 Misty C. Williams |
Pricing, competition, ethics I have been trying to work out a reasonable price plan for wedding work. My portrait pricing, and sports-team pricing seems to be either right along the same line or a bit lower than the “usual guy;” He’s the big dog in this corner of the world. I have contacted he and his staff several times via email, asking if they could give me an idea what the going rates were for weddings. I explained I do not consider myself a professional, but an experienced amateur, and that I would consider my target market people who simply can’t afford to shell out $1,000 or 2,000 for photographs—sort of a budget deal. Well, three requests later, I haven’t got a response. In this case, would it be unethical to make up a name, and request info sent as though I were a bride, and to work my pricing from the information I get from that? I don’t want to “steal” his business, but I do want to work some myself. I expect that starting a new business is going to take a few years, as I gain more experience, etc. I was thinking of offering a package for a full day wedding of $650.00, and including an engagement or couple photo, 50 proofs in a small album, and a few 5X7’s and 8X10’s. The word I am getting right now is that his package that is along those lines is in the neighborhood of $2,000. I don’t want to so completely under-price my work that I am not taken seriously, and I don’t want to price so low, that it would seem I was trying to engage in a price war, or worse, that I don’t think my work has value or isn’t good enough. I also don’t want to price so high that I can’t get any bookings. I guess this is an ethics dilemma, and I could sure use some input from folks that have been at this for a while. Thanks for any input.
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Kerry L. Walker |
Yes, I would consider that unethical. If I was you I would just price my work at what I thought was reasonable and at whick I could make a profit. Depending on what area of the country you are in (different prices in different areas) I think the price you are considering is reasonable. In fact, you might want to include a lot more proofs than that but not include the 5x7s or 8x10s. They can always order those later. After all, they will want to decide which photos to enlarge and they need to see all the proofs to make that decision. My lab offers digital proofs at .39 each so the cost of 200 proofs wouldn't be too bad. Don't worry about trying to match the big dog right now. As you get experience, raise your prices. I wouldn't do what happened to me a few days ago. A bride had contacted me through my website about shooting her wedding and I called and talked to her mom and gave her a lot of info. I hadn't heard from her so I called again a couple of days ago and talked to the bride. She said she was talking to someone who would provide 300 pictures for $250.00! I suggested she sign him up before he came to his senses but she said she hadn't seen his work yet. Doesn't matter to me now because I booked that date the next day for fewer pictures and a lot more money. Believe me, there are plenty of folks out there just looking for a cheap price.
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Misty C. Williams |
Thanks for your input. I had begun to think I was being a bit cowardly for even considering the idea. But I suppose it's either to my credit or an example of how niave I am that I thought the Pro-photographer would answer my requests. Still, maybe he's just so busy, he doesn't have time. I can like that idea...if he's that busy, maybe I can catch some of his run-off! Thank you for the encouragement about my pricing. I'm glad to hear from someone that starting low and working your up is acceptable and well within the norm. I am stunned that people in my very small, back country area will pay out $2000.00 for photographs. It really blows my mind. Must have something to do with the University... In any case. Thanks again for your response and encouragement. Hopefully when folks get my work, and my cheap price, they'll be pleased enough to give me a litle "word of mouth," too.
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Denyse Clark |
Even though you're not trying to compete with him, depending on personality, some people get their back up for no reason. I'm glad you rejected the "fake bride" idea- I had someone do that to me last week and it was very discouraging. I'm new to this, so I got my hopes up, and the more I thought about the weird questions she asked (tell me about the type of equipment you use), and total lack of wedding info she gave me, I figured out what she was doing and then I felt foolish. I'm trying to make my way with a low price as well. There are plenty of people who have small-budget weddings, and we have to learn somewhere! We have a good service to offer the ones who don't have $1500-$3000 on pics. I think you're right- once you can get your foot in the door somewhere and prove yourself, word will spread quickly!!
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x |
Ah, the fallacy that word will spread because you are cheap and do wonderous work. As soon as you start raising your pricing, you loose your referral base that you worked to build. It's a waste of time from that perspective, although from an experiential point of view, it's good. Just realize that once you get your experience, your portfolio, and start raising your prices, that referral base will disappear, and you will have to work all over again to get a new referral base. My wife is starting to do portraits. We are getting our website together for that. It's more her thing than mine, I'm happy with weddings. People know what we charge for a family or children's session. But, we wanted more stuff for our portfolio. We called a few friends and offered it for free in exchange for the use of the images for advertising and portfolio building. EVERYONE is taking our offer for free. Just remember that. It's actually a little insulting.
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Misty C. Williams |
Now that I can relate to! I needed to flush out my portfolio—still do frankly (all my files were digital, on CD back ups, and the ONE box the moving company destroyed, of course was the box with my CDs in it!!) So I put out some feelers to families with young children to do free pictures for Christmas. I went to the house, set up the studio, and gave them a disc and a copyright release. (For my ego, one of them had to call me from Wal*mart where they were getting their prints done, because the woman there refused to accept that the copyright release was legitimate.) Lots of people want professional or professional looking pictures, but everyone assumes that the cost would be astronomical. I did get asked how much I would charge normally, (a family sitting of 25 shots, with 4-4X5’s in folders and an 8X10, plus a free 8X10 if I can use the pictures for advertising, for $35.00) and no one seemed to think that what I was asking was too much, but then I haven’t had people jamming my answering machine looking for photographs, either. Folks’ll always take something for free, and you’re right: it is a little disheartening. Can sort of make one feel undervalued; but chin up, once you get that base established, there won’t be any stopping you! (That’s what I keep telling myself too!)
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x |
Oh, it's no big deal. I was just sharing that when people will do it for free, but wont pay your real price, it's insulting because they do not value what you do. For what you described, I would charge about $250 not including any photos. I proof on-line only. For $50 they can buy a proof CD. Or pay my enlargement prices for prints. So, I'm considerably higher than you are, but I'm in a big market that commands high prices. I am very busy. the weddings really keep me going and the portraits are more of my wife's project. To be honest, I was thinking of dropping the portrait business because it's not me. I shoot reportage style, and portraits don't lend themselves to that. I hate posing and lighting and all that. It's just not my thing. I've tried selling life-style portraits, but people don't get it. They keep wanting to smile at the camera. My plan now is to hike up my price, to $500 per sitting. Spend more time. And really get into life-style portratis. Really sell the idea, but only a handful per year. Then, let my wife do the "say cheese" pictures and sell those around $125 per sitting. I have seen the prices you are charging, and to be honest, it really freaks me out (LOL). I don't even see where you make any money. But, that's your gig. As far as weddings go, I did want to say that in some areas of the country, $2k is a mid-level price. But, no where that I am aware of is $2k high-end or over priced or ridiculous. Once you start trying to make a living at it, you'll see why that price point is OK. For now, though, it wont matter to you.
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Misty C. Williams |
LOL--I make very little money; right now I just make experience, and I will use that to be building the money end of my business later. As far as my pricing goes, I am also trying to compete with the new Wal*mart photo studio that just opened here. So many pictures, so cheap!! It’s hard to get people to look past their quantity to my quality. That is one reason I really push my “mobile studio” and am trying to break into the wedding business. Another thing about the pricing: I received my first training with a pro while I was in my teens, and my folks were wedding and portrait photographers. My ideas about the costs of things are stuck, thoroughly stuck, in the 80’s. Maybe that is why I charge so VERY low. Thanks for all your input!
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Kerry L. Walker |
When I said to raise your prices, I meant that you should do it incrementally, not double them all at once. Raising your prices slowly will slowly get you into a higher priced clientele. No, you won't get many referrals from the client base of three years ago but you will get referrals from last year and if your price is 15-20% higher than last year, they won't pass you up. Another thing I would recommend is to have a range of prices, starting from low to high. Most people won't choose the lowest package. They will choose the one in the middle. Most of my brides start out with a low-middle to middle priced package (which only includes the proofs) but by the time they finish they are usually ordering albums, parent albums, etc., and the price usually doubles.
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Collette Photography |
I was/am in the same boat as you, I have been doing portraite photography for a few years now, and I am now branching into Weddings. I tried to set my prices as resonable but not so low that people wondered what was wrong with my work that I charged so little. I have my prices set as the lowest being $799 and thats just for the ceremony and posed shots, with the proofs displayed online, then I have a middle package, and then my highest is $1499 and that is for everything, bride getting ready, ceremony, posed shots, reception unlimited, wedding album, and the proofs displayed online as well as a proof album. I have had like twenty or so brides contact me asking for my pricing and packaging but once I send it to them I never hear from them again. So are my prices to high, are they to low? Why dont they want to hire me? Anyway, I am enjoying reading all of the post for more ideas! =) -Collette-
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Kerry L. Walker |
Pricing depends on where you are and the local cost of living. In my area, you would be considered expensive, especially on your low package. This is taking into consideration your age (very young), limited experience and the fact that your smallest package includes no actual prints. (Understand that this has nothing to do with the quality of your work as it is excellent. We are strictly talking about perceived value from the perspective of the client.) Your highest package, with what it includes, seems quite reasonable to me. For $799.00, you should offer longer coverage and proofs. Customers need something in hand for perceived value. You need work to get established and working for less profit is better than staying at home. Once you get established, then raise your prices, incrementally, to where you are priced nearer the more established competition. (If you live in a large city where established pros are charging thousands of dollars for what you are offering, ignore this post.)
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Collette Photography |
Thanks Kerry, You are probley right about my smallest package I may try and change that. I based my pricing on the pricing that everyone else around my area is charging, I wanted to be less than all of them. But I think I may still be to high. I am a few minutes outside of Des Moines Iowa, so no its not a huge city! Thanks again,
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Bryan J. Sorenson |
What to charge is the crucial question in every buisiness. As a serious hobbiest I do a few family portriats, senior (yearbook) sessions, some sports, a few weddings and now the kids at school want me to do pictures at a dance. I don't charge enough to make a good living at this even if I was working full time at it. I earn enough to get some lenses and other equppment. In my real buisiness I know exacltly what I must charge. I know exactly how much it costs me to stay in buisness for a year. I know how many hours I want to work in that year. I know how many of those hours I can expect to actually bill customers for. And I know what I want my Net Profit before taxes to be. I base my fees on these real figures. I am in the highest charging 5% of people in my field. I have more work than I can handle, and new customers call every day just from word of mouth referalls. When I started my own business I had develeped a great marketing plan, but have been to busy working to implement it. Thats all fine and good, you say, cause you think I've got some magic product or it only works in my area. I have a total population of about 100,000 people within a 120 mile radius. There are over 40 competitors in the yellow pages (I just have a line) to succeed in any business you have to I would also study buisness more than you do photography. Read every day, it really does keep you focused and set realistic, concrete, measurable goals. Now that I've rambled on and on and bored everyone to tears, I do hope I've been of some encouragement. I get excited when I see anyone follow thier dream. Bryan
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x |
If you want to make a living at photography, or even if you don't this applies. It's simple. All you do is figure out how much profit you need to live. Let's say that you need $70,000 to maintain your current lifestyle (or live the one you've always wanted). You take $70k divided by the number of weddings you plan on doing. Let's say you plan on 40 weddings. So, $70k/40=$1,750. $1,750 is the profit you need to make from each wedding. Now, take all of your costs...album, prints, etc, and add those to the $1,750 amount. Let's say that brings you to around $2,300. Now, for the big trick. You have to have an annual budget for this next part. But, take all of your annual costs, i.e., insurance, rent, advertising, equipment budget, computer budget, software budget, gadget and widget budget, phone, cell phone, dues, fees, professional memberships, professional conferences, other education, subscriptions, health insurance, PPA membership, and EVERYTHING ELSE under the sun that you need to run your biz budget. Now take all these costs and allocate them over the 40 weddings. So, say you come up with a cost of around $40k. I'm just pulling numbers out of the air here, for some that's alot, for others, that's nothing. So, $40,000/40=$1,000. So, now add $1,000 to the $2,300 and your per wedding price should be $3,300. This is your starting price because this is the absolute minimum you need per wedding. You can obviously charge more than that, but that's you're starting point. This is one brilliant way to at least get a handle on where you need to be. It doesn't mean everyone has to run out and start charging $5k per wedding. It just means that after you do this analysis, if you do it correctly, most people probably underprice themselves. At least, that's an inkling I have. There are many layers of beauty on using this approach. One of them is that the market doesn't really matter to you. You get to forget about it and concentrate on what YOU are doing. Not on what EVERYONE else is doing. There is a great book about this very concept called, "Good to Great" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0066620...s&v=glance. Jim Collins talks alot about how successful companies really don't pay much attentioin to competition. They just concentrate on doing what they do, best. And, keep improving on that without regard for the competition. It gives you an advantage doing it that way. If you come up with a minimum of $2,500 to live comfortably. And that's under the market for your area. You can certainly make your prices higher than that, but you also can keep them at that level and live a nice life. I hope someone finds this useful. Cheers,
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