Image Pricing: Another Question

Hello everyone!


I have a dilemma--I have sold some photos but don't know how much to charge for them. :D


Last month I attended a convention.It is rather hard to avoid being noticed with a gripped 40D and 70-200/2.8L, and so they asked me to take a few photos of the scholarship presentation (there were 4 awarded). I emailed them the best 11 photos, and they are pleased with them and are wondering how much I am charging for the photos. They will for sure use at least one in their publication, which has a circulation of 4,000+ people. So... How much should I charge?


Thanks!

One million dollars!!!!


Unless they say no thanks, then you should have charged less.


I have never sold any photos, but price will depend more on venue/buyer/market than anything else. Small host company for convention will possibly have less money to spend. Go with what feels appropriate. Don't forget to get recognition in the circulation.

Since they didn't hire a real photographer (they just asked you on the spot) they probably don't have an idea themselves of what to charge. So, within the boundaries of not charging a gross amount or a puny amount, you can charge whatever you want. I'd charge $150-200. I don't know if that's what you were looking for, but today there is so much predatory pricing in the photography business nobody knows what to charge any more [8o|]

I think Brendan is on the right track. $150-$200 sounds fair, you should make them aware that they are not just paying you for the Photo, but for your time as well...; taking the photo, post-processing, editing and cropping. Since, this was an on the spot hire, I would lean towards the lower cost of $150 for your time and the photo.


In negotiating; if you call them on the phone which is aways best, then I would start off at $175 and then if they balk at that, then it gives you some wiggle room to come down to $150 plus recognition for the photo. If you send them an estimate via e-mail, I would probably say $150 or you may not have a chance to renegotiate.


If this is a non-profit scholarship program and all else fails, and you think that they may have a need for your services in the future, then you may want to donate the picture with recognition credit, donation acknowledgement and a posting of your contact information or business card in the publication.


Good Luck,


Rich

A few months ago I asked aprofessional nature photographer in Calgary a question along the same lines. Here's what he said:
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: blue; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"]I usually charge $25/image if it's screen resolution for presentations and the web, for print I usually charge $50 for 9 x 6 x 300 dpi, and the price<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"]<o:p></o:p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: blue; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"]goes higher for larger sizes or for print. For books they usually pay me about $200-$300/image. For a powerpoint presentation - I would probably charge around $25/image.If you think you can get more thenby all means - if they come back and say they can't afford it, sometimes you can ask them what amount could they afford and you decide how many images you will sell them for the amount they have in their budget. Usually the more images they purchase the cheaper the price per image. If they only need one image,then I charge more mostly for the time to process and deliver the image.If they intend to use the images for print as well, they you could charge more. <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"]<o:p></o:p>

Thanks for the advice, everyone! They'll be sending me a check soon. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Richard Lane

I think Brendan is on the right track. $150-$200 sounds fair, you should make them aware that they are not just paying you for the Photo, but for your time as well...; taking the photo, post-processing, editing and cropping.

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Jumping on that bandwagon, consider travel time, travel costs, vehicle costs, equipment investment, equipment insurance, disk space, costs for offsite backups of your disk space, computer hardware and software investment, power and cooling costs for your computing hardware, spare equipment (if any), loads of AA batteries (and likely chargers) for your flash.


One tiny datapoint: a typical home PC draws 250W with peripherals. At $0.06/kwhr, you're talking a penny and a half per hour, or $10.80 per month. Rough estimates for cooling, and assuming you don't have an efficient datacenter in your home office, you're looking at another $10.80 or perhaps $13.50 to cool that PC, so nearly $25/month. If you replace that PC with a screamer for editing purposes, you not only have a higher power cost, but you could have $3600 in hardware costs and that'd be $150/month over a two-year span. You'd better sell at least two photos! :)