What woudl be the avererage..

[Minxes]

Charging people.

So imagine you are a start up photography buisness.... You do your typical family photo shoot, instudio, or on site, you are NOT printing yet, so HOW MUCH DO YOU CHARGE someone for a 1 hr or 2 hr session?? Do you charge per person, per hour and what about it being more than 30 min away?? WHAT WOULD YOU CHARGE??
We do have our own ideas I am just looking to compare to other people to see how insane we are, lol.

Minxes

[JFSanders]

Average business charges average prices. And then goes out of business.

You have to know what it costs you to be open for business regardless of whether or not you ever have a paying customer. Then to that you add what it would cost you to go and be there to make the photograph. This includes ALL the expenses down to the last penny. Then you add what it costs to develop, produce, print, package and deliver the product to the customer.

THEN! You have to add how much you want as a salary per year divided into weeks, days, hours. Don't forget what the government charges you to be in business... Taxes, fees, permits, insurance etc.

When you get the number for all of that, then you make your best guess as to how many bookings that will actually go off AND pay on time and without collections issues. Take that number and divide it into your cost of production and then you have the "average" price to charge your customer.

Hope this helps.

Jim

[autofocus]

as Jim mentioned above, you really can't figure how much to charge until you analyze ALL your costs

this may help...watch this
How Much Should I Charge??AdoramaTV from Adorama Learning Center

[Kheyo]

I found this really useful information

How Much Should I Charge?: Ep 207: Digital Photography 1 on 1 - YouTube

EDIT: Wow LOL beat by one minute!

[Niresangwa]

Instead of asking strangers from literally all over the world, why don't you just do your homework and see what your actual competition in a 50 miles radius charges?

The combine it with the advice you got above.

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by Minxes

Charging people.

So imagine you are a start up photography buisness.... You do your typical family photo shoot, instudio, or on site, you are NOT printing yet, so HOW MUCH DO YOU CHARGE someone for a 1 hr or 2 hr session?? Do you charge per person, per hour and what about it being more than 30 min away?? WHAT WOULD YOU CHARGE??
We do have our own ideas I am just looking to compare to other people to see how insane we are, lol.

Minxes

Chris Adval Learning Model Photography: WOW Share! 06: "How Much Should I Charge?" - Mark Wallace/AdoramaTV

[NicolaB]

As the guys are saying, it very much depends on how much you need to charge to 'be in business'.

If you mean 'before' you are officially in business, then this is my journey in the UK:

1. Last year - just picked up camera: Free for friends - glad they are willing to help me practice
2. Now one year in: Free session fee to get models for portfolio. Charge about 50% of what I expect to charge when pro per print, but tell people there is no minimum order and no obligation to buy. Again I am grateful to people for letting me bumble my way through sessions and would rather them know what stage I am at to manage their expectations.

The down side with this is that people simply do not value 'free' and friends ooh and ahhh about the images but to date, none have actually got around to ordering prints.

My stage three will be when I am feeling more competent, then I will charge about 1/3rd of my planned cost for a sitting because I know the quality is good enough to warrant it - but not quite high enough to be fully pro. I think this is the stage when I will get to see what sort of orders to expect as people have a financial commitment and WILL have motivation to place an order.

oh yes and I charged a friend of a friend 40p per mile the other day as the session was out of area

hth

[Minxes]

Jim, Thank you for your response as there were a few things we had not thought of and some we had.
Autofocus, I did watch that video thank you.
Kheyo, I will get around to that video as well. Thank You.
Niresangwa, That is something we have already looked in to those, I was really looking to hear others prices and ideas as to how they came about to come ours to theirs and hopefully improve.
Chris I will check out that video as well.
Nicole B Thank yo ufor shareing your journey with me it is defintily helpful!

Minxes

[autofocus]

Like what they say..prices are often based on what the market will bear. If you are a well established wedding photographer working in Beverly Hills, CA with an impressive list of past clients, you may be able to charge $15,000 - $20,000 to shoot a wedding. However, that's probably not realistic in most communities. I feel that the biggest mistakes most people make in starting and running a business is not accurately calculating their costs, and of equal importance, not pricing their work accordingly. Because of a lack of confidence in your work you may de-value your worth by starting out with low, budget pricing. The downside of doing this is that you are establishing a precedent that could be difficult to turn around. If you are perceived as a "budget" photographer, it is those customers you will attract, and it may be difficult to change that perception...not a good place to be. If you are planning on charging more of a premium for your work, just be sure the quality of your work warrants that premium. You also can add value to your work by offering products or services that others typically do not.