groups don't have rate sheets just for this reason, and what you charge is what you charge, not what everyone else should charge. Realistically, we can't really answer how much you should charge because we don't live where you live and we don't know what you spend to make your images... I could be shooting all 645 or 6x6 film and spending upwards of $30 for each final image, while you could be shooting with a digital point and shoot you got for your last birthday, and those factors affect how much we each charge. How often you shoot and how much of this shooting is for pay and how much of it is for play for you also affects how much you charge. Situationally, each shoot is different... Some professional photographers don't even have set rates... they quote based on each individual shoot. Some *do* have set rates that they define in terms of average costs and equipment wear and tear. Some photographers will charge a client millions of dollars and then shoot the kid down the street for free because of a concept stuck in his/her head. Each situation is different for every photographer.

Some guidelines I like to follow are:

• How are the clients going to use the image? Editorial (illustrative) use, news use, and advertising uses all have very different acceptable rate ranges even for the same photographer working in all three areas. The rate ranges are also highly variable based on your knowledge and reputation in the industry.

• How long is this going to take me to shoot? I can roughly estimate based on how many items or what type of shoot how many hours I'm going to spend on that shoot, and also how many hours I'm going to spend in post production on that shoot. I can then add what I would like as an hourly rate to the costs that I will incur on the shoot (studio time, disposable items, food, gas, tolls, wear and tear on my camera and other gear, etc...)

• Does the client have the budget to actually hire me? If the client has a low budget, they may not actually be able to cover the costs of a shoot and provide a reasonable wage for your creative effort. It isn't fair to them or to yourself to bid lower because they don't have the budget, realistically some clients just won't have enough to hire you, and knowing the actual cost of a shoot is always beneficial for those clients.

When you begin to look at pricing your photography services in this manner there are books out there that can help you identify and track all of your costs and come up with reasonable rates that will both keep you working, and keep your clients happy. I highly recommend "Pricing Photography" by Michal Heron and David MacTavish.

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What Should I Charge?