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Wandering what to charge
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One of my dad’s colleagues is hoping to set up a website that sells clothes and so far he’s been unsuccessful in taking pictures himself. So my dad suggested me and i’m wandering what to charge bearing in mind it’s not my full-time job and i’m not considered a pro….yet :D
he said he’s taken about 100 pictures himself so i assume i’ll be taking about the same. I have to travel for an hour each way and i’ll be there for about 7 hours or so. I’d be happy with ?300 but is that asking too much….or not enough?
cheers for any advice guys and i’ll post some new images soon enough.
I presume when you say you’ll be there 7 hours or so, that means 7 hours shooting time? That’s quite a lot of shooting time. You will probably spend the same amount of time again afterwards in post processing and finishing. Also don’t forget to take precautions to ensure that you get accurate colours (using a custom white balance). All of this needs to be factored into your price. How much is he paying to get the website done? This may give you an indication as to his budget and therefore give you something to start with in terms of pricing. In my opinion, ?300.00 is probably too little, given the amount of work involved.
This old chestnut crops up on a regular basis, at the end of the day its all down to what you would be happy with.
A couple of things to bear in mind.
You say you will be there for approx. 7 hours. I don’t know what you currently work at, but I would certainly charge at least what your current hourly rate is. You also have to charge for the time spend post processing (I usually charge a slightly lower rate for this). Then add on travel time and also expenses (petrol etc.). Then you have to decide what you are going to charge for image use, and a price per image.
A “standard” way of charging would be
Actual hours spent on the job (on location).
Travel time & expenses.
Post processing.
Cost per image.The above would be a type of professional template, and there are probably many other ways of charging, but this is what work for me. Having a template can also help you to justify a charge, not that you should have to, but you never know. You should also bear in mind that if he was hiring a full-time professional, hourly rates can vary from 50 to 150 euro per hour, depending on the individual. You might not be a pro, but, if you are hired, you will be expected to produce professional quality results.
You can go even deeper into charges for hi-res / lo-res images, website images, advertising (magazine etc.) images.
However, if you just see this as a bit of handy extra cash just quote an all-in price you would be happy with. There is nothing wrong with this (in fact I did it myself before turning pro on more than one occasion). However, if there is a possibility that you could get some extra work out of it, it is always handy to have some sort of billing template so you can keep your charges level across the board.
Finally, if you expect to be shooting for 7 hours, then add in another hour for the round trip. Thats 8 hours before any post processing. 7 hours shooting is a lot of images to be processed, at minimum the same time again, and then how many images will he receive ? Personally I think that a price of 300 for all that work (and images) is way too low.
Hope this helps and doesn’t confuse you and best of luck with the job.
Rgds
Kevin
Hi,
300.00 is not enough, What do you normally earn in a two to three day period as a wage? Add all expenses to your normal wage at the very least.
Is the guy looking for prints or just digital files on a DVD?
Try thinking double ie, 600.00 euros, Personally I would be looking for at least 950.00 for a days work and 100 images supplied as jpegs on CD / DVD with 10×12 contact sheets (9images to a page) Travel charge extra, dependant on mileage, plus extra for resizing for web use.
If you are not at all sure, ask the guy what his budget for the photography is and take it from there, he may come out with a higher figure than you are thinking about.
Hope this helps
Good luck
Phil
From what I can make out from the details so far I just calculated it as if I were doing the job and I would quote ?1455 plus VAT 13.5%. If it sounds expensive I can tell you its about one third cheaper than most commercial photographers in this area and until I began quoting realistic prices like I have just done I was not getting the work as a cheap quotation leaves the client wondering if this guy knows what he’s doing and the client will play safe every time.
One thing…….just because you are not a “professional” does not mean your work is inferior in any way. The handyman who helps you and gets your car started in the middle of nowhere is worth the same money as the expensive call-out mechanic who will just do the same thing.
Dont put yourself down …… if your cheap you’ll be treated that way …….. and used and abused.
Like I always say, if i buy a ?200 car I wont mind hitting the odd pillar or letting it run low in oil but if i pay out ?35000 for a car, I’ll mind it and take care of it. The same applies in the service business also.
Sorry to preach……but dont undersell yourself.
thanks guys, you’ve certainly boosted my confidence and yeah i’ll see what he says to ?600. that would certainly be a nice income for me. But then again as you’ve said if i charge too low then anyone else wanting me to work for them will expect a low rate aswell so although i know i can’t charge a huge amount i do need to not shoot myself in the foot for future work.
Well you can always say “if it were anyone else it would be ?xxx but for yourself I’ll just do it for $600”. This will leave no one on doubt that its just a once off that you will not be repeating for everybody.
You’re so right there Gerry, everyone likes to think they got a bargain !! The next time someone winges at my charges I’ll point out how very very reasonable I am compared to others (ie you Gerry, Ha Ha, only kidding) Oh, and I forgot to add at the end of my little quick quote the legend PLUS VAT. But as I am sure you all know charges depend a lot on overheads, low over heads = lower charges. Paying out twenty thousand a year in rent for your studio / office means you will caherge more obviously.
Unless you are very famous in which case you can charge what the heck you like and get away with it.Phil
One other point which I don’t think has been mentioned, you’ll do about 7hrs shooting time, that’s a lot of shots but who’s gonna process them, who’s gonna download, compress and upload to website. You? That’ll be alot more time.
Brian_C wrote:
One other point which I don’t think has been mentioned, you’ll do about 7hrs shooting time, that’s a lot of shots but who’s gonna process them, who’s gonna download, compress and upload to website. You? That’ll be alot more time.
It’s been mentioned at least twice :wink:
Thorsten wrote:
You will probably spend the same amount of time again afterwards in post processing and finishing.
KPM wrote:
You also have to charge for the time spend post processing (I usually charge a slightly lower rate for this).
Personally, I feel that the post-processing and finishing time should be factored into the overall base quotation, as you can’t really have one without the other. I think if you charge for it as a separate line item, clients may well question your ability to take decent photographs in the first place. They might take the view of”why should I pay you extra to “fix” the images when I could have paid someone to take them properly in the first place?” Most clients don’t understand that all images need working on after a shoot. It also focuses you to produce work as good as you can possibly get in the camera rather than spending hours upon hours post processing later on
Thorsten wrote:
Personally, I feel that the post-processing and finishing time should be factored into the overall base quotation, as you can’t really have one without the other.
I’ve been thinking about rates & stuff lately too, and I think quoting a base rate for the shoot PLUS a quoted rate for post processing could help in giving the client an idea of final cost, as sometimes it’s difficult to predict whether you’ll spend 2 hours working 10 images or 5 hours churning out 100.
Thorsten wrote:
They might take the view of”why should I pay you extra to “fix” the images when I could have paid someone to take them properly in the first place?”
After you’ve done a few jobs, you’ll realise you want to spend as little time as possible in post-processing, but as much time as necessary to get them to the required standard. Hopefully this should also come across to the client if they raise an objection, and the time you add to the invoice will be fair. You’ll learn through practice to get the image as good as possible on the shoot, so that you can ‘finish the job’ afterwards as quickly as possible.
I recently finished a set for a promotional band shoot (a duo) and one of the lads had a terrible skin condition… took ages to fix up. If I didn’t, the pics he’d be using wouldn’t do him any favours at all. Believe me, fixing acne & zits on each individual image (about 15 of them) really is no fun at all. :cry:
Processing of images is one thing but cleaning up zits comes under image manipulation in my book and is charged at 85 euros plus vat per hour.
Clients can be finnicky when it comes to a perceived double charge, I bundle the work and processing under one charge but make sure that the client knows that if I take one day to take photos that it will take at least another day for processing before they will see the images. Any image manipulation is an extra charge.
Phil
It just occurred to me that an analogy can be drawn against sound and video production too; you got to have the equipment and the know how to record the event in the first place, but then in each discipline the work needs to be post processed. I don’t know of a sound engineer who would give a musician a recording straight from the sound desk at the gig saying ‘here you go’.
Well i got ?300! I’m kinda annoyed actually cuz i put in a good 14-15 hours on it in total and after hearing what you guys have to say i think i should have got more. i just won’t be working with those people again and certainly not promoting them which i was going to do but now i know it wouldn’t be returned. ah well we all have to start somewhere.
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