Christmas Cards

Well, I'm back...

A friend of mine came up to me in school this morning and told me that his mother would like to buy one of my pictures I took of him and his younger brother (manager) at a football game for her Christmas cards. If anyone has gone through this before, what's a ballpark price I should be looking to charge for the picture?

It really depends on you. Are you starting your business and looking to make a profit? Where you initially paid for the shoot and who hired you?
Are you producing the cards? What is your cost of making those cards?
If you are just a guy with a camera looking to make a quick buck and not currently in business I would say in the $25 range. ( for the file only)
If you are in business, shot this on spec, you may consider more.

I take pictures of my school's sporting events (not paid, I don't give the pictures away). I have no intentions on starting a business or producing the cards, I let him have one of the pictures I took from the game for his Facebook and his mom would like to use it for her Christmas cards. I will obviously remove the watermark and give her the full resolution JPEG after I re-edit it, so I think $25-$30 sounds about right considering they will probably be making 25-50 copies of the image.

Cole_Schmitt wrote in post #11328878
I take pictures of my school's sporting events (not paid, I don't give the pictures away). I have no intentions on starting a business or producing the cards.

I think $25-$30 sounds about right considering they will probably be making 25-50 copies of the image.

So you are a high school student with no aspirations to make money from photography. So why are you considering charging money to your friend? Maybe then the next time you need a favor from your friend, he will charge you to help him. Unless you are running a business, charging friends and family for anything beyond your costs isn't a way to keep your friends and stay on good terms with family. If you were printing photos yourself, you'd have paper and ink costs, but you're just giving them a digital file for a Christmas card. It's not like they are using a photo for business or marketing purposes.

Maybe ask to have dinner at your friends' house some evening for payment instead.

Some people like to pay to soothe their own conscience. Don't gouge them, but let them pay something. Especially if they mentioned money first.