# Controversial question.......



## Lmphotos (Dec 20, 2012)

I have done photography for the past year for free. First for fun then learning and to build a portfolio. People always asked me what I charged and wanted to book shoots and I would never do it. Now it is becoming more and more everyday. Also I have upgraded equipment lenses and flashes and all this stuff was not cheap as you all know to well. So how much would you charge starting out? All of these people of course want the print release. How many images would you include in an 1 hour session? A little bit about the market it is over saturated with photographers. There are about 6 big photographers that are charging thousands for their services and then probably a hundred small photographers like me charging. It's small communities but we pull from another 4-5 small towns as well all in all you are looking about the size of St. Louis. These are "farm" folk though that do not understand why it cost so much if all you are doing is "taking pictures?" Would you charge more for skin retouching etc? I know this is controversial because I have already read all the blog post on the "momtographer" Not trying to start a heated debated just advice. 


Just a couple images of my work I know it is not star quality so I plan for that to mold my pricing as well.


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## unpopular (Dec 21, 2012)

From what I have seen, I think you're well beyond the risk of "charging people so you can learn photography" stage. You clearly have a good handle on technical matters, so I don't think that this is a particularly controversial question. While I can't give you an exact answer, I am pretty sure you can easily charge more than what most of the "studios" around you are, but certainly not the "thousands" which the big w*nkers are charging.

I'd encourage you to first understand all of your expenses, including taxes, licenses, advertising expenses, ongoing supplies, and travel expenses. I'm sure that some of the pros around here can offer you more advise than I can.

I'd like to commend you though on resisting the temptation to go into business before you're really ready to. So many people get "being pro" into their heads that they forget to learn how to actually take photos. Your reputation right out the door will be positive - not just another moron with a camera.


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## Lmphotos (Dec 21, 2012)

My Unc is a CPA and he is working that side out for He pretty much said unless I made a stellar amount in one year it would be a wash when I deduct all my expenses. But we will see we have only briefly spoke about that part. I have taken all that into account and just to make back my money so far we are looking at around $7,000. Also curious to how many images people are including with their packages for the price?


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## STIC (Dec 21, 2012)

...


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## Brandon Hill (Dec 21, 2012)

I think there are some good tips and feedback here.  It sounds like you're on a good path.

Knowing what to base your fees and packages really depends on basic market research of your competition.  Find out the prices of the photographers that are in your area that are at your level and better.  If they don't post prices on their site than you may have to do some more incognito research, but it's definitely easy to pull off finding that info.  Then from there you know what you're going up against and then what you want or need to make to be a viable business.  

Even though there's a lot of expensive gear with photography, it truly isn't near the overhead that other brick and mortar small businesses might have.  (Unless one is addicted to buying more and more gear to compensate for skill-crafting.  

I woudn't know what to charge in your specific field but I would strongly advise to keep your offerings simple.  I've seen other photographers start out feeling like they need to tackle any and every kind of family and event/wedding shoot like everyone else.  Don't feel that pressure, find out the one or two things you like to shoot and become an artisan.  Then refine refine refine, and soon you'll be able to charge ungodly amounts of money to the 1% and be worth every penny.


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## bratkinson (Dec 21, 2012)

I think MLeek spelled out all the requirements over and above 'taking pictures' to be a pro very well a couple of months ago...

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-shop-talk/304732-finding-your-codb-your-hourly-rate.html

By the way...where'd she go?


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## 12sndsgood (Dec 21, 2012)

Mleek has been very quiet lately.

as mentioned above your CODB is your best bet to find out what you should charge, everyones is diffrent so its not something you can just throw out a number to. what are your expenses? what are your coming expenses? how much is your insurance? how much is it to keep your website and hosting current? how many shoots do you plan on doing a year? all of this will give you an idea of what you should be charging. A lot of this can be hammered out as your writing up your business plan. Your business plan will be the guideline of how you run our business.  

If you don't have much business experience I would suggest spending this year on learning as much as you can, start getting your ducks in a row, start getting your name, your website, designed and built, get your tax id and business up and running legitimatly. dig into local ordinances, state laws and federal laws to make sure that your doing everything right before you shoot yourself in the foot. most people tend to put the cart before the horse and just start charging and wind up in trouble down the line. lear about sales tax. in indiana if you dont pay your sales tax for that one single month they will send you a bill for around $550 so knowing what you need to do ahead of time is important. think about marketing, exposure. As you dig into that you will find out what your actual expenses will be and what you need to make on each shoot to properly budget yourself.  You can do like most and just say $50 bucks and think your making cash when your really not, or you can do your homework and know exactly what you need to make a profit.


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## Lmphotos (Dec 21, 2012)

Nice article! I just joined so I did not know about this, any family photographers out there and how many images are you including with your work?


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## Mully (Dec 21, 2012)

I commend you for exploring your options ...about 12-15 years ago so many photographers went into the wedding photography market because they thought it was easier....the good ones survived bur so many hacks were spawned. Do your homework and see how you can fit in with your style.... I like your work and I believe you will get there.


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## ryanforster (Dec 21, 2012)

I don't think you need to limit yourself to a certain amount of photos per job. I prefer to think of a job as "I take photos until i believe i have the shot".
Your best bet on pricing would be to look at your direct competitors and their prices. 
A good way around your problem of wanting to charge less is to instead do something like:

Winter special! Usually $200, NOW only $100.

That way you can feel ok about charging less for a few months and people don't think you're just cheap. (Because public perception is Cheap=crap)


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## rexbobcat (Dec 21, 2012)

Mully said:
			
		

> I commend you for exploring your options ...about 12-15 years ago so many photographers went into the wedding photography market because they thought it was easier....the good ones survived bur so many hacks were spawned. Do your homework and see how you can fit in with your style.... I like your work and I believe you will get there.



I have to agree here. Consider finding a semi-niche. If everyone (and I assume a lot of them are) are shooting babies or families, try getting into the modeling ad headshot market if you enjoy those photos.

Sometimes it's easier to be really good in one relatively unexplored market than to try and compete with EVERYONE including people no have been shooting for much longer in a saturated market.

I'm not saying to just get into niche marketing. Also photograph what's more popular if you want,  but consider it. It might make you stand out from the umpteen "I want to capture your special memories" family photographers.


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## KmH (Dec 21, 2012)

The first thing you need is a well researched and written business plan. How to Write a Business Plan | SBA.gov
The second thing you need is a well researched and written marketing plan. Free Small Business Advice | How-to Resources | Tools | Templates | SCORE
You need to learn how to pre-qualify customers and you need to learn basic selling skills. 

Once you have determined what your cost-of-doing-business and cost-of-goods-sold will be when you start up, you then need to estimate how many shooting days a year you will have.

Retail photography is seasonal and because more of your time will need to be dedicated to doing business tasks instead of doing photography tasks, 40 shooting weeks a year and 3 shooting days a week is about all you can hope for.
So about 120 shooting days a year, give or take. (3 business days a week, and just 1 day off per week).

We can play with some numbers to establish some financial concepts. At this point it is also a good idea to recognize that paying someone to take baby, family, high school senior, etc portraits is a luxury purchase, and marketing your photography as a commodity precludes doing photography as a source of income that produces a living wage. A majority of those 100 small photography businesses you mention are supported with other income, from a 'day' job or a spouse.

So lets look at income as it relates to total revenue, but income is not profit. Income is part of your CODB, your salary.
Lets say your business plan includes $35,000 a year for your salary, and you expect your salary to  be 25% of your total revenues. so $35,000 divided by 25% = $140,000 total revenue.
$140,000 divided by 120 shooting days = $1166.67 per shooting day.
If you shoot 2 session per shooting day, your average sale needs to be $583.34.

Don't forget that being self-employed, out of your $35,000 salary you will not only need to pay state, federal, and social security income taxes, you will also likely be required to pay state unemployment taxes.
You will also need to make retirement fund contributions, and pay for health insurance.

If your business/marketing/promotion/selling skills aren't quite up to snuff, you may earn income at a rate less than 25% of revenue. So, to earn the same income you need to have more total revenue.
At 20%, total revenue would need to be $175,000 and your average shooting day income would need to increase to $1458.33 per shooting day.
If your total revenue stays at $140,000, at 20% of total revenue your salary goes down to $28,000 a year.

At this point many figure "I can shoot more than 2 clients a day". So lets look at that.
Two sessions per 120 shooting days means 240 sessions a year. No doubt some of those sessions will be repeat customers. Say 15% of them (36 sessions)
Three sessions per 120 shooting days means 360 sessions a year.
Four session per 120 shooting day means 480 sessions a year.

If you shoot more sessions, you not only have more pre and post production time involved, but you also need to have better promotional and marketing campaigns, and spend more $$$$$'s on advertising to generate more sessions. There are only 24 hours in a day, a 7 days in a week. At some point you can't do it all.

By the way, your Valentines day marketing and advertising that you finalized about the 1st of December or so, should be going out in just a few days (December 26).


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## pixmedic (Dec 21, 2012)

I LOVE KMH's posts on business start up. i never get tired of reading them. Always something to learn. 
the startup is the easy part. it didnt take us long to get tax ID, insurance, fictitious name registered and all that stuff done. and yet, for some strange reason, that seems to be the most commonly skipped step....bad idea. 
driving business to you is much harder. and costly. 
and remember to always and ONLY give out your best work. you can never take it back. the internet is forever. and peoples memories are like elephants. 1 unhappy client can hurt your  business more than 10 happy clients can help it. and monetary compensation is the flavor of the week here in the United States. (gawd we need to REALLY take a look at Europes system a little harder...and learn by example)


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## unpopular (Dec 21, 2012)

KMH - serious question here, is 25-30% all that one can expect from a photo business? I know that you cited this before, buT i am not sure it's reasonable to compare your typical retail store which has to maintain a large inventory of goods to photography which doesn't.

$140K/year in sales makes sense for a shopping outlet, but is that realistic or a reasonable guideline for a startup in photography? It seems to me that without having a large inventory overhead, photography would be more profitable - or am I missing something substantial in the CODB for a photography studio? 

I'm not doubting you, I just have a really hard time seeing how this works out - in excess of $10K/month in sales to live a working class lifestyle, it makes sense if you're running a grocery store or restaurant, but it seems like things could/would need to be trimmed up a bit, no?


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## amolitor (Dec 21, 2012)

A well run business often IS a wash after all the expenses are deducted. You should, of course, pay yourself. Any remaining profits, if any, should be plowed back into the business.

I don't know the details, but it's my understanding that "profits" as such are for suckers, and I assume your CPA uncle surely does understand the details. Probably he means 'it's a wash if you pay yourself nothing' which is, um, less good  Anyways. Good luck!


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## HughGuessWho (Dec 21, 2012)

25-30% is extremely high for most businesses. Most shoot for 10-15% net and are happy to get that. The back office expenses for running a business is much higher than most realize.


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## Ilovemycam (Dec 21, 2012)

OP...why is it controversial?  Momtographer...you will always find critics that say you can't do something.

 Forget the critics. Just test the waters and charge what you *can *get. You don't have to apologize to earn what you deserve.  You do nice work. So don't be ashamed to be a pro.

With me I can't even give my stuff away for free. So I got disgusted and don't even try any longer. I took all my 'for free' photo ads down. I just shoot what I like now and forget about getting models. 

And since I can't give my photos away for free, I can't obviously charge $ for it either. OP...if you can make $ doing what you like...*Do It *and don't worry what the naysayers tell you.


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## Lmphotos (Dec 21, 2012)

Ilovemycam said:


> OP...why is it controversial?  Momtographer...you will always find critics that say you can't do something.
> 
> Forget the critics. Just test the waters and charge what you *can *get. You don't have to apologize to earn what you deserve.  You do nice work. So don't be ashamed to be a pro.
> 
> ...




Yes the "Momtographer" issue makes it very controversial.......I do not want to be looked at as some arrogant person who just picked up a camera and thinks they can do photography. I think I spend too much time on the Internet because there are sites dedicated to making fun of these am. Photogs. And obviously I can not quit my day job so I think when I am brining in steady income it pisses people off which I understand why it would. I do not want to be look at like a joke and in the same respect constantly giving out free shoots and turning down pay doesn't help me out either.


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## Lmphotos (Dec 21, 2012)

amolitor said:


> A well run business often IS a wash after all the expenses are deducted. You should, of course, pay yourself. Any remaining profits, if any, should be plowed back into the business.
> 
> I don't know the details, but it's my understanding that "profits" as such are for suckers, and I assume your CPA uncle surely does understand the details. Probably he means 'it's a wash if you pay yourself nothing' which is, um, less good  Anyways. Good luck!



Yes I think he was estimating I am not going to make enough to even cover my expenses and deductions.


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## tirediron (Dec 21, 2012)

To get back to the OPs question on how many images to include:  0.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.  The Big Goose Egg.  Set a flat sitting fee based on the duration of the shoot and then charge separately for each print or digital file the customer wants.


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## KmH (Dec 21, 2012)

unpopular said:


> KMH - serious question here, is 25-30% all that one can expect from a photo business?


"We can play with some numbers to establish some financial concepts."
The actual numbers will vary based on the business acumen of the retail photography business owner. Plug in whatever numbers you think are appropriate.

At any rate, that is part and parcel of what a 'business plan' is all about.

According to several photographer association surveys over the years, a well run retail photography business run out of someone's home makes income at an average of about 22% to 25% of revenue. 
Studio based retail photography businesses have lower margins, more in the 15% to 17% range.

Studio based retail photography businesses are generally able to generate more total revenue because they typically have more shooting days. One can shoot in a studio when it's raining, snowing, or dark outside.
However, studios also generally have higher operating costs.

Studio based retail photography business owners do tend to make a somewhat higher income because they have a higher total revenue 

At any rate, here in the USA, the average retail photographer makes a gross income of about $32,000 a year. Only the top 10% of retail photographers make $50,000 a year, or more.

If we assume a studio owner is making $40,000 a year, @ 17%, total revenue would need to be $235,294.


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## bratkinson (Dec 22, 2012)

As a former (non-photography) business owner, I can tell you first hand that keeping the IRS happy can be a real pain!  They are very strict about when to deposit their money, etc.  30 years ago, they were the worlds easiest and lowest rate 'loan company' if you were late...but not any more...instant penalty!

And one more caveat...writing off a portion of your house to business use is one of the big red flags to the IRS shouting 'audit me, audit me...'  So if you do, make sure you do it right and can prove it!


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## KmH (Dec 22, 2012)

Here is where a lot of self-employed small business owners run into problems with the IRS:
The IRS determining that the 'business' was a hobby because the business was not able to demonstrate it was a for profit venture.
At that point the IRS will likely disallow many tax reducing deductions claimed as a business expense in prior years, and assess a higher tax liability for those years the business deductions were claimed. 



> Business or Hobby? Answer Has Implications for Deductions
> In general, taxpayers may deduct ordinary and necessary expenses for conducting a trade or business. An ordinary expense is an expense that is common and accepted in the taxpayer&#8217;s trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is appropriate for the business. Generally, an activity qualifies as a business if it is carried on with the reasonable expectation of earning a profit.
> In order to make this determination, taxpayers should consider the following factors:
> 
> ...


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## nycphotography (Dec 22, 2012)

I would suggest you offer only as many as you're sure you can get in a session.

Most fashion guys charge "per look", and the goal is to get 1 keeper and 2-3 fill shots per look.  The rest get culled.

But when it comes to pricing, the best bet is to decouple selling prints from getting the shots.

Something like:

Session:  $x/ hr  (and be able to give guidance for how many hours they want/need)
Post:  basic macro adjustments included for keepers (priced into the session price.  After which $x/image you can do and $y per image you have to send out.
Prints:  packages based on cost and size etc.  Have some options prepriced, and be prepared to price custom packages quickly.

You can provide a "facebook image" for keepers w/ the session, but price in the time to post and the fact that you'll not likely sell prints.  Also, make sure it's too small (800x1000px or so) to print well.

just some ideas to get you started.


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## unpopular (Dec 22, 2012)

KmH said:


> At any rate, here in the USA, the average retail photographer makes a gross income of about $32,000 a year. Only the top 10% of retail photographers make $50,000 a year, or more.
> 
> If we assume a studio owner is making $40,000 a year, @ 17%, total revenue would need to be $235,294.



So much for easy street! Seems like to make a decent living doing this you'll have to work 5x more than anyone else! No wonder there are so few working professionals on forums like these. They just don't have the time.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2012)

unpopular said:
			
		

> So much for easy street! Seems like to make a decent living doing this you'll have to work 5x more than anyone else! No wonder there are so few working professionals on forums like these. They just don't have the time.



Duh, it's all about the passion, man.

If anyone admitted that their passion is profitable then what would they use to pick up sexy, alternative, art chicks?

You don't want to be a sellout do you...um....man?


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## KmH (Dec 22, 2012)

That, or they can afford to have 5 employees doing the grunt work. :lmao:


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## nycphotography (Dec 22, 2012)

Well.  

You have to consider actual cash expenses vs what people tell the IRS.  

Its hard to make use of 17 to 25% margin numbers on their taxes, where you can pull stuff like write off 59c per miile on your moped, or $55 per diem expense and eat baloney sandwiches.  Those numbers don't mean much in actual cash terms.

I'd be interested in cash flow numbers.  If it ain't cash, it ain't real.

If you already have your main equipment, you can run START a business on relatively low cash expenses.  How you manage those expense as you grow that business is up to you.  If you're tight w/ expenses, more goes into your pocket.  If you're spendy, you might work all year to break even, or even lose.

some poeple want to make money to live... others want to a business to subsidize their lifestyle.  Both are fine, but you can't make any sense of their numbers w/o also knowing them and how they run the "business"


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## KmH (Dec 22, 2012)

Exactly.

So coming onto a forum like this and asking "How much should I charge?" or "What should my prices be?" is pretty much not going to yield any specific, usable numbers.


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