How much should a photographer charge?

[Extinctionjet]

How much should a photographer charge?

i still have to do my degree in photography but i pull out profetional shots sometime better than paid photographers at weddings.

my friends wedding just gone, my photos looked EXACTLY the same as my friend who got paid.

how much should a i charge and for how many photos. ect?
thanks

www.stealthphotography.com (http://www.stealthphotography.com)

[breathless]

Here in the U.S., pros charge from $200 to $20,000+ for a wedding. What you should charge depends on what you feel your time and talent is worth and what your clients are willing to pay. There is no standard rate.

[The_Duke_Of_Eli]

Precisely 437.84$.

[Dennis_Hammer]

It's all an individual choice, you see I think Duke is off by $2.62 but thats just me.

[WillMass]

.....but i pull out profetional shots....


I usually go to a profetional dockterer for those.

[Zansho]

5 Billion Dollars!

This might help you decide how much to charge.

http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/index.html

Keep in mind weddings aren't just shooting at the venue. You have editing to do, you have travel time/costs to factor in, meeting with clients, album costs, print costs, things like that. It's not unheard of to spend 30+ hours per wedding.

[AdamGasson]

Best to look at photographers near you and see how much they charge. Normally they'll offer different packages for different prices - which means varying prints, times etc.

I'd add that simply taking a better picture isn't the measure of a good wedding photographer. How well you co-ordinate shoots and how quick your turnaround can be equally as important. Also you need to factor in meeting the couple, arranging the itenary, group shots, locations etc.

Personally I charge a minimum £500 for a wedding and that will include a CD of images but nothing else. Prints have to be bought through myself so I can then make some more profit from print sales. I think the first wedding I shot I charged £250 (and that was for a best friend).

If your work is good enough though you shouldn't be working for less than £500 I don't think.

[breal101]

Eleventy seven brazillion dollars sounds about right.

[cdifoto]

I shoot for bridesmaids. Long live barter!

[cheson74]

.99 cent and you get 1 free!

Think how much your time and talent is worth. Set your price and stick to it. Don't lower it for friends or you'll be getting offers from friends' friends' friends.

[Satnav900]

How can we answer this? For me i never have a set price. I have my time per hour and then i have other addons too, then there's prints, albums, etc... so its hard to say.

[STP 40D]

I don't shoot to pay the bills, just to feed my camera and watch habits. As a result, I probably charge less than someone who needs to pay the mortgage.

I'm shooting a meet & greet on November 5th for $125.00 an hour. I'll be shooting for a total time of about an hour and a half, but I have a four hour minimum for that gig...

[egordon99]

Well, since you refuse to shoot with a Canon lens, I wouldn't charge more than five cents....

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=6497531#post6497531

:lol:

[elysium]

You need to see and plan what will be counted as expenses, time take to process, labour etc.

There is no real answer for you here to be honest since you charge what you think is right. You need something that reflects you and your style.

For wedding receptions, I will charge anything between £200-£500 without any issues. Not shooting weddings directly yet but same kind of thing would apply. Try to create a few packages with different prices to cover different couples budgets.

[ssim]

i still have to do my degree in photography but i pull out profetional shots sometime better than paid photographers at weddings.

my friends wedding just gone, my photos looked EXACTLY the same as my friend who got paid.

These are comments that I see quite often from inexperienced photographers. Sure your shots may be the same, I would hope they would be. The main photographer has taken the time to set up the poses. Are you ready to do that in a wedding from beginning to end on your own. If you are referring to the couple coming down the aisle or other candid type of shots, this is not rocket science given the gear that is available these days.

Photographers that do this for a living have spent the time and money to learn the craft. How to work with the mother of the bride, the minister or priest, etc. They normally have more gear than the casual shooter and then there is all of the burden of operating a business.

How much should you charge, the median rates for your geographic area. Spend some time looking at what other in your area charge. To tell you what I or others charge in my area is a mute point.

[jpwone]

What you must charge, what you should charge and what you can charge are three separate entities.

What you must charge.
Calculate your cost of doing business. Include things like electricity, insurance, transport, software, replacement cost of equipment, internet access, telephone, web site etc. etc. I have all this on a spreadsheet and calculate my cost of business based on 48 weeks per annum at 3 paid days per week. This gives me 192 paid work days per annum. If you are working 3 days then you will need at least 1 day a week for administration, billing, marketing, proposals, client meetings etc. My base costs (working from home) are approx. £67 per day (for the 3 days). That is what it costs me as a sole operator (no staff) to stay in business before I take a penny for myself. This is the minimum I must charge otherwise I am subsidising the client.

What you should charge.
Taking a target salary of £24k per annum and dividing this by 192 (number of worked days) gives you a figure of £125 per day. Add this to your base cost figure and you get £192 per day as the minimum you should charge to earn an average salary. I then add 15% to this to cover exceptional items and allow for some growth funding for the business.

What you can charge.
This is the key one. Once you know what you must charge and what you should charge you now need to balance these against the competition etc. for your local area. How much competition? Any specialities? Demographics of the area etc. etc. What you may find is that there are specialities not covered in your area and you can charge a premium for these depending on your skill level and the market requirement. You also may find that your target clients are well served by cheaper or more established photographers. So, what you can charge is dependent upon your value in your market. If what you can charge is less than what you should charge then you need to reconsider the business as a whole or which part of the market you are targeting.

Hope this helps. There is no simple answer. You need to sit down with pen and paper and do some maths and then check out the competition and then assess the requirement for your area of specialisation.