# commercial shoot for company - what should I charge?



## michaelandcarina (Nov 2, 2012)

Hello,

My wife and I work as wedding/lifestyle photographers and we were recently contacted by a company to do a major shoot over 5 days at 6 locations across my state of their employees going about everyday business for promotional purposes. Whew. I need to learn how to make shorter sentences. 

They need 400-500 images. 

I normally start my wedding prices at $2200-4000-5500 as variations for one day collections. 

However, I would really like to get my toes wet in commercial photography and do book this job while remaining competitive and without undercutting the market. I also am guessing these kinds of things bring in considerably less money than weddings. So...

What should I charge? $3500? $4000? 

I'm looking at at least 3 hours of traveling each day, 5 days of work, the shooting time each day (5-6 hrs), plus editing and delivering the 400-500 images from RAW to .jpeg format, plus taxes, traveling fee...

We are one of three photographers left in the running and they are deciding based on price, I THINK, they haven't said. Plus, I am a member of a husband wife team, so we are both shooting it together.

Equipment would be 2 5D Mark IIs, L lens assortment, couple of primes, all insured, some speedlights, walimex stands, yongnuo transmitters and receivers, and a few modifiers, umbrellas, softboxes, etc. 

Check out our work and see for yourself - www.michaelandcarina.com - what you think our work is worth - it's our only job, our only income, and we shoot with pro, insured gear (5D Mark IIs, L lenses).


----------



## tirediron (Nov 2, 2012)

It really depends on how much you need to make to cover your COB - for me, travel and shooting would bill out at about $3800, and then it would depend on how much editing was required.  Assuming it could be kept in the 1-2 minutes per image, then probably another $1000, so say, ballpark $4800 for the work.


----------



## Sw1tchFX (Nov 2, 2012)

Alot. North of $10,000. 


Welcome to the world of bidding for work. 

This is more demanding than a wedding, so charge more than a day for a wedding. 


Photographer's fee of MINIMUM $5000/day
include travel expenses, food expenses
don't forget equipment rental and assistants
Make sure they have an art director.


Day rate at $8000 isn't uncommon for commercial shooting in my town. $5000 is what you would charge for about 4 days of grip-n'-grin shooting for a company.


----------



## gsgary (Nov 3, 2012)

Sw1tchFX said:


> Alot. North of $10,000.
> 
> 
> Welcome to the world of bidding for work.
> ...



Does beer money come under food expenses ?


----------



## KmH (Nov 3, 2012)

5-days and 6 locations - Yep! Over $10,000, and that would not include the promotional use licensing fees.

The commercial photography business model is very much different from the retail (weddings) photography business model.
The company will be generating revenue from the use of your photos. That's what the use licensing fees are about.
The cost of a use license is determined by how an image will be used - exclusive or non-exclusive use, geographical area of the use, how long it will be used, what media types for the use, etc.
Exclusive, worldwid, unlimited media type usage costs the most, usually a % of the total media buy.

If you visit American Society of Media Photographers and on the left of the page click on *Business Resources* you can read more info about use licensing. ASMP will recommend the commercial license pricing software fotoQuote Pro.


----------

