Last year I charged $20 hour for on site photography services then started watching this channel, the futur, & pix imperfect and now I charge a 1.5k day and am making a good living doing what I love. Thank you Karl.
(Pro photographer for over 50 years) So good to see someone offering real world advice so comprehensively covered. Don't fall into the trap of thinking, "I'm just a beginner, this doesn't apply to me".
Thanks Rob, let me know what you think of this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T_17IIVoZ5c.html - I just took a look at your stuff, some fantastic photojournalism Rob.
Absolute gold advice. I suspect that the best practice option for any aspiring photographers is to adopt the advice herein from the start and work slowly up from there, charging as a 'hobbyist' until skill level, client base, professionalism and interest grow and then adjust accordingly (and annually). Slow and steady over years - Not a welcome suggestion to the more 'insta-grat' attitude that appears to be in vogue at present.
No. When you charge too little it drags down the whole market. Plus you establish yourself in your market as being priced at a certain rate. When you feel like you need more it will be quite difficult to raise your prices to what they SHOULD have been.
Im 17 with a lifetime passion , and I am very glad that I seen this video , I may not be at this point yet but its good to know how I should move as I begin working on a bigger scale
Wow! 😮This video is amazing! I just don't understand the difference between "profit" and "earnings"... 😓 Earnings should be what I want to earn, like my "personal wage", isn't it? And "profit"... 🥶 Can anyone help me? 🙏
After getting stiffed a few times, in my construction business, I setup a routine for getting paid. First I would talk to the Project Manager and ask “where is my money.” Then if I had proceed to number two, I would have my lawyer contact the principal, whom ever that may be, and write, where is my client's money. If this doesn’t work, number three is to file a lien, this would always get my money. And of course, the last resort is to file a small claims lawsuit. But remember, there is always a risk of getting beat out of money. That’s why you markup everything, to cover yourself.
Deliver nothing usable until after you are paid in full. If they want to see what you have done, create a layer in Photoshop, add text such as "Unpaid Image" and a copyright then send them a highly compressed JPG. If they try to blow up the JPG, it will look awful and also the text will be almost impossible to remove. Set the DPI to 0 because the image will look OK but they won't be able to print it since DPI only applies to printers.
@@AtlantaTerry off topic question here. Lets say I have a 24mp photo and it equals to X number of inches/cm is it ok to print it bigger? Is it a normal practice or is it better to stick to not enlarging it?
I separate my photography brands, I have a site for my commercial work, interior work and my weddings. So it’s much easier to create separate pricing and lowers the choice fatigue that comes with using single website for multiple fields of work. And marketing is much better more effective, because it’s easier to target to the right people
AMEN! the local newspaper has one staff photographer and IVE EVEN WORKED for them (albeit a long time ago) but they wont hire me even to do stringer work iphones are good enough for web-based newspapers and the small amount of print customers. all part of Gannett
Great video Karl. Very well explained. Everybody has to put in the work to know their numbers. It also gives you much more confidence when a client wants to negotiate. And boy don't they always want to.
Thanks for those informations and for sharing your knowledge this way here on RU-vid. What about reserves for replacement purchases, health insurance, disability insurance in case of loss of earnings due to illness, old-age pension all for yourself and social and accident insurances for own employees? In addition there`s a difference between living alone or having a family to support.
ive practically given stuff away (always trying to get SOMETHING) but so many people (at least in my area) are much more content shooting with their phone or still wanting everything on the cheap. was approached by an acquaintance who's a high-up in one of the bigger hotel chains. she wanted 7 'headshots' for new promoted people for use in internal emails and the like. i quoted half-day rate of $300. never heard back from her. she either went with someone who was willing to do it for free or basically free or they did them with her phone
Thanks for the excellent presentation. I was a photographer for like 6 years and stopped, and I want to come back since the passion is still in me. Do I need to study photography formally to enter the commercial world?
Hey I love your channel! Very helpful! How would you price family portraits? I’m an a mature photographer. I was thinking of charging $75.00 for an hour shoot and 25 edited images. I will raise my prices once I get some fluents. Or is this a bad idea?
This is an amazing video. So much information, there is so much to learn about photography not just the technical skills, your camera and post production but the business aspect also. Every part is a challange.
Nice video! You might have a good plan but its not real world. Photography is feast or feminine, My advise is keep your over head the lowest you can get it. If you just don't get the work your done! “Charge what the market will bear” Good luck guys!
I promised myself I would never give up on this, but I am about to pack up my gear and sell all of it. It would help greatly to have a mentor to help me..
"Portrait photographers may work for as little as afew hundred dollars for a family or group shot shoot. And they may try to shoot 2 or 3 of these per day and make a decent living." In my country, 300 dollars is very close to the monthly minimun wage. If I worked twice a month charging that I would have a good livelyhood. I charge the equivalent of 11 dollars and people still think its expensive. I really don´t understand economy. How come in one place of the world you have to strugle to charge 11 dollars and in the other earning hundreds of dollars per day can give you a "decent living"
There is definitely a big disparity in incomes between some countries in the west and the developing world. It is also not fairly balanced but please also note that the costs in the west are also equally ludicrous and expensive. For example if you take into account my staff costs, rent, overheads, advertising etc you wouldn't believe the figure. I'm not saying that what your saying isn't relevant it's just that it's not as simple as you are making it.
I hope this question is not sidetracking too much from the topic of pricing serious professional photography. As an amateur photographer, where can I find the best market for those images that I have originally taken just for fun, but which have been occasionally published even by very prominent media (like The Guardian, Vogue, and BBC)? Those have been sold via a commercial stock photo collection in the Internet, but the commission that I receive from them is just ridiculous (from a couple of dollars to some $ 50 per published photo). Would there be a better channel of offering my work for sale? Are there channels to contact media to offer my images without middlemen who take the lion's share?
Hi Hannu, not much i'm afraid, some photographers make a name for themselves and sell their own stock images but thats very difficult. Unfortunately the big stock libraries are strangling photographers.
Excellent advice Karl, but if I could reiterate one thing. It is this, one must keep up with the cost of everything. This is much harder than it sounds. There is an ode from Robert Frost, “Nobody was ever meant to remember or invent what he did with every cent.” So, watch your pennies, the dollars’ will take care of themselves. And do not forget to markup everything.
when you do or are given a product photography to do, what processes do you need to go through to price that up. for example do you charge for 'brain storming' an idea before you give your ideas to the art director/ customer? from there on i guess its pretty straight forward costing, time, and special purchases or build to use for the shot, comp,lighting post etc? not sure if you have done a specific product pricing vid. Laura
First let me say, I do agree with you 100% - What I think is left out, is the dynamic between the rates they come up with based on these criteria, vs what are they actually worth. Example: lets assume one of the viewers has the same $200/hr rate and I have it as well. Why should they make more money than me to do a ecom shoot where they take 8 hours to do it, and in my studio which has 4 separate studio sections permanently setup with lights etc, and I can knock out 20 outfits for ecom in 1 hr with 3 model with no setup time. I think educating people to know they are not worth as much as they think they are. I see so many people gorilla shooting, no permit, no insurance. You and I shoot medium format and have higher quality deliverables than most watching your videos. It is just my opinion that some education on what they are worth not what they need to make. - just my opinion, not disagreeing with you at all, just wanted to add.
Absolutely which is why I work to a day rate (with or without usage rates) or a per job rate and following the brief my client knows what they're going to get from a day based on the brief.
I'd say that (especially at your level) billing by the hour is foolish. Time-based pricing just makes us a commodity, and while a day-rate can bridge that gap, you should be pricing by project. That allows you to completely customise it for the client, and will likely save you both money and time.
As a simple explanation, advertising photography is published images that form part of an advertising campaign in print, store windows, magazines etc of any type of product but often more recognisable brands. Commercial photography is more general in that it could be tourism, food photography, images for catalogues, brochures and general media. Often there is a cross over between the two but usually the amount of exposure is greater in advertising photography and often the fees charged are greater.
So I'll never make a career out of photography. Theres no way on gods green earth you're making that, and I live in a city with 1m+ people unless youre sitting on a financial goldmine to get that business started.
I'm not sure what you mean by this comment, I know many photographers who work on huge annual turnovers and very good profits. Some shoots for big brands can work out between 50K - 150K with usage fees for a few days work. Of course this is not all profit but that is the sort of money if you're working on a project for a national or international advertising campaign for a big brand.
@@VisualEducationStudio maybe it’s just my nerves of just starting out. Those look like daunting numbers to attain. Especially in the Bay Area where people balk as soon as I give them my paltry rates of $80 an hour for portraits and such. I’m just wondering how you even START with getting that number.
Hi Adrian, in portraiture yes it might be more difficult as that market has shrunk but there it's still possible to carve an opportunity for yourself. If portrait and social photography is the market you want to tackle then take a look at some of the competitors in that market in a 50 mile radius and figure out how much they charge, how busy are they, do they run a studio, what sort of business do they run. If you find the best competition out there then it can give you a good idea of what can be achieved or not. Some of the budgets I'm referring to above were for advertising photographers which are usually in a higher pay scale, there are many different 'niches' or genres of photography and they all have different revenue scales based on the level of experience/knowledge/risk/equipment required. Take a look at some of my business related videos on this channel and on my website.
@@VisualEducationStudio Thanks for the tips! Most of the photographers in my city at least suck from my point of view (being a design student, we learn what is good and what is bad in terms of composition). The ones in San Francisco are much better, but also charge far more ($200+). I'm not as experienced as many photographers in this area, but objectively speaking (when doing comparisons between my photos and others), my images are typically picked out as being better of the two. Not to sound arrogant, I whole heartedly believe I suck and need to massively improve. I have a small studio in my garage which barely has the width of a car, 3 low end strobes, and a 107" seamless roll of paper, with brown walls. I rent, so I can't paint them :( so that kind of hurts the "professional image" a little bit. I'm literally trying to make the best with what I have, and have created some...In my opinion, bang on shots, using a APS-C mirrorless camera and a 50mm lens! But it's just...difficult. Maybe because I'm starting my business venture right smack dab in the middle of a pandemic?
Yes this pandemic doesn't help but if you don't think the other photographers do a good job then find out what they're charging, then find the photographers who you think are doing a really good job (there must be one at least!) and then find out what they're charging. If you don't think what the top one is charging is a good income then just forget about the whole thing and find something else to do. If you want to do photography as business then it is a business, end of story. Just because we own a camera and some lights gives us no rights to run a business, in the same way that someone who enjoys making pizzas has any more right to run a pizza business. No one cares if you enjoy it or are good at it, business is business. If you find you don't like the idea of running it as a business or you don't enjoy the business aspects, then do something else and just enjoy it as a hobby. Watch this video please - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T_17IIVoZ5c.html
Karl, thanks again for another informative video. You always come across as a true professional and I’m always looking forward for the next one. How do figure in education costs and equipment costs? I feel like paying off those costs should be included in the costs of doing business but spread over a period of 3-5 years. What are your thoughts?
He did mention equipment costs as part of the business costs. Those are also tax deductable over a certain period (usually around 3 years, 5 at max). In my opinion, the equipment should be paid of entirely after 2 years the latest. You'll most likely be replacing one of your bodies after 2-3 years, some new flashes or whatsoever. So take all the equipment you'll need, add in a bit of safety margin for new purchases, divide it by 2 or 3 and add that figure to your business costs. That will be a significant chunk of money, especially when adding up costs for your IT (file server, backup system, workstation) and then the camera equipment on top.
