Prices for prints

[professorman]

Someone called me today about doing a Christmas party. It is a organization to which I belong, but I have not been very active. I have not had any paid gigs as yet, but I was hoping this would be a decent one. It turned out that they did not use the other photographer because he was charging a $200 sitting fee. I know that the organization raises money and put on a festival once per year and does charitable stuff, but I cant give away my services for free.

What she suggest was that I go there and set up, and sell prints and any money I make I keep, but I give a donation at the end. Talking to my friend, he suggested that I could ask for a $100 fee, and give back a percentage of my sales. I like this idea, but he suggested 30%. Thinking about it, that way, they are motivated to get me sales, so that they can collect a percentage of the profits.

They want me to offer 3 print sizes.
4x6
5x7
8x12

I have a 4x6 printer and was thinking of just selling the larger sizes as a mail order.

What should my print prices be? I do not want it t be too expensive to where no one will buy, but I still need it to be profitable.

RIght now, looking on other photographers in my area, I see print prices as follows:
4x6 $3-4
5x7 $6-9
8x10 $10-15

This seem like it would make me go broke. I was hoping to charge eitehr $5 or $10 for a 4x6 print.

What do you guys suggest? This would be my first real gig.

[Karl Johnston]

That's a really welfare gig :o wow how cheap can they get? What are you doing exactly? Price according to the amount of money you want to make from the event. Materials + Expenses + profit = total price.

Charge 5-10$ a photo if you believe it's what you can do.

[Choaf]

I think it all depends on how guilty you feel about not being active in the organization. If you haven't contributed then why not give them a free photographer for the night then just price your pictures where you can make a little dough. Also without getting paid you can get up maybe and enjoy the party and relax for a bit. To me if you asked for any money at all and they agreed you would be forced to do what they say if you do it pro bono you can make the calls.

I shoot events for my school and the organizations I am a part of I would never charge them to me thats like going to the soup kitchen and asking to get paid to wash the dishes.

[Shootfilm]

If its a charity event and you are a legit business then think about a tax write off. You can take the difference between actual and your published prices.

SF

[aroundlsu]

Exposure manager has an excellent blog post regarding pricing prints. They have tens of thousands of orders of data to back up their statements.

http://blog.exposuremanager.com/2009/09/pricing-to-increase-sales.html
http://blog.exposuremanager.com/2009/09/pricing-to-increase-sales-part-ii.html

[professorman]

I am not a business as yet. I am trying to start a business. I think if I do it for free now, they may always want it for free.

I am about to complete grad school and I want this to be a lifelong side career, but I dont want it to be something that I just do. I love doing it, but it is also going to be a business to make money.

[professorman]

Exposure manager has an excellent blog post regarding pricing prints. They have tens of thousands of orders of data to back up their statements.

http://blog.exposuremanager.com/2009/09/pricing-to-increase-sales.html
http://blog.exposuremanager.com/2009/09/pricing-to-increase-sales-part-ii.html

Thank you for those links. They were very helpful. I am definitely going to raise my prices. What prices do you guys set for your prints?

[MJPhotos24]

You really have to look at your area when setting print prices. Exposure Mangers links are dead on but they do fail to really push that in the article it seems, however, I only skimmed it quick since I read them awhile ago so may have missed it. My prices are based off this areas structure - they're not the highest, they're not the lowest, but they are researched. If I moved an hour up the road and had the same prices they would be the lowest around and underselling myself - if I moved 40 mins in the other direction they'd be higher than average because there's a bunch of GWC's selling from .19 cents to $1.50!! Hence why I stay out of that area! I still get complaints from some they're too high (very rare - actually it's usually from teams from that low priced area coming to my neck of the woods) - but I also get to listen to a lot of complaints from parents that other companies are too high and mine are just right because they're in the middle. So in short, you have to research your area first and then read the EM links to put them together.