What to charge for prints.

Hi there,

I was just wondering what to charge for prints. I am starting to get a few jobs and am wondering what the usual markup is for different print sizes.

I think a similar question has been posed.

A 10 x 12 inch post cost me between $6 and $10

Thanks in advance

Darren

Difficult to say - being this side of the water - but that sounds rather "cheap" to me.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=244501

What do you think you're worth?

There's more to the cost of a print than just what hte lab charges you.

How long does it take you to get the file ready to print. The time to pull the file. Send it to the lab. Get it back. QA it. Package it for the client. Waht's the cost of shipping the print (or otherwise delivering it)? What's the cost of the packaging? What's the cost of your time to deliver the order?

Once you add all of that up, then you can begin to figure out what the print is worth - in hard costs.

Karen

Hey Darren,

I sell some nature photography and here is what I charge (and the cost to me) in USD

4x6 $1.00 (.12)
5x7 $5.00 (.99)
5x7 matted $10.00 (approx 2.00)
8x10 $10.00 (2.99)
8x10 matted $20.00 ($4.50)
framed and matted 5x7 $35 (about $10.00)
framed and matted 8x10 $45.00 (about $13.00)

I hope this helps!

I charge between 5 and 10 times what Mr. E charges, and I do wedding photography. If people were buying one nature print at a time, or that kind of volume, i'd probably be charging around 50-100 times what he charges.

I have ot wonder if Mr. E is considering the cost of shipping or his time. But really I wonder if Mr. E is paying taxes or has a business license for his business.

At $1 each, he's paying people to buy that $4x6 from him.

Karen

If you are selling the print as a product, then 5 to 8 times your unit cost would be what the retail price of a plastic widget would be. Now factor in your talent and creativity and I would say 10 to 20 times your unit cost.

I just started photography as a small business this year, and the pricing was the toughest thing to decide on. I do portrait photography, and It guestimated how much time it would take to produce the protraits, and how much I thought I should earn hourly. I picked a number to begin with and worked with that to see if it was reasonable. I factored hours of session, post production as well as prints and shipment/delivery.

Now that I have been doing this for profit since May, I see that I am undercutting myself. I didn't want to begin too high, but I see my time and work is well worth more than I am charging.

My question is - how often do you/should you increase your fees? I am thinking once a year to re-evaluate and make any changes.

Also - do you raise it a certain percentage, or does it depend on the increase of your overhead?

I also have returning customers, and am concerned of increasing too much - but then again, if they really like my style then they would be willing to pay a little more.

I get 5.50 each for $0.19 4x6s
I get 19.00 for 8x10's
I get 8.00 for 4 wallets

I do high quantity, event portraits. I take a couple, pop 3 poses, next couple, next couple... I do from 25- 120 couples at a time, so it adds up.

(i make them all buy on smugmug, and dont deal with collecting payment or shipping)

keep in mind that i am not charging anything to setup, or a sitting fee... I am still too cheap for my own good, but it isnt a full time job for me.

best of luck - charge twice what you think you should. you are worth it. have a look at the crappy P&s pics people produce, youll see what i mean.

Yeah, I just got a part time job at Williams-Sonoma for the Christmas season. They were offering $10/hr but I told them they should only pay me $5 because this isn't a full time job for me and so I don't really deserve full pay.

Get it?

Karen

karensimmons wrote in post #2384473
Yeah, I just got a part time job at Williams-Sonoma for the Christmas season. They were offering $10/hr but I told them they should only pay me $5 because this isn't a full time job for me and so I don't really deserve full pay.

Get it?

Karen

were you trying to make a point? if so i guess i get it. but that doesnt change that I treat this as a hobby, and since i am leaving Okinawa in 10.5 months, i feel that i cannot "pollute" this client base with low prices for my future. Plus, most of these people are my friends/co-workers.

I have this weird view on photography... People don't have enough pictures, and moments of life are precious. I look at this as a way to force-feed portraits to people who would not otherwise bother with it. I feel that they will look back on it and silently thank me later in life.

let me ask you this... How much does a pastor/priest/preacher make? better yet, does he really care? His work is a labor of love, just like mine.

-Now, if you will please enter your credit card number in the space provided below...

Uh. Then you didn't get my point. Aren't you doing just that: by treating it as a hobby even though you're working and acting as a professional, you're "polluting" the base for future photogs.

Does he really care? You better believe he cares. My cousin has 4 boys to feed - of course he cares how much he makes and in fact just moved to another church that offered him more money and more famliy bennies so that his kids could have a better life. My other cousin's husband is pondering accepting a job 3 states away, which would mean leaving a long time congregational family, but the income is too good to resist when he knows his 15 year old daughter is looking at an out of state college.

I dunno how many pastors or priests you know personally, but if you think that they don't care about how much they make to support their families, you must not know many.

karen

BTW, since there's a perception that I'm "harsh" or something - please understand I'm not attacking you. I'm trying to present an opposing point of view for you to think about.

karen

Karen, around here a realistic, professional view is often absent, I think your comments are among of the most valuable on this forum, especially regarding charging and working as a professional. You need a title like the one under my name