questions about charging for prints and other stuff when your not a pro

[praline3001]

I have had many friends/family love my photos and lately I have been approached by many asking how much I charge for this or that print as it would look great in their hall/bathroom/den... Yeah I like my friends and family ..good for the ego HA HA

As you guys know ... I am a complete novice with an extremely limited knowledge of photography. Locally though I am a hero

So up to this point I have freely given copies of my photos to friends and family so they can print them up themselves. I enjoy being able to make someone's day a little brighter.

The past 2 days I have had friends I haven't seen in 20 years who live out of state asking me to purchase some of my photos. Hubby says I am selling myself short by just giving them away. I told him I would have ZERO idea how much to even ask for if I did sell them HA HA

I have never given photography as a career any thought. I do it because it makes me happy. I am very happy to give my photos away for free to friends but hubby thinks if I continue to do so people will take advantage of my good nature.

So if folks keep asking, how much does someone charge for a print?

[OsmosisStudios]

I used to do it as follows:
(Materials/production cost + time the image took to make x per hour rate) x2*

*This number varies a bit from 2-4, depending on the size of the print, the photo itself, etc.

Now I would take out the "Time it took to make" and just add a "creative fee" of a certain amount.

[autofocus]

For friends and family, pure discretion as to what you give them and/or charge. We give lots of freebies away, mostly to family. However, the risk is when a friend of a friend sees your work and wants a copy or two, or an enlargement. You may not be thinking "pro" now, but many pro photographers started this way, just like you...and you don't want to establish a precedent of giving too much stuff away for free, or too cheaply. Just my cut on this.

[RichardTaylor]

For the few that I have sold it is similar to the way OsmosisStudios did it.

I am just a hobbyist.

[NgaiHill]

I would suggest that at the very least it should not cost you anything. So at a minimum the cost of printing + travel to & from the printer.
People tend to value more the things they have to pay for.

[RyanSandsPhotography]

Zenfolio.com - Go get an account, upload your photos and sell them via their website.

Charge 3X what the print actually costs you to purchase from Zenfolio.
No more thinking needed...your done.

[CarissaLyn]

I was going to post almost this exact same thread. I really have no interest in going into Photography as a business (definitely not at the level I'm at) but people want copies of photos. I've given plenty as gifts, but if I'm making a print, I figure I need to at least cover costs, but I never know how to charge over that.

Not to hijack this thread, but what if someone wants a digital copy? Like to use as a desktop background or something like that? If I'm giving them that high-res of a copy, they could make their own prints, too, so I feel like I should get *something* but I really don't know how to handle that.

[Melio]

I was also going to recommend Zenfolio... it's a really nice way to set everything up and you can use third party vendors to take care of almost all the work or you can do it yourself. Lots of options. It's up to you how generous you want to be, but it's always nice to make a little side cash too

[ArmySoldier777]

Originally Posted by RyanSandsPhotography

Zenfolio.com - Go get an account, upload your photos and sell them via their website.

Charge 3X what the print actually costs you to purchase from Zenfolio.
No more thinking needed...your done.

Zenfolio is great. But there are two things to keep in mind that haven't been mentioned.

First of all, in order to sell prints at your own price, you need the Premium plan which runs $100 a year. That's not too bad if you're easily making more than that off of your prints/photography per year, but you're charged that $100 at one time, it's not a monthly plan.

Second, you have to have a business tax id. You can make money on there without it, but you can't collect on it until you get your EIN.

I use zenfolio, and I love it. But without those two things, there's not really any way to make money off of your prints with it.

[CarissaLyn]

Originally Posted by ArmySoldier777

Second, you have to have a business tax id. You can make money on there without it, but you can't collect on it until you get your EIN.

Do you need to? I was just looking into it, and it said to enter either your EIN or your personal SSN for your tax id.