The important missing link when you price your photography
Pricing is tough and one of the most frequently asked questions by new photographers. If you Google it you get so many results and so many conflicting opinions. But I’ll say one thing is certain - it goes beyond calculating a price tag based on your desired income and your typical outgoing expenses. Let me explain.
While our price lists are very rational and objective and based on our individual financial situations and goals, it's really critical that before you crunch all the numbers you know what you're looking to sell as a vision for clients, and what you want to build as a creative career for you. This is why our business model and brand are so important alongside our cost of doing business.
Your creative career as a photographer
Often when we start out, we look at what other photographers are selling and do the same thing. It’s pretty typical to either give one price for a session plus images, or to split a session fee and sell packages with a specific number of images. On the surface that’s fine, but have you considered the following:
How do you imagine serving people? Fast food counter, Michelin Star chef experience, something in between? The fast food counter could be the shoot and burn model, or mini sessions. The Michelin Star chef experience could be akin to in-person sales on a projector.
How much backend time do you want to spend on preparing client’s packages? Do you want to wrap up quickly and have clients be able to have freedom to download from a gallery, or do you wish to consult, sell and deliver wall art for their homes? Albums?
Do you want to build a brand presence and be known for a signature style, for a go-to studio, or as a leader in your community who gives back? All of them? Something else?
A vision for your clients
How do you want them to feel when they view their images? Do you send a link via text to a gallery and an order form, or do you prime the experience with them somehow, like a slideshow set to music or a soft-proof from an album software so they can envision a product?
How do you want them to perceive and react to the overall experience with you? Are you about volume, new clients, or are you wanting them to book you for the engagement, wedding, first child, second child, all their bridesmaids? Are you looking for short-term, long term relationships? For things like headshots, the long-term relationship may matter less because people may not update these photographs as frequently, versus photographing a wedding because you know they will have other milestones that they may call you for or friend referrals.
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Why do these decisions matter for pricing?
All these factors can influence price because they may have costs associated: marketing materials for your specific goals which can differ in frequency, depth and breadth. Gallery, Slideshow, Album design software. Physical products and time for preparation and delivery. Studio lease. Your time for back-end processing. They also have income implications - if you want to be an educator because you have a talent in a specific area - that’s another income stream. Powerful brand? That can command higher prices.
The point is that to know how to set prices, you need to understand how you want to do business in the first place because it informs and supports the process of actually crunching the numbers and fills in gaps that we otherwise kind of guess at. Marketing? Hmm, I don’t think I need more than $50 because I’ll just run some FB ads once in a while and otherwise post in a bunch of mom groups - that’s what most seem to do. But for example if you’ve done your legwork and you’ve decided you want to be someone’s forever photographer, you’ll require many more touchpoints that add cost - client gifts, more frequent ads to your target audience, beautiful brochures, perks like client closets, investments in album samples etc.
Before you sit down with a spreadsheet, sit down with your imagination to see what your dream business will be like. Map it out even on a sheet of paper: how you want your days to go, how you want clients to feel when your business has concluded and how they move on after with referrals and testimonials. Don’t be shortsighted and just poke around at other people’s price lists and don’t take the CODB calculator just at face value and put something together willy-nilly that reflects hours and files. A discovery process before running numbers will help you determine what you want to sell, to whom, in what volume and with what deliverables and it will help guide you not only to proper pricing, but also a business that you’ll love running!
If you’re looking for added support in this area, do a “Present Vision Board” exercise. It’s a process of self-discovery that will inform your business model, branding and give you some marketing clarity, available on my products page. It’s a powerful process that taps into your subconscious and can really surprise you! Read about my own personal results here.
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