pricing

Priceless

No Comments

There’s a joke that asks: “If price and worth mean the same thing, why do priceless and worthless mean the exact opposite?”

Price is set by the seller and worth, or value, is set by the buyer. Price is usually influenced by various market conditions and worth can be affected by marketing. The two are connected.

Ideally, a client wants high-value photography for free. On the other hand, a photographer wants their images to sell for a very high price. Does this mean that a photographer and their client are opposites?
Continue reading →

Paid Placements

1 Comment

When photography is licensed for editorial use, public relations or certain other uses, there will often be a licensing clause that states that the picture(s) may not be used for “paid placements”. A few folks have asked what this means.

“Paid placement” is simply any use that requires the company to pay a fee to have the photo(s) published. Paid placement includes, but is not limited to, advertising.

One could argue that all business communication is a form of advertising but here are three general types of photography usage:
Continue reading →

Photo license is common sense

No Comments

Got a phone call from a business, here in Toronto, looking to hire a photographer. The caller said that they’ve never hired a photographer before and admitted they weren’t sure “how it works.”

The company wanted executive portraits for its web site. Business portraits are the most common request that a corporate photographer gets. There are many uses for such pictures and smart businesses like to update their photos every couple of years or so.

I suggested the best way to do the photography, how the pictures could be delivered and then gave an approximate cost for the required usage. That last bit, about the price depending on the usage, caught the caller by surprise.

Aha! Licensing.

 

Here’s the deal about licensing:

Continue reading →

Many Returns

No Comments

Over the past two months, I’ve had the experience of trying to sell some used photo equipment online.

Most professional photographers try to keep up with technology by upgrading whenever a new tool comes out. Many photo businesses have to stay current to remain competitive.
Continue reading →

Beginner’s Guide To Pricing Photography

7 Comments

This very long and meandering post is intended for new photographers. It outlines some general concepts behind setting a price on photography services.

 

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

– Woody Allen

 

First rule: Never give a price over the phone or off the top of your head.

Second rule: You’re running a business. You’re supposed to make money by charging more than your costs.

Third rule: Like all businesses, you tell your customers what your services cost, not the other way around.

Fourth rule: Never base your prices on Cost + Profit Margin. Always base your prices on value to the customer. Charge for what you know, not for what you do.
Continue reading →

A leg to stand on

No Comments

I just finished post-processing 1,017 images. Many of those, but not all, will be used for marketing and public relations both in print and online. At this time, the client isn’t able to do any post-processing except to crop and resize the pictures.

Since the client doesn’t know which images will be used in the coming year, all these photos had to be processed now. About 2,300 images were originally shot and those were edited down to 1,017. Yes, I probably should’ve edited it down a lot more but I wanted the client to have a broad selection to cover all future possibilities.
Continue reading →

Adding Value

No Comments

The phrases “added value” and “extra value” are tossed around by many businesses these days. Some companies use these terms not because they know what they mean but because they’re nice-sounding catchphrases that might lure in customers.

Value is determined by the customer and not by what a business might say. If a customer needs 24-hour service, then free parking is not an added value. If a customer wants a salad, then an “extra value” meal with large french fries has no extra value.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

– Warren Buffet

Adding value means a business goes beyond customer expectations. This is a relative scale because different customers have different expectations and needs.
Continue reading →

css.php