3 days of corporate shooting - do I price per image or per hour...?

Im submitting a quote for a corporate event that spans a total of three days. They want me there from

8am - 7pm on monday
8am - 9pm on tuesday
8am - 3 pm on wednesday

I feel that if I charge by the image, I might end up the loser in this deal. Say i'm there shooting for an estimated 26+ hours total with an estimated 10 hours of PP work and in the end they only want to use 10 images (who knows, they could choose more, they could choose less). I don't want to charge $250+ per image.......or is that fair?

Any help or advise is greatly appreciated. This is a somewhat informal gig even though it is corporate. I am working on a small scale contract to protect both parties. Id prefer not to overcharge and lose the work...

Thanks

why not simply set a minimum image purchase = how much you want to make to feel like you aren't wasting your time.

paid up front, of course.

or maybe a day rate which includes a fixed number of finalized images? say $3k a day includes 300 4x6s? <shrug>

I hope your going to make some decent money off this. event coverage for 3 days should be spendy to hire your own personal paparazzi...

tak0eye wrote in post #15103118
Id prefer not to overcharge and lose the work...

You have to be willing to lose some jobs & even fire some "Cheap Charlie" clients?
Need some pricing help... please

Flores wrote in post #15103219
or maybe a day rate which includes a fixed number of finalized images? say $3k a day includes 300 4x6s? <shrug>

I like day rates. Don't like hourly rates, because the better you are & the faster you work, the less that you're paid! And if you travel to a location & back, how do you get paid for the rest of the lost daylight? It's pretty hard to book two 1/2-day jobs in one day.
In metro Detroit, a fairly large market with lots of competition, I charged a day rate of $600/day (1970s prices), 10 hours my door to my door, & included 50 "Free" miles. (That's how much I hate paperwork & I'm not going to nickel & dime a client anyway).
For a good client who's in a budget bind, I'd offer an (infrequent) 1/2 day rate, $350, 5 hours my door to my door. Keep in mind that the first time you cut your prices for someone, everyone else will hear about it & it will soon become your "Normal" rate.

Engineering Photography Rates?

tak0eye wrote in post #15103118
Id prefer not to overcharge and lose the work...

You don't want to undercharge and lose money either.

Some photographers will add extra for overtime over 8-10 hours. I would guess that if you live in Hawaii, the day rate would be higher than a photographer who lives in Idaho. Also a factor in determining your day rate is how good of a photographer you are.

As an example:
Day 1- 8 hours @ $1200-1500 (3 hrs overtime at $xx)
Day 2- 8 hours @ $1200-1500 (5 hrs overtime at $xx)
Day 3- 8 hours @ $1200-1500

Some photographers will add additional fees for licensing, as well as itemize other costs and expenses, i.e. equipment rental, travel/mileage, parking fees, assistant, post processing work/touch-ups. Of course these will vary depending on the scope of the job and photographer.

Just give a quote on the entire job. If it's not a corporate company and you have up front costs, you may want to ask for a percentage of your fee.
If it is a corporate company: once they approve your quote, try to get a purchase order number. That's proof that they're moving it through their accounting dept and the expense is being processed.

thanks for the responses. They really vary...one suggestion was $3000.00 per day if i'm correct and the other for $600.00 per day.

I'm thinking... if they want me there for those specified times, it equates to ~31 hours. I would bill them out for ~26 hours of actual photography (if I were to go hourly). As far as my rate, i feel since it is a bulk amount of hours I would charge ~$120 per hour totaling $3120. Add 10 hours of PP time @ $25 per hour we now have $3370 total.

This would put me in the ball park with shootlogicals response which is

As an example:
Day 1- 8 hours @ $1200-1500 (3 hrs overtime at $xx)
Day 2- 8 hours @ $1200-1500 (5 hrs overtime at $xx)
Day 3- 8 hours @ $1200-1500

Should I bill for every hour i'm there, or just for an estimated amount of hours I think i'll be shooting photos (this is a big ? for me). To answer my own question.....a day rate would probably solve this.

tak0eye wrote in post #15103477
.....a day rate would probably solve this.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #15103299
I like day rates.

This ^

tak0eye wrote in post #15103477
Should I bill for every hour i'm there, or just for an estimated amount of hours I think i'll be shooting photos (this is a big ? for me). To answer my own question.....a day rate would probably solve this.

You should bill for every moment you are there as it's related to the job ie: setting up, meetings, breaking down, proofing, etc... The act of just clicking the button on the camera is not all that is involved. Now if you are just hanging around afterwards to hang around that's different and I wouldn't change for that time personally.

I think a day rate is your best bet and you could always do a time sheet or something to show the breakdown of what time was spent on whatnot for the client or even just for yourself as a reference. This would show you where you spend time and possibly help you to work on being more efficient in some areas. (I personally hate time sheets as I have to do them for my day job as a contractor but they are helpful when it comes to billing and seeing where my weakness are in terms of inefficiency during jobs)

I'd give them a day rate but be sure to include that you will be there one hour before or whatever reasonable time you need. you should also make sure you will have access to the venue so you aren't trying to shove in the doors last minute and rushing to get set up. That time costs money as well and should be factored in.

I bill corporate jobs by the hour and add time for Post Processing and a 20% discount for an 8 hour day. Charging by the hour lets the client be in control of the overall cost, and will encourage them not to schedule me for time that is not busy.

This will be close to a 150+ mile round trip for me and I don't want them to schedule me in...for lack of a better word "spurts" (an hour here...an hour there). I think a flat day rate would be the most logical. If I were to work hourly they might say something along the lines of "I'm only paying you for the cummulatative time that you are actually looking thru your viewfinder" or something like that...in that case I may have to find a helmet cam...Haha!

tak0eye wrote in post #15103118
Id prefer not to overcharge and lose the work...

You'd rather undercharge and lose your ass? I have an hourly rate and multiply it by the number of hours I expect to be shooting to get a single figure for the client.

So in your case, 31 hours (where did you get 26?) times $200 is $6200 for shooting. Depending on how far I'm traveling it may or may not be extra. They can buy actual product after the fact if they can't decide beforehand. If they know what they want, a package can be built.

^^^^haha, yeah I know...^^^^

Day Rate + Expenses + Usage

EOT

I've been on the other side here. We paid a day rate. That rate depended on what you brought to the table. P.A. could expect about $100. Camera operator more. The couple times we had photographers we stole them for $400 or so. In our defense they came in, shot, and handed over the cards we had provided.

You have had various suggestions but the big question is - How much do they need to pay you to get you to do the job?

If they offer you $500 per day just to shoot and give them discs of unprocessed images would you accept or decline? What if they offered $600, $700 or $1,000 a day?

What the job is worth to you is a very personal thing driven, in large part, by your financial position and your need for the work. Whilst it is very easy for an established person who has a good and steady income to turn the job down if it doesn't meet their expectations it may be harder for someone to turn down $1500 for 3 days work if they are running short of cash.

At the end of the day only you can make that judgement call.