Pricing Your Photography: Strategies That Work

For my first five years I priced my work by looking at what other photographers charged and taking a little off. It kept me busy and it kept me broke. Here is what I changed, and what I would tell anyone starting out.

Start from what a shoot actually costs you

Before you set a price, add up the real hours. A two-hour portrait session is rarely two hours. There is the call beforehand, planning, travel, the shoot itself, culling, editing, delivery and the emails in between. For me that comes to around twelve hours for a single session. Divide your price by that number, not by two.

Charge for usage, not just time

Commercial work is priced on how the images will be used: where, for how long and in which territories. A picture for a company's internal newsletter and the same picture on a billboard in three countries are different products. Separating the day rate from the licence was the single biggest change in my income.

You are not selling hours. You are selling the decisions you make in those hours, and the years it took to make them quickly.

Publish a starting price

I list starting prices for every service on this site. It saves time on both sides, filters out conversations that were never going to work, and makes the clients who do get in touch more relaxed, because the money question is already answered.

The three mistakes that cost me the most

• Discounting to win a job, which teaches the client what your work is really worth to you.
• Including unlimited revisions, which turns a finished project into an open one.
• Not asking for a deposit. I now take thirty percent to hold a date, and nobody has ever questioned it.

Raise prices for new clients first

When I raise prices I apply them to new enquiries straight away and to returning clients after six months, with notice. Nobody has ever left over it, and the clients who stay understand that the work has changed too.