Pricing???

[Quiltstar]

A lady has asked to buy photos from me so she can use them as backgrounds on cards that she sends out. So how much should I charge her for each Hi-res jpg photo she wants? I've not sold any photos for something like this so I don't know what to charge. Would appreciate any help on this.

[Jim Bryant]

depends on just how many cards per view she's going to send out or have printed.

[Quiltstar]

Jiiiiimmmm, that doesn't help. :-) she is a rep for Send Out Cards, where you can put your own images and text on a card on their site and SOC will print and mail them out for you. So, I don't know how many she will use. So I just need a general idea of what to charge her for the use of my photos. Please give me some kind of ball park range here.

[kelleyrie]

well I was gonna suggest that you design the card for her via mpix or something but if she is a rep for a card co. that won't work at all...

[digirebelva]

There are ways to figure out a price
What is her history of selling cards (You will have to ask that one & hope she is honest with the answer) If she normally sells 1,000 cards of each one she does, then you have a base line for your pricing...
How much are the cards selling for?

[moscowmartin]

First, I would check out the company “Send Out Cards” to see what income she can expect and if she can use the same image on other POD sites. I would ask if she is going to market the cards anywhere else and for a general list if she is. I would offer a 3 or 5 year non-exclusive licence so that you could still sell the image or more licences to the image. Although it is unspoken curtsey not to sell an image to a competing company within a set period, you could make the licence more exclusive by saying that no one else (including you) will use the image as greeting cards during the life of the licence for an increase in price.

As for price I would go on the low side for non-exclusive licence, this will give me another income stream for the image and still allow me to sell it else where. It will let the lady have an image for a small outlay for a card that has yet to sell, if you are lucky she will make money and licence more images for you and maybe tell other people about your images.

If you go for this you will need to put in place a record keeping system so that you know when to bill people to renew their licence.

As a side note, I sell images on greeting cards. Off line I get £0.03 - £0.07 per card and online I get $0.30 - $0.60 per card.

[SOC_CARDS]

I'm a SOC distributor as well. She's not selling the cards that she wants to use the photo's for....mainly she's using it for herself to send out cards to people. I suggest you put your logo on the card so everyone she sends the card to see's your work as well. It can be a good referral system for you.

[moscowmartin]

I have just had a quick look at the site and the lady may not be selling the card her self, she can buy cards to have them sent to other people but she can earn commission from people in her down line that buy cards. My question is that if she up loads the card design (with image) will that card be added to the sites catalogue for other people to buy?

[SOC_CARDS]

She's not selling the card, but the greeting card system. She earns a commission from the cards that people in her downline SEND out. The mission of the company is to show people how to become card senders and touch people's lives. The photo is not added to the sites catalogue, it remains with the person. For example, I took digital pictures of my family's summer activities and uploaded it to a card and sent it out to our family. It's my card, not the companies.

[kathiemt]

I'm with Send Out Cards too and joined specifically so I could use my own photos on cards without having to get a minimum print run done through a printer. The cost here in Australia is less than $1.50 printed and posted which I thought to be very good value.

I think you need to decide on a one-off price for this lady and perhaps add a watermark for your web address or something so people know where to find your images if they want to purchase any too.

As mentioned previously she is not selling the cards, but using them for her own personal use. However if she is actively building the Send Out Cards business as a distributor she can share the cards she's designed with her downline for them to use too. Ultimately there's no way to tell if the photo is only going to be used once or 100 times or more.

You could make a stipulation I guess on how often she can use it but I think you could benefit in the long run if others like what they see and want to get access to your images too.