[Summerleft]

I notice this question more than any on the TOG forums from people starting out or just doing it for a bit of pocket money.

There are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to pricing but there are several important rules;


1. Know your market, smaller publications will not pay the same rate as the larger ones so something to keep in mind.


2. Have the NUJ fees guide in your menu favorites NUJ Freelance Fees Guide its quite helpful for an idea of what you could get.


3. When starting out always be prepared to take a different offer i.e. a free advert. These jobs will only ever be starter jobs but useful for your portfolio.



4. Don’t cave in when a friend flutters their eyelashes and wants a job for £20 or worst still free, this is fine if you never want to make money from your skill but if you do it’s a local kiss of death, you need to show that you are serious about your ability. Friends talk and if they got it for free its ‘mates rates’ all the way.

Its really funny how once I did a couple of portrait shoots to gain experience (and only a few turned up) how the rest were then only too pleased to offer their time for free pictures of the whole extended family plus a wedding!



Now to actual pricing, the worst thing you can do is quote a price without finding out your actual costs.

It’s easy to think £500 will cover a wedding but break it down and you’ll soon see how tight that budget is.

Include everything, petrol, materials, prints and time, many people forget to charge for this, imagine if you worked for Tesco’s and they didn’t pay you per hour but by the amount of breadsticks you sold.

So for instance your doing a wedding ~ costs will look something like this;

Petrol

Time spent photographing 4-8 hours normally, thinking in per hour terms is easiest

Post processing, (this bit a lot of people forget it usually 2-3 days depending on amount of shots)

Wedding albums; now with the digital albums you’re looking at prices starting from £400 for something decent.

CD of images; cost of CD, will it be packaged nicely, will you have a slideshow or just copy the images to disc.

Single prints or framed prints

The list could go on but as the prices mount up you can then see how much you will actually make from a wedding package at say £900 let alone £500.



Think about where you live, is it an affluent area, where you can get away with charging London prices or is it some where that you need to be more down to earth with your pricing.

Also think about you, are you worth the amount you’re asking.

There’s never a clear cut answer to the question of how much to charge, but the more work you do the more you will come to know your cliental and most importantly yourself. Looking at what others charge is helpful but looking realistically at how much it will cost you will last longer.


Well I hope some of you find this helpful

[fionaB]

i think the biggest question is one u highlighted at the end........... there is no way you would get someone in the town i live paying what would be charged in London.

Ok you may get one or two but thats literally one or two! you have to charge what you know will get you the job! within reason of course. pricing yourself out the market which is local to you doesnt do you any good,

Fi

[silkstone]

I think it depends more on time and ancillary costs than the number of photos. In other words, a set figure per photo may not be the best way. With wedding photography there's the time needed to discuss the clients' requirements before and after the event, plus the (high) cost of albums, mounting and so on, and you may well need an assistant who wants paying.

On the other hand, if you're commissioned to photograph some event/exhibition or whatever, you can reel off a few hundred photos in a couple of hours. There's the processing time on top, but if the client is happy just to receive a CD of JPEGs you wouldn't expect the cost per photo to be anything like as high.

I reckon that if you can make around £200-£300 per day that's not bad, especially outside the south-east.

[AQ]

The other question is fully understand why are you doing it. To make a living out of it or just some pocket money in your spare time ? The answer to that has a huge impact on what you do and charge and you must not get the two confused.

I used to do a bit of jewelry making as a hoby. I made a few bits to sell to people i knew - It was better than watching TV but I also had a full time job. I enjoyed what I did and made a small amount of money as well which I used to buy more equipment and materials for myself. There was no way could I have ever charged enough to make a living but I did not want to.

[Rob Barron]

Some good advice there Summer and I totally agree with the 'No Freebies' idea. It is simply too hard to get friends to start paying when 'You did Suzie for £20 and you and me have been close for way longer!' The simple fact is, you go to your mate who works in a restaurant and he'll give you a discount, maybe as much as 25%. Fine, give your CLOSE mates a 25% discount but NO mates of mates! And make sure that you are still making a sensible profit in the deal. If you give a freebie, YOU ARE MAKING A LOSS! You must be unless you value your time at £0.00p per hour and you get all your printing paper, inks and so forth all for free!

I do not expect my mates to do their trade for me for nothing. I therefore do not expect my mates to abuse our friendship by trying to take me for a sucker! My friends wouldn't dream of asking for a discount which is exactly why I DO give them a discount. It's a fair 20% and they are always grateful, not disgruntled because they expected more!

Cheers,
Rob

[Summerleft]

Thanks Rob, I think its like any job that can also be a hobby, such as computers people tend to forget that your trying to make a living from it.