# Cost of Doing Business Calculator



## AprilRamone (Jun 12, 2008)

Pricing is always a hot topic on Photography forums and I found this link EXTREMELY helpful. 
http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/index.html


Let me give you a little example....
I am a single female in my mid-20's (although my younger sisters like to say it's my "late" 20's haha) with no children, & no actual rent or utilities that need to be paid. Using this calculater I determined that I need to make AT LEAST $628.00 per portrait customer to make a decent salary (I believe I put 40K) after all of the costs of running the biz come into play. 

So those of you with families, with children, with rent/mortgages should obviously need to make more of an actual salary that I need to. And those of you who would like to rent your own space for the business need to think about how much all of that really costs and then price accordingly.

I used to think "Oh, well this print cost me 1.00, so if I charge 3x what it cost me, I'll be doing ok." That is not the way to price yourself. 

I hope this is helpful to someone!


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## maytay20 (Jun 12, 2008)

Wow this is helpful.  Even doing this out of my house I am still in the negative.  They say the business get roughly 10% of your bills and man it isn't pulling much of its weight. LOL I mainly have been spending all of the money I make with it on books (education) and equipment so far.


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## Dave127 (Jun 12, 2008)

I was just going to say it. 

The print may cost $1 but what about the equipment, fuel, transportation, your time, insurance, accounting, electric, ect, ect.

The point is, even while not being married or having kids, you still have more over head than just the print.

I can tell you from first hand experience, what ever you think your business over head will be triple it and now your getting close.

BTW you still need to make a profit after your expenses.


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## tirediron (Jun 12, 2008)

Cool link - thanks!


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