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Just been offered a big photo job
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Guys, I’ve been asked to produce 10-12 beautiful shots for a major company, and I don’t know what to charge. Do I charge for the job, per selected shot or per hour. They want shots of their product/merchandise, (without giving too much away is part of the landscape) and it’s only at one, maybe two locations. So I can visit this place a few times over the next month or so at differant times of the day.
the pictures will be used for their website and brochures and press releases.
So what do I charge? £500-1000stg for the job? £50-100 per shot that they select???
Well done mate, not sure what way i would charge this ? I think a set price for X number of images. If they need 10 supply 20 they will all need updated in the future and you could get repeat business ? Think about the long grass as they say lol (sometimes)
Ricky.
Congratulations Brian, I hope the job goes well for you. I would charge a set price for the 12 images they need, with an additional charge per extra image chosen.
In terms of pricing, make sure you consider the value of your time, equipment costs etc. £1000 seems a bit low to me, considering the amount of effort involved.
Common Law of Business Balance
It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.
£1000 a shot. Wow, let’s take a dose of reality here. If they were prepared to pay that kinda doe they wouldn’t be asking someone like me for photo’s. I’m not talking meself down here, I know I can take good shots, (if I take enough of them) but at the end of the day I’m still just a weekend warrior and having to produce 10-12 high quality shots scares the bee-jaysis out of me. If they wanted to pay £1000, which I’d gladly take, they’d be talking to the top agencies our there, not Google’ing the likes of me.
As Ricky said, I need to think about the long grass. If I do a good job at a respectable price they’ll come back, I hope. And they have locations in Donegal, Scotland, Norway, Wales, Holland and Saudi.Thanks guys for your feedback and support. I will probably try to present 20 shots and let them choose the 10-12 that they want. As regards price, I think £1,000 for the package is a reasonable quote, I’m thinking of the “long grass” here.
If I’m wrong here please tell me.
Brian
I think you should maybe double your quote
if you work out how many hours you gonna spend on producing 20 images i think you might be suprised at what your hourly rate it
Brian, im new to this forum and ive just had a look at ur website…..ur stuff is amazing!! I agree with SteveD and would def try and get a bit more for cash then €1000 for this job.
Has ur work been selling to this date and if so how much per print? maybe this could be a starting point….I understand that u dont want to charge too much, i think the hardest thing to do as an artist/photographer is price ur own work. But i dont think €2000-3000 is too expensive…..it depends aswell on how big the company is and how much they have. Oh God I really dont envy u!!! Good Luck with it tho :)
Brian_C wrote:
£1000 a shot. Wow, let’s take a dose of reality here. If they were prepared to pay that kinda doe they wouldn’t be asking someone like me for photo’s. I’m not talking meself down here, I know I can take good shots, (if I take enough of them) but at the end of the day I’m still just a weekend warrior and having to produce 10-12 high quality shots scares the bee-jaysis out of me. If they wanted to pay £1000, which I’d gladly take, they’d be talking to the top agencies our there, not Google’ing the likes of me.
If I’m wrong here please tell me.
You could be very, very wrong here in your thinking.
Do your homework beforehand.
I’d have to agree with Ashley, £1,000 to shoot 10-12 product/location shots is almost farcical.
Commissioned photography is a world away from royalty free stock photography and you need to get into that mindset.
If they found 10-12 rights managed stock images they could easily pay more than £1,000 per year of use, per image, depending on how often and where the image is used.You’re talking one or two locations, each visited maybe a coupla times on different ocassions.
Don’t overestimate how fast you can complete the work, if you rush and screw up you’ll be history so take your time and allow lots of leeway.
Even at just 5 visits in all your day rate is down to £200 for a flat fee of £1000, or £100 if you only charge £500.
And if you take longer your day rate is even less, and that’s before you start deducting any expenses you have (petrol, assistants, props, equipment hire, food, etc).
Not to mention what the taxman could take.
That’s such poor pay it’s not even funny.You own the rights to the image and of course you can sell them on any way you want.
Handing over all rights for 12 images for all time for £1000 really does devalue what you do though.
At the very least make it explicit where they can use the image (media), what territories they can use it in and for how long.A day rate of £500 – £1500 is pretty standard, with £500 (+expenses) being what I’d expect to pay for someone starting out.
However, Brian_C didn’t say they wanted him to ‘work for hire’ though, he said they wanted him to:
…produce 10-12 beautiful shots…of their product/merchandise… the pictures will be used for their website and brochures and press releases.
He is being asked to produce & provide them with images to use here.
So he should be talking to them about ‘Usage Rights’ here, not about his ‘time & expenses’ to do a JOB.To be honest, I think even Ashley, may be undervaluing this job.
From your website it’s clear you can deliver. IMO anything under 10K is a giveaway.
T.
Covey wrote:
To be honest, I think even Ashley, may be undervaluing this job.
From your website it’s clear you can deliver. IMO anything under 10K is a giveaway.
T.
I’d agree with you – it would all come down to these 3 things: Media use, Period of use and Territory.
Brian, you said it’s a “major company” which suggests that they have most likely given it some thought and set a budget, and have some resource to pull from, which might help you profile the company for ‘how much you think they can afford’ – if it was the same job for a small local family business, quoting several thousands on principle after the above advice might not be met with the same enthusiasm.
I also find that clients don’t always know what they want the pictures for, assuming that you’ll just give them pics that can be used for “you know, just stuff”, i.e. anything and everything and forever. Given the – potential – scale of this job, follow the advice above and determine what they’ll be used for – are you sure it’s only “for their website and brochures and press releases”? A brochure isn’t the same as a poster or billboard or magazine ad – which they might assume is all part of it. I struggle with this all the time, and frankly it does my nut in!
Go to a restaurant and when the waitress asks: ‘What would you like this evening, Sir’ – say:
“you know, just stuff”, i.e. anything and everything and forever.
… and let me know what she says !
I have not read all of the posts but i did see one that said £2000 wouldnt be to much ??
I quoted a job at 50% of what the net and the members of this forum had advised and the company said it was way out of there budget, I had thought that it was still a lot of money and less would of covered me and got my foot in the door !When i say the net it was a link posted about image usage rights and what to charge etc i cant find it again but it must of been for big international firms not local or uk business’s !
Every company and client will be different and have different budgets, and 9 out of 10 times they will have other vendors putting in a quote so dont think your the only.
Ricky.
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