Hello Potential Client,
Regarding your last email in which you said:
“… if they (your client) saw the $700/ $1400 a day fee for the photographer they would dismiss the project immediately … (most of my client’s people make between $25 and $45 an hour)… Showing $100/hr was also a job-killer as you can imagine”.
Well sure thing. I see where you’re coming from… Let’s rewrite the quote to show the actual number of hours I will work on this job, instead of only those spent with my face in a camera. Maybe that will help.
It should show 10 hours in both locations (6 hours actually making images, 4 to setup and break down), plus 2 more hours packing and unpacking at my studio each day (I can’t leave $20,000 worth of equipment in the car every night)… that’s 12 hours.
Then there’s the drive time to both locations (1 hour, if traffic is good. Doubtful.). Now we’re up to 13 hours.
Add 3 hours of post-production for both of the three hour locations (downloading, image selection, tagging, applying tonal and color adjustments, archiving, uploading to web galleries, and pre-print production, plus the certain conversations and meetings that will be required, and the replacing of materials used…). That’s 6 more hours.
This brings the total to 19 hours of actual time dedicated exclusively to this 6 hours of actually making photographs on each day. And that doesn’t reflect most of the time and expenses required for me to stay in business just so I am available and able to be hired… so we’re still being conservative.
You said a $100 per hour fee was a “Job Killer”, because people in your client’s business can only make $45 per hour. But unlike those who have jobs working for corporations (such as your client), I must personally pay for everything I use in my job… everything in my office and studio, from the carpet (and floor) under my feet to the computer and printer on my desk to the ceiling fan (and ceiling) over my head. Most hourly employees have those things provided for them in their place of employment. Their employer pays for those assets by billing their clients in a realistic manner.
Quotes are not detailed to the extent that you requested because there are hundreds of “hidden” expenses, commonly known as the cost of doing business, that are just not appropriate to show in a quote. Can you imagine the response to a line item for groceries, electricity or an oil change? Yet these are necessary items that must be paid for if I am to remain in business.
My business also requires a great many hours performing tasks that are not directly billable to anyone; preparing quotes, upgrading and implementing new technology (by necessity, not to be au courant at cocktail parties), finding new clients, maintaining existing accounts, preparing and disseminating marketing materials. Those websites, blogs and social media posts do not write and build themselves.
Then there are repairs to equipment and vehicles, shopping and laundry, cleaning the studio… and the sidewalk to the studio. Resupplying materials like seamless paper, gaffer tape, staples, batteries, ink.
I am my own IT department, my accounts payable and receiving, purchaser, sales staff and secretary. These are assets your client has available to them, that are not funded from their $45 per hour wages. What you call my “Job Killer” fee must pay for all those expenses and all those man hours.
Accounts Receivable and Payable, Purchasing, Marketing, Sales, R&D, Web Master, Maintenance and Creative staff at T.W. Meyer Photography, BTAPB.com, Vp1618 LLC and Temp Wizard Enterprises
And there are not forty $100 hours in my work week. Ever.
The kind of 21st Century photography involved in this particular assignment isn’t cheap. It requires professional dSLR cameras and lenses, battery powered strobe lights with radio transmitters, wifi routers and networks, laptop computers, printers, servers, custom social media pages and web galleries and all the little but absolutely imperative, techno-invisible wonders of modern imaging. The failure of but one of these can melt the whole illusion into a grinding flop. So I have to have two. Of everything. And they must be insured.
These hours and dollars have to be invested. I can’t stay in business without them and I can’t do them for free, either. While sitting in my house office writing this letter, money drains from accounts and expenses incur.
That $100 per hour “Job Killer” fee is a rock bottom barrier beneath which I cannot even break even. There is no retirement, 401k or IRA contribution down there. There is no car payment there. There is no health insurance payment there. No mortgage, no utilities, no night out on the town. Below those rates I’m not only losing any profit… I’m just going into debt a little slower than if I were not working at all.
I wish I could count on a consistent 40 hours per week at the wage your client makes ($45 per hour, you said?) and know that $93k was going to come in every year.
I wish I had two weeks of paid holiday, sick days and health insurance…
There are hundreds of students graduating every day as “photographers” who can under bid me for a year… maybe two. But eventually these realities also become unavoidable to them, at which time they become real estate agents or go back to being baristas… or they start billing at that “job killer” rate of $100 per hour.
It should really be $200.
In fact, I’ll be re-writing that quote now. Thanks for the inspiration.
Tom Meyer
About The Author
Tom Meyer is a photographer from Decatur, Georgia, USA. He also has a small studio in Little Five Points just east of Atlanta. Tom specializes in location portraiture and work in studio constructing still life imagery and photographing people and products for a wide range of clients. You can visit Tom on his site, and follow him on his blog, Facebook and Twitter. This article was originally published here.
Oh snap!
And what did this imaginary client respond?
why does it matter if this is an imaginary client or a real one? It is a well written argument that answers an issue that photographers deal with.
The imaginary client chose another photographer off craigslist for free.
I love this!
Then the client answers: “Ok, can you just give me the raw shooting for 45/hr then?” ;)
Nice article. I think everyone into photography have to deal with this clients on a regular basis.
We must always evaluate market rates, and make sure we’re not under-valuing our worth or becoming prima-donnas. Clients in many fields rarely understand the time and effort required to create which is understandable given how many products are “free” these days, and the general cultural trend toward the entitlement mentality. I guess my point is to not take this client’s words to personally….try to educate him and move on…he’ll like wise-up when he sees what “$40/hr” gets him.
Although there is always more to it than the hours put behind the lens. This sort of email just has you coming off as a dick and not a professional.
Bravo Tom. Bravo.
Quotes for freelancers in graphic design fall under this post as well. Many quote ‘per job’ knowing roughly how long it will take and what is involved. I have a ‘mix’ where I quote per job, but if there are additional requests and features, (and if the client is crazy with modifications), then an hourly rate comes into play. So far, clients are happy with this scenerio
I charge more per hour than some of the law firms I do photo work for. Depending on the marketing director of individual firms, I have almost lost work because of their reasoning that I shouldn’t be making more than the lawyers I’m photographing.
Then I explain some of the points made in this article, and then they understand that my rates break down to a more reasonable rate when they know what happens when I get to work on the images themselves.
Last time I called a plumber, he charged over $85 per hour. Is the result your client is looking for worth more more than the unclogging of a toilet? If yes, then he shouldn’t be surprised to pay more. If no, then why is he hiring a professional in the first place?
Count me among the unwashed masses that think it is no small blunder to submit an estimate that looks like 6 hours of services rendered if you know that the job will entail 15 to 20 total hours of work.
I do what Jan does. I’ve gotten away from exposing an “hourly rate” for just this reason. I use it in my head to help come up with my fee for a given job, and then much like here put in the “includes”. Also lets me bend it up or down based on my perceived difficulty, for example: more equipment bent up! It’s tamped down on a lot of this kind of backlash as well as turning off a lot of the “while we’ve got you for the hour can you…”. It’s worked well for the graphic design side of what I do as well. Then also absolutely revisit that quote if the job starts to wander too far away from the original specifications and estimates for the job. Even there it is pretty easy to justify, mostly need to make sure you make clear those specifications that price is dependent on.
I would never try to explain the expense in great detail to a client…. If your worth what you charge they will either choose a cheaper photographer (lower quality) or go ahead an choose you.
When it comes to your expenses, that is your problem, not the clients. I would explain it as your product is worth the rate you charge. If your product isn’t worth the rate you charge, you are charging too much.
It is important to evaluate what you have to offer and what makes your photography business what it is. If you can offer quality, but your client values price more, maybe its time to recommend the client find a cheaper photographer (or better yet, buddy up with a less skilled photographer and share clients). When it comes to your business being successful isn’t staying in business, it is growing and becoming the best at what you do (name a business that is considered successful universally that doesn’t follow this theme).
One last thought here- now that we are in the digital age, social media can either be your friend or your enemy. If you control what is on it, it is your friend. If you don’t, your clients will find your rant when they do a search for you and you will loose customers you never knew you had.
This rely is right on the money. Go back a re-read it a couple of times.
Maybe that is what you do, but what would Adobe tell you if you asked why they charge so much for Photoshop, Apple for Iphone, or Microsoft for Windows. What about video games or music? Ask Opec that.
My point is that from a business perspective, you should be able charge at the rate to keep your business going (what he discussed), but when setting your price, if your product isn’t valuable enough to stay in business to the consumers, you will eventually go out of business. The customer didn’t ask about his expenses, he asked why he got so much vs the people in the company. I would explain it in the terms of the value of the service provided.
I have never heard of a highly successful company explaining its expenses (or why it pays its employees at a certain rate) when it comes to making a sale. Could you imagine seeing that on Adobe’s website.
As for the question posed by the client, not only is it irrelevant to the price tag, but it is also unfair in that it assumes that everybody’s services are equally valuable. When you look at the question from that angle, answering the question is as easy as saying, “pay me what I’m worth.”
Also, It is BAD for anybody to post negative things about clients on the internet when it can be associated with them or their company. You will never be right on the money with any client if you do that.
Apple, Adobe and any other major tax dodging multi billion dollar corporation could care less what you think, unless every single one of you make a stand against them.
But now for us who only have 20-30 clients a year! It makes a huge difference.
Stop being a sheep.
I am an amateur photographer who does some paid jobs on the side of a job where I am frequently asked to hire photographers. Last year I paid one photog $800 for three hours of shooting. My bosses wanted to balk until I sat them down and walked them through all the pre and post-event hours the photographer would have to spend on the job. I mentioned no corporate provided health insurance, insurance for equipment, travel, etc. They got it. I think this kind of explanation can work to bring understanding to people who don’t get it.
Professional photographers are a dying breed – I know, I’m one myself. When even big corporations (was it USA Today if I recall correctly?) fire their pros to ride the “free amateurs with smartphones” bandwagon, you can’t really blame the people for thinking they’re fooled when they are asked to pay what is a fair price. On top of that, you have several (perhaps sadly most) of the pros overcharging for things they shouldn’t, such as printed material. I’ve seen photographers charging a whooping extra $40 for two extra 8×10 prints. That’s $20 per piece for something that costs $0.40 (if even). No wonder people are suspicious. Another mistake I’ve seen some pros make is that they become arrogant about their work. Well, with my long experience in photography, let me tell you this (I’m addressing anyone who thinks this applies to them): professional photography has nothing to do with your artistic vision; it’s all about giving someone (the client) what they want. I saw that happen again and again, and I also had to go through this myself (and I’m still learning; it’s a continuous process). People react badly to this arrogance – they don’t see why the pro has to be paid for taking photos “uncle Joe” can take (this isn’t necessarily true, but the impression – particularly for people with a DSLR who have a certain familiarity with the basics – is that it’s not such a big deal). You see, people judge you by the result: they see a wedding portrait, a graduation photo, and think “It looks nice. Hmm…It looks pretty easy, maybe next time uncle Joe can do it, he has this new pro camera and all”. Talk about what you’re doing; Connect with the people you’re photographing, don’t see them as moving wallets. How on earth can you take unique photos of unique people if you don’t know anything about them? Don’t treat them like imbeciles – they might be misguided about photography because nobody talked to them. But they’re not stupid. I’ll conclude this (longer than I meant) message by telling you an a-ha moment that happened to one of my clients. It was a wedding, she was the bride. We were outdoors, about to take some portraits. As I was setting up, she asked why do I need all these flashes and reflectors, couldn’t we just take the photos in the sunlight and get done with it? I hesitated for a second, that thought “either she’ll hate me or love me”, and snapped a quick photo of her as she was standing there, in the sunlight, squinting and all. I showed her the photo – it looked unflattering, with harsh shadows under her eyes, wrinkles, and what not. I think I almost held my breath, half-expecting her to cry and fire me :D but she smiled and said “oh shit, I see…”
.40 print…… $20 for an 8×10 is NOTHING. What went into making that photo? It wasn’t just that .40 in print cost. 1-2hrs on post processing, and who know how long it took to take that photograph. an hours? 2? Depends on how long the photog has to wait for the right lighting. Then if it’s a model? Yeah, got to pay them too if you expect that model to sign your model release.. That is DEFINITELY more then .40 per print.
Lastly, you are also paying for that photographer’s actual skill. How many other photographers can make that same print?
You probably missed it, but I referred to EXTRA prints. In other words, if a photographer charges $120 for a studio session that includes two (2) 8×10 prints and a CD with ten (10) 2MP proofs, the payment for all the things that you mention (that should indeed be part of her/his payment) is there. The client can walk away at that point. But then comes the devious “let’s make a quick buck” part: “You can have two more lovely 8×10 prints for ONLY [yeah, right!] $40”. I find that dishonest. It’s not worth $20 to edit a simple studio portrait from the raw file and print it on 8×10. Heck, if the photographer gave the client the full-size JPEG, the client could order the prints from somewhere for even less than 40 cents. And the same goes for all these extras – research it yourself if you don’t believe me. You’ll see that it’s these extras that bring in the big money, and that’s why so many professionals offer them so much.
If the customer is willing to pay the added cost, is it really ripping the customer off?
“It’s not worth $20 to edit a simple studio portrait from the raw file and print it on 8×10”
A 40 cent 8×10? Yeah at Walmart on crappy paper? LOL…..
Dude my 8×10 prints alone cost me close to $2 a piece. And you know what? I have no problems selling 8×10’s for $15-20. Not just my portrait stuff, but my other artwork as well. You must be doing something wrong. When you are offering quality work to a customer, they have no problem paying those prices.
You know why I choose to pay $2 a piece on an 8×10 print? Because I know it’s the right place to have print my photos. Good sharp printing on quality paper of which my images look best on. I challenge ANYONE to put those same images onto a Walmart 40 cent print. $20 says most will say my print is worth much more.
Also, knowing it looks better on that specific paper from that specific printer is knowledge that’s worth something each and every time you request it.
“If the customer is willing to pay the added cost, is it really ripping the customer off?”
That is a good question, but the answer is probably too complex to cover here. Very laconically I could say: it would be worth examining what the customer would do were there more (reasonable) choices. I don’t know what kind of paper/printing you use, but I’m willing to take your word for it (i.e. that you choose to pay $2 because you see a visible quality difference – whether “uncle Joe” or “aunt Mary” can, that’s an other story). However, there is still an $18 difference. I don’t know how much time you need to work on a raw file to turn it from a studio, perfectly controlled shot into a ready image, but let’s face it: it’s there, it’s practically ready. Sometimes I feel studios have carried their rates over from the film era, when it did take significant effort to work on a single negative. But we must be realistic here: if the shot is already taken, if it’s a raw file in the memory card, and if it’s a studio portrait, there should be very minimal editing required. I certainly don’t need to spend more than a few minutes on it. A 900% profit (from a $2 paper to an $20 price per piece) is kinda much IMO – for an image that is already in your memory card and will take 2 minutes to develop.
I guess we can agree to disagree. The future of professional photography will show us more…
Depends on how much editing is done to that studio shot to reflect the “artist’s” style. Portrait photographers don’t like to hear that as they would rather sell their no time to edit photos over the creative style photos that can be popular to alot of clients that can take over an hour or more to edit.
You can’t tell me a Dave Hill piece, nor a Thomas Dodd piece as well as countless others comes “print ready” from the raw file. Exposure is only part of the battle. Creativity is something not all professional photographers offer their clients and it’s one thing that sets us apart.
So again, I say my skill is worth something each and every time it’s printed.
And you aren’t giving much credit to the customer’s eyes about noticing the paper quality in print. The type of paper I use most don’t even know existed till I started selling them prints with photographs on it.
Here’s a little marketing/production mumbo jumbo you might not be familiar with.
A customer will almost always pay extra money on value added work vs non-value added work. This can be from the quality and type of paper to the editing process itself (the skill part, not the time part) to the extra materials sold along with that session or product package.
Case and point, just tonight, I sold an image of mine where the guy paid $25 for the high-resolution digital file that’s “print ready”… He could take that anywhere where he chooses and have it printed out for less then a buck. Instead he paid an additional $25 on one 5×7 and one 8×10 print of mine. Why? Because I already have a reputation on my prints which actually look better in print then they do on a digital file.
Reason why I sold that image? One, It’s edited in a way which most don’t know how to edit. Two, it’s an image only a handful of photographers could have captured. Three, my competition wouldn’t even edit it like I did because “too much time editing” and/or not allowed to sell their prints to them. 3 strikes and competition is out and I’m in. You can have fun selling your $5-8 regular photographs. I’ll continue to sell my $15 8×10’s.
Where I might have an issue is a photog selling standard everyday images in print that someone can capture with their cell phone for $20. It might work for them as they have a large fan base and a reputation, but before too long those customers will go somewhere else for something cheaper and a little more value added work to the images. (See above comment on providing something to customers that very little offer.)
Now when I sell my digital files, here’s the thing
I won’t tell them is that in order to print that file to the best that
image can be, it has to be color corrected to the paper it’s going on,
(something Walmart doesn’t do BTW), it’s got to be brightened up for
print (another thing that Walmart won’t do) and additional sharpening
has to be added for print (Walmart might actually do this)… All of
which they have no clue about.
Ever wonder why most portrait photographers offer print packages and lower resolution files? Because no self respecting photographer wants their images printed on crappy paper with crappy printers like found in Walmart.
Don’t like it? I say go somewhere else for cheaper then. But you get what you pay for. Eventually they will come back to me after their first few batches of photos are printed by either a dirt cheap photographer or print place.
great article to read as i am sending a quote now and have been going back & forth on the rate… thank you for reassuring me.. PERFECT timing!