700 dollars and unlimited time?!!?!

[metric_photography]

I recently had a future bride contact me inquiring about my wedding packages. She heard about me because her sister was a bridesmaid in the wedding that I recently shot. I mentioned that based on the pictures she wanted, that she would need at least 6 hours of coverage. I gave her a quote that is comparable and fair with other photographers in the area for the same about of hours. This is the response I got:

"one of the packages im looking at is unlimited hours and she is only charging 700 dollars"


I was stunned. $700 cdn dollars for UNLIMITED hours? Okay, so when I get married I will call this woman and get her to work 14+ hours and travel to two locations (which this prospective client wanted) and edit all the pics and only pay her $700. Sounds like they will be beautiful, well edited pics!!!

[ChrisAdval]

its not only her, its many people, even some on these forums who offer "unlimited" just to give that gimmicky feel that comes with that word of "unlimited," even though its not truly unlimited when they actually hire them... I've seen a photographer on dPS offer unlimited (within reason), my thought was within reason is very subjective and I could say its reasonable for "unlimited" time frame would be about 10 hours shooting... lol or more even... its way too subjective and it's based on opinion too on what is "unlimited." But when everyone sees "unlimited" they will automatically assume they literally get unlimited, heck not even GoDaddy gives true unlimited resources, and put in the fine print the true limits. It's a marketing trend right now sadly, especially in the wireless cell services today.

[kirbinster]

Yes but unlimitted hours may only include two or three pictures per hour

[mokka]

how unlimited can a wedding day possibly be? Are there people out there who have weddings over 24 hours? or more?

[NathanFranke]

Originally Posted by mokka

how unlimited can a wedding day possibly be? Are there people out there who have weddings over 24 hours? or more?

I photographed my sister-in-law's wedding. Rehearsal started at 6:00ish on Friday. Getting ready pics started 3:00ish on Saturday, and reception ended after 10 pm. It felt like "unlimited." She got it for free 'cuz she's my sister, but similar packages in the area (central NC) run about $3000.

Unlimited = undercharging, for whatever the reason--which is fine, as long as the customer knows what she's paying for.

[inkista]

Probably my fave take on the whole issue of cheap photographers:

Cheap Photographers Only Kill Themselves, Not The Industry.

I shot a wedding this weekend for $1000, unlimited time, and provided a second-shooter.

Ended up being a 14-hour day.

Don't quite get the fuss. Fourteen hours of shooting + 1 pre-meeting + 5 hours of editing = 20 hours.

$200 for the second photographer.

$1000-200 = $800/20 = $40/hour, which is more than I make at my day job.

All my gear is paid for, and my day job covers my health insurance, so $40/hour is plenty. Not a lot of careers where you can make $40/hour without any formal educaiton.

Wanna hear the worst part? I give away the full-res digital files when I'm done!

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by Photoboothguy

I shot a wedding this weekend for $1000, unlimited time, and provided a second-shooter.

Ended up being a 14-hour day.

Don't quite get the fuss. Fourteen hours of shooting + 1 pre-meeting + 5 hours of editing = 20 hours.

$200 for the second photographer.

$1000-200 = $800/20 = $40/hour, which is more than I make at my day job.

All my gear is paid for, and my day job covers my health insurance, so $40/hour is plenty. Not a lot of careers where you can make $40/hour without any formal educaiton.

Wanna hear the worst part? I give away the full-res digital files when I'm done!

I haven't even gone professional yet and I've already noticed how much wear each session do to my gears. Considering that our gears have only a limited lifespan and how expensive it is to replace/fix them, why wouldn't you add this cost to your fees? What about your computer? You're going to be tearing your hardrive loading all those photos and editing. How many clicks did you do on that 14 hour day and how many days like that can you do until your gears give out?

At 14 hours straight with wedding shoots - goodness, that's a lot. Was it really necessary to have such a long day of shooting?

$40 per hour sure is decent money in comparison to doing normal day jobs out there. But if you really calculate your expenses properly, how much of that $40 per hour is really left? Why aren't you insuring your gears? Did you take into account how much of that $1K would go to paying your taxes? Business insurance? Marketing?

There are people here who are reading this thread and desiring to do photography full time. If you base your fees/worth of your work comparing it to how much money you would be taking home if you had a day job instead, then you're not really providing a real, in-depth, realistic advice on doing photography as a proper business. How long can you sustain this part time business with this kind of simple comparison calculation you do with how you charge for your business?

All these people in the forum who have given advice and have successful business for years with their photography do speak out of knowledge and experience. I'm not saying that you aren't one of those, but based on the response you have given, you are putting other people at risk of failing in this business because you haven't given any consideration to ALL the costs involved in starting and running it.

Charging fees cause it seems "good enough" is not how you run a business.

[kirbinster]

While much of what the above poster has just said is technically valid, it really sounds like sour grapes. If someone wants to do things cheaper than you well that is just too bad - its what our free economy allows. If it puts other people "at risk" well that is really too bad. What you are saying sounds like a union arguement -we charge this much so you have to also. The hell with that. If he wants to do it for $40 an hour and feels he is making enough to be happy then more power to him. Yea after time he may not find that he is taking in enough to run a full time business, but that does not seem like his goal. If you cannot compete with him then you will lose some jobs to him based on price - that is how our free market economy is supposed to work.

Your technical analysis is spot on by the way, I just have a problem with what appears to be your not so hidden agenda here.

[graciousness]

Don't get me wrong, by the way. I'm not a professional and I don't completely agree with a lot of photographer's sentiments on "don't work for free" or "you're a newbie so you have no business in doing this business" sort of attitude. I think there's been a little bit too much discouraging tones in this section that scared a lot of people who are wanting to get into the business. I'm one of those that gets scared when I read such posts and threads cause you know, you're suppose to know 'everything under the sun' before you jump in and charge someone for photos.

But I do believe and know that there are certain things you do need to consider before you think of setting fees for your work. This is where I am speaking from current experience and realising how much more work/gears involved in taking on shoots like a wedding or parties. People do need to know what is involved in starting out this photography business and this is where people like you, Photobooth, who already has started on this path can give insight for people like me, (starters) on what are the real costs in this business no matter how big or small you want to be involved.

How much money did you spend to get all the gears you need to start out this venture and what are the on-going costs?

Is it necessary to insure your entire business or can you get away with not insuring, at least, your gears?

How much marketing have you done to get your business known and get hired? What are the costs involved in that?

Personally, how much integrity do you care to maintain with your photographs? Do you care if your clients edit your work and let others use them however they want or are you the kind to protect the integrity of your work and restrict use of the photos?

What about contracts?

And etc.

So as you can see, this is where I'm coming from and it's not enough to be advised to charge more than what I could bring home in comparison to a day job. Surely you do know that there's a lot more involved in that.