Pricing & Costing

To have a successful and manageable photography business, it is key to have a solid understanding of numbers and the cost of business: desired salary, total annual costs, non reimbursable expenses ect. It is important to have realistic goals for a profitable career, rather than having really high prices it would be more sensible to start and go on with practical fee's and have a consistent work flow to the quality you know you could achieve. To handle your expenses it is important to keep track and a record of every shoot is taken and any other professional and personal expenditure. Fee's are charged at a daily rate, that is usually on a normal day 7am-9pm. It depends on the experience, knowledge and type of shoot the photographer is doing, such as an editorial or advertising shoot could mean a larger fee calculated on what the images will be used for. In the Photographic Industry, we all want to be able to price and fee our photography as high as we can, but being realistic will mean a more sustainable future.

Knowing information about your client before a shoot and how to fee them is a must. For example if you are shooting food and is for a local restaurant, you are not going to charge them as much as you for a major food chain such as pizza hut. But feeing them appropriately to your own daily rate to what it should be, needs to be applied. Production costs should also be applied, different shoots may require different equipment and specific requirements that will show up on your expenses. The investment on the shoot should be evaluated for what will be used. Even small things such as catering food and drink for models, make-up artists and hair stylists need to be included to keep on track of all costs used.

Clients will always want to know prices and costing straight away. They will also want to know why does it cost so much or why it doesn't look to be costing enough. By knowing all your expenses by keeping organised, so that you can explain and even show the client through spreadsheets so that it is easier for them to understand why. Sometimes a price is best decided on by negotiating a price with the client to see what is most suitable. Pricing can often result is a client going against the photographer and cancelling the shoot. However as the photographer it is also critical to know when to turn down a shoot also. For every cost of every shoot there is a minimum for what can be charged, which means that is the price for what is needed to cover any costs and salary.

How do photographers make money:

• Selling price higher than costs = profit margins.
• Value = quality, reputation, experience, location, competition, price.
• Is the price profitable?

Cost:

• Overheads = General to business
• Direct costs = Specific to a piece of work e.g film, editing, prints

Break even:

• Costs, value, income are equal. 
• All can be used as salary.