Wedding Photos HighRes CD - is there a "standard" way to charge?

[Eoseni]

Hi. I do not ordinarily offer a high res CD of photos to my couples with unlimited printing rights. However, a client has made it clear she wants one, and is willing to pay for it - and I need the job.

I know some wedding photographer include it in their packages. Please give me an idea of what you wedding pros do. Do you offer it and charge extra for it? How much, and how do you arrive at the price since you won't know how many prints she would make from the photos?

The reason I do not ordinarily offer this is because I use ExpressDigital, and it potentially sells extra prints for me, earning me extra income. I'd like to say yes to this couple, while not losing income on potential online sales.

Thank you for your input.

[cdifoto]

I recently started to include it with the top package and offer it as an add-on otherwise. I used to say I'd have to charge at least a grand for it to be worth selling, but I've since put my ego in check and made it a reasonable price. Plus I'd rather not deal with prints at this point, even though I still have online proofing/ordering if they want prints. The CD I provide isn't the full rez though (1800x1200) and it's limited to 200 images. No way can I possibly make all the images I shoot ready-for-print without going insane and fit them on a CD-R. It's just not possible. A CD-R is only 700MB and I'm not about to burn an whole stack of them when they probably only want to print 4x6s and 5x7s anyway. They can even (barely) get an acceptable 8x10 if they really want to (some of the "experts" here on POTN may scoff at this but it's true). I tell them to come to me if they want anything larger or if they want guaranteed quality prints. As far as most clients are concerned 1800x1200 is high resolution, but I don't label it as such.

And no, there is no standard way to charge. Price it as you think it's worth. If I was going to give them all the files at full resolution, then I'd certainly charge quite a bit more than I do. That's a lot of work to get them ready, and you'd be burning quite a few disks if using CD-Rs. I limit what I do so I can make it affordable.

[ImagesByInku]

I offer a DVD of hi res "digital negatives" for $500. I make sure they understand that the images are .jpg and only color and white-balance corrected. Nothing fancy. I don't process the images because "what I like may not be what you like..."

[Eoseni]

Are they popular at $500? I know that's relative, but it still may help me price mine to "market value". At this time, I am leaning toward a BASE fee + a fixed price for each photo selected.

[ImagesByInku]

Are they popular at $500? I know that's relative, but it still may help me price mine to "market value". At this time, I am leaning toward a BASE fee + a fixed price for each photo selected.

Each bride so far has bought it.

[cdifoto]

Each bride so far has bought it.

Must be too cheap. :)

Seriously. If every bride is going for it, keep raising the price.

[ImagesByInku]

Must be too cheap. :)

Seriously. If every bride is going for it, keep raising the price.

Haha... great advice. It'll be $1000 in 2009.

[Eoseni]

Must be too cheap. :)

Seriously. If every bride is going for it, keep raising the price.

Until no one buys it anymore..hehe. I'm kidding. CDI, thanks for your first reply too.

[BeccaJ]

Are they popular at $500? I know that's relative, but it still may help me price mine to "market value". At this time, I am leaning toward a BASE fee + a fixed price for each photo selected.

im not a wedding photog as of yet...but i went to every photographer's booth at the bridal extravaganza...haha

and most of them were $450-$800 depending on the quality of the work... the $800 did look alot better than the photos on the cheaper ones... so it's really up to you...

[Phil Light]

I'm surprised to see all of the $400-ish to 800-ish answers here. When I started reading this thread I assumed most people would price a hi res disc of wedding photos at well above 1K if not much more. Mainly because once they have the "negatives" they will never have to come back to you for anymore prints, ever. But! I'm just making an observation, not a judgment. I'm sure there's a lot to be said about not having to deal with prints & albums, etc.

[ImagesByInku]

I'm surprised to see all of the $400-ish to 800-ish answers here. When I started reading this thread I assumed most people would price a hi res disc of wedding photos at well above 1K if not much more. Mainly because once they have the "negatives" they will never have to come back to you for anymore prints, ever. But! I'm just making an observation, not a judgment. I'm sure there's a lot to be said about not having to deal with prints & albums, etc.

You've convinced me to raise my prices for the remainder of bookings this year.

[Phil Light]

You've convinced me to raise my prices for the remainder of bookings this year.

I hope it works for you, but keep in mind, I really am only making an observation. The reason I said that is because my dad was a wedding photographer for 40 years and he always told the B&G that the negatives were not for sale at all - ever. IMO that's a little extreme, but I certainly understood why.

I would be very curious if after a year or so you feel like this has made a difference. I've heard of wedding photographers who said the more they raised their prices, the more business they got. I read a quote somewhere recently that went: "Small business owners always underestimate the customer's ability to pay."

[cdifoto]

I'm surprised to see all of the $400-ish to 800-ish answers here. When I started reading this thread I assumed most people would price a hi res disc of wedding photos at well above 1K if not much more. Mainly because once they have the "negatives" they will never have to come back to you for anymore prints, ever. But! I'm just making an observation, not a judgment. I'm sure there's a lot to be said about not having to deal with prints & albums, etc.

As I've said, I am limiting what you actually get, but I'm also pricing it at $350 to be attractive. I still include a proper album plus a nice proof book - as a sort of sub-album more so than a proof book because it actually includes the 200 CD images plus their choice of large print and a DVD Slideshow with certain packages. All are available as extras as well of course.

While making a load of cash off small prints can be fun, it's not something I feel like interrupting other projects to do. I'd rather let people do their own 4x6s and 5x7s so I can move on.

While with film I can see not selling the negatives, the digital equivalent would be handing over the CR2 or CRW files. I won't do that, and even if someone did, they could hand over copies...keeping a set for themselves. Can't do that with film so it's not really apples to apples anyway.

[ImagesByInku]

I hope it works for you, but keep in mind, I really am only making an observation. The reason I said that is because my dad was a wedding photographer for 40 years and he always told the B&G that the negatives were not for sale at all - ever. IMO that's a little extreme, but I certainly understood why.

I would be very curious if after a year or so you feel like this has made a difference. I've heard of wedding photographers who said the more they raised their prices, the more business they got. I read a quote somewhere recently that went: "Small business owners always underestimate the customer's ability to pay."

Yeah, I see what your father was saying... but times are changing (have changed?) and everything is digital. Dare I say that most brides these days EXPECT the digital files?

There may come a time when I'll just raise my prices to a certain point and just include the digital files. That's why I don't do any post processing on the images. I'm banking on them liking my PP and ordering the images/prints through me.

The people that shot our wedding sold us the jpg's for $125. So, I figured $500 was pretty high.

[Eoseni]

I would be very curious if after a year or so you feel like this has made a difference. I've heard of wedding photographers who said the more they raised their prices, the more business they got. I read a quote somewhere recently that went: "Small business owners always underestimate the customer's ability to pay."

I'd like to know how far this "higher price = improving business" can be taken - don't we all want to know!

Anyone know how some "celebrity" photogs arrived at charging 10K- 25K or more for shooting a wedding? At what point do we think to ourselves:"I think I am ready to charge an arm and a leg for my services." Who among us is willing to try this? At what point do we start to hit diminishing returns? I'd love further insight into this "higher price= improving business" formula - especially those of you who have experienced it. Does it really work or is it for mythbusters?

[tim]

What's your average profit on print sales, and how long will it take to make the CD? Price the CD to cover that, it's also less work. I sell my CDs as being "digital negatives", basically JPG images color and brightness corrected, but no other PS work. That takes a fair amount of time, but WAY less than tweaking each photo individually like I do for prints.