What to charge for catalog shots??

[CarlyRocksPhotos]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

Always charge a creative fee. If you charge by the time, the owner will pile too much on your plate at one time and you'll end spending too much time on photo processing.

Creative Fee. Certainly what I meant about time value. Great advice! I always forget to use the magic words "Creative Fee". I need to tattoo that on my hand. LOL

[darylbanks]

Never base your fee for photography servies such as a studio shoot or editing based on time. If your good at what you do you will do the job faster than someone who is stumbling thorough it. Charged based on the photos you are delivering not how long it took it took to make them look great.

Licensing fees are an altogether different factor.

[Jim Bryant]

You also might want to structure your post processing as well. These are the prices I charge when working for clients in major cities throughout the United States. These prices came from a survey of professional photographers by the Editorial Photographers.


Digital Production Charge

A basic charge that helps cover the added expense of the equipment and cards. This flat charge usually is in lieu of a per-image digital capture charge (see next item). Photographers at the low end of the Digital Production Charge spectrum occasionally include separate equipment charges, CD burn charges, etc.
$200 - $850 per day

Digital Capture

This is a charge for every picture shot digitally. It equates to the cost of film and processing, a production charge many editorial clients understand and are comfortable with. As mentioned, some photographers in our survey use this line item in lieu of the previous "digital production charge," billing in the range of $200 -$500 for the first 50 captures and incrementally lowering the rate as the number of captures increase.

Some photographers I know use the following delineation when itemizing this expense:

Fewer than 50 Captures (base minimum): $250
Up to 100 Captures: $300
Up to 200 Captures: $400
Up to 400 Captures: $750
Up to 500 Captures (base maximum per day): $850

Image Prep
Basic downloading and conversion from the camera's memory card to a readily accessible format, such as TIFF or JPG. It is not to be confused with more detailed post-production enhancements. The respondents who included this category often did so in lieu of a digital service fee or a digital capture charge. $10-$75/image

Final File Prep
Any post production work beyond basic downloading and uploading.
$100 - $200/hr
CD burning
$25 - $35
DVD burning
$35 - $75
FTP uploading
$25 - $100
Equipment charge
$150 -$500/day

Photographers having a low "digital production charge," which may be at the insistence of the client, added this expense. This line item has long been a critical component of other equipment-heavy visual media freelancers, such as film video cameramen. As our own investments approach similarly stratospheric levels, we may be wise to reconsider this paradigm.

Contact sheets, prints
$15-25 per contact sheet or straight reference print

It is clear that we are being pressured by clients who are insisting on digital while resisting paying for our added work and investment. It is also clear that if we are to survive, we must make a stand by insisting on added payment for our added services and expenses.

DIGITAL PRODUCTION CHARGE: $300-$1000/day
CD burning: $30 -$50/disk
DVD burning: $50 -$75/disk
FTP uploading: $75 -$150
Digital (inkjet) contact sheets: $20 - $50/contact sheet
Inkjet reference prints: $15 - 30/print
Digital post-production: $150 - $200/hour

I realize that some of you here on DPS, have no intentions of shooting professionally, while others have showed an interest of earning part-time money and a few who want to make a leap of faith right into the business without the slightest clue of what to charge or how to get started. The above prices are what I charge, so you might have to adjust them to fit your economic area and skill level, but here's a ballpark figure to start from as you figure out your "Cost of Doing Business" in figuring your price structures.
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