Need some pricing help... please :)

I posted this in another thread and it was suggested i make a new thread for this topic. If anyone can chime in and help me out i'd really appreciate it. Thank you

"Since I am new to photography and completely new to the business side of it I have a couple questions about a recent job I did.

Little background... I got a job shooting pics for the Porsche dealer by me for their inventory online. I'm friends with the GM and some of the sales guys and they knew i did photography work so they asked me to do it. I was getting $100 each time i'd go in, generally for maybe 3 hours tops. Most of which was just sitting around. Anyway, the GM asked me to shoot a Track Day at the local race track for the new car owners. I spent the day out there, 9am-6pm and shot almost 15 gigs of photos. He asked for 2-3 pictures of each car there (10 cars or so total) and then some group/candid people shots (i gave him 18 i think)

I knew he was going to pay me but i had no clue how much. And i wasnt to worried about it to be honest cause it was a fun day at the track. But now he is asking for an invoice of how much to pay me.... What would a "going rate" for something like that be? THe pictures i gave him are just going to go to the guys who were at the track and maybe a couple on the Porsche dealer website.


Question 2....

Same dealer, a couple nights ago asked me to shoot a pic of their newly remodeled building at night for the website. No big deal. I shot it... took 10 min and sent him a pic. He loves it. Its on the dealer site and now is going to be on the email news letters, open house flyers, maybe the ads for the dealer, and stuff like that.

He also wants an invoice for this picture as well. Any idea how much $$$ that would be? Hopefully someone can help me out on this. I've asked payment $$$ questions before on other forums and people dont seem to want to talk. Any ideas would be great guys! Thank you in advance

Jeremy"

This is why in business prices are usually agreed up front!!!

That said, for the track day - how much do you really want?

He isn't using most of the images for commercial use and is giving the others away as gifts. I'd be tempted just to pro-rate your usual hourly rate - so around $300 shouldn't create any problems. It's not a great rate but it is what he knows you will work for. You can of course add-in any extra-ordinary travel expenses / lunch / refreshments etc. but I don't think in this instance I'd be billing travelling time and the like.

As for the Evening pic - this is rather more commercial, its a one-off job and is in antisocial hours - I'd therefore be tempted to go for something that reflects this. $150-$200 doesn't sound too high to me again but make a point of providing him with a license detailing his usage rights etc.

Probably not much help but its a start.

If it were me, I'd be looking at examples and prices for comparable work, and pricing your stuff comparably. Obviously this dealer likes your work and is willing to pay for it, so I agree with where you're headed - come up with some standard pricing so every shoot isn't a one-off.

For the track day photos, it's fairly easy to figure out what the competition charges. We use www.GotBlueMilk.com for our events, and his prices are on his web site. To my knowledge his competition is in the same ballpark.

Dave

I highly recommend Fofoquote!

Don't sell yourself short! An average "day rate" for commercial photography can run anywhere from 800-1500 dollars depending on the experience of the photog, and the scope of work.

If you underquote, you'll regret it, and may feel like you're getting short changed on future projects.

Good Luck!

On the invoice, just put a single line item for a Porsche Boxster intstead of a dollar amount. That would be nice!

u_loco_local wrote in post #7958006
I highly recommend Fofoquote!

Don't sell yourself short! An average "day rate" for commercial photography can run anywhere from 800-1500 dollars depending on the experience of the photog, and the scope of work.

If you underquote, you'll regret it, and may feel like you're getting short changed on future projects.

Good Luck!

Since he is an amateur photographer, a self confessed beginner and someone who got the gig in the first place through personal friendship, I think that suggesting full "high-end" commercial rates is foolish.

Photos sell for a variety of prices.

If you look at Alamy or other such sites like you can get rates of $1500 per image quite easily whereas a similar photo on another site could be $50 or even $5.

Personally I have different rates for different clients depending on what they will pay ranging fronm $30 per hour to $200 per hour.

I am working up the ladder gradually and am replacing more and more $30 accounts with better paying clients but if it was not for the regular work at $30 per hour I'd have lost my house years ago.

I'd rather be working and earning money each day rather than taking the attitude "I wouldn't get out of bed for less than $500 a day". If I did that or if I priced myself out of my lower paying clients then I would be loosing out - especially in the current economic climate.

Nightstalker wrote in post #7958753
Since he is an amateur photographer, a self confessed beginner and someone who got the gig in the first place through personal friendship, I think that suggesting full "high-end" commercial rates is foolish.

Photos sell for a variety of prices.

If you look at Alamy or other such sites like you can get rates of $1500 per image quite easily whereas a similar photo on another site could be $50 or even $5.

Personally I have different rates for different clients depending on what they will pay ranging fronm $30 per hour to $200 per hour.

I am working up the ladder gradually and am replacing more and more $30 accounts with better paying clients but if it was not for the regular work at $30 per hour I'd have lost my house years ago.

I'd rather be working and earning money each day rather than taking the attitude "I wouldn't get out of bed for less than $500 a day". If I did that or if I priced myself out of my lower paying clients then I would be loosing out - especially in the current economic climate.

Gee, well isn't that why I gave him an estimated range?

I guess you haven't taken a look at the OP's work. It's definately above the "amateur" skills, even if the OP is just starting out.

Even at the numbers you quote is still around the lower end of that scale.

If I was the consumer, I'd pay for the quality of work, not on the basis of the photographer just starting out in the business. Heck, I've seen the work of some pros who have been shooting for years and yet some of the amateurs' work is still better.

Have now looked at some of his pics - like everyone there are some great, some OK and some not so great IMHO.

Maybe I came on a bit strong but I still feel that suggesting a part-time hobbyist go with full commercial rates is a bit foolish. If he can get them, great - but if he were working at full commercial rates his 3 hour gig with the Porsche dealership should be netting him a lot more than $100 for 3 hours work - probably closer to $450.

If this were the case I'd feel happier with the higher rates you mention and $800 a day may be reasonable but I don't think you can easily justify go from $33 per hour for the showroom work to around $100 per hour for the track work.

Nightstalker wrote in post #7961602
Have now looked at some of his pics - like everyone there are some great, some OK and some not so great IMHO.

Maybe I came on a bit strong but I still feel that suggesting a part-time hobbyist go with full commercial rates is a bit foolish. If he can get them, great - but if he were working at full commercial rates his 3 hour gig with the Porsche dealership should be netting him a lot more than $100 for 3 hours work - probably closer to $450.

If this were the case I'd feel happier with the higher rates you mention and $800 a day may be reasonable but I don't think you can easily justify go from $33 per hour for the showroom work to around $100 per hour for the track work.

I guess I suggested that day rate range because working for 9 hours at a race track sounds like a lot more work than taking pics at a dealership.
And if you figure even at 50/day for 9 hours is 450, then there's the post processing, and the usage cost of the photos.
IMO, I would think that 100/hour for that work including the image files is a very acceptable fee.

I would also think that there are different rates depending on the region one lives in.

For future reference, the first question I ask is "What are you going to use them for?" This gives me an indication of what I need to use & how I'm going to have to shoot "it".
The second is, "What's your budget?"

Now I know if I even want to discuss the job. The combination of the two questions gives me a range of pricing, depending on what rights they need & what rights I'm willing to convey with the images. You will be licensing their usage of them at a negotiated price that's fair to you and provides what they need.

I realize that your situation is different from a working pro, but this shouldn't even be a factor. Maybe you lucked out on the lighting. Maybe it would take a whole day with different weather. But basing what you charge on how long it took generally means the better you are & the faster you work, the less that you're paid!
So I use a day rate, & maybe cut to a 1/2 day rate for a good client who has a temporary budget problem.

I was called in to take insurance claim photos for a local fire department a while back.
I showed up with a bunch of gear and dressed really professional as usual.
When they showed me the job they wanted done it was simple, & would take me less than an hour.
Also I brought my laptop along so I could make the disk on site for them - shoot, burn, cash, done (those are the best kind of job to get)

So after the little tour and getting an idea what the fire department wanted he asked me for an estimate. I figured it this way, it took me 15 minutes to get to the location, 20 minutes to talk to the guy and get an idea of what he wanted, 1 hour to shoot (probably only 30 mins), 15 minutes to burn & get paid, 15 minutes to get back home and unload my gear. So that's a little more than 2 hours. I quoted him $500 for the job, that's $250/hr. Then he took a breath, exhailed really hard like he was suprised. And I backed up my quote by pointing out that he would have the disk with images within the hour and he would be all good to go, then he chimed in "Oh don't worry, $500 is fine, that was just a breath of relief, I thought you were going to ask for $1500 or more....." At that point I felt like kicking myself in the butt because I should have raised the price up a bit more..

But it all worked out because since they felt I gave a really good deal I have been asked back a couple other times to do other jobs.
And one of these days I want to get a sexy model in there to shoot on a couple of the fire trucks........

rather than asking for a budget, which tend to be varying in the amount of validity they really have, ask about their experiences with other photographers or ad agencies in the past. what did they get? what do they expect from you? what kind of uses will they be using? what have they paid in previous years?

study the way designers do things, because essentially at a raw level your job has to co-inside in some regard with theirs.

I just took a job recently working a car show, agreed price of roughly $800/day. 2 days worth of work for them and each day = 5-6 hours each.

They don't want photoshop services from me, hence the lower price. They just want a CD of all the images in JPG format.

These guys are a national company with really good graphics folks, so I'm not worried about them butchering my photos.

Easy for me.

~Eric