What Do You Think? Can A Service Like Togally Help Pro Photographers Earn A Living?

San Diego, California based start-up company, Togally, is hoping that it’s new platform will help connect photographers with clients by taking a slightly different approach. The company has designed and built a website which allows photographers (which they refer to as “togs”) to post a free profile on their website so that anyone with an internet connection and a need for a photographer can look them up and hire them. ( I find it to be like a combination of the services Thumbtack and ImageBrief provide.)

Togally offers two different types of service a custom package which the is essentially completely user defined or a guaranteed package which offers the client a fixed price for a specific amount of hours and photographs. The pricing for these types of packages appear to start at $50 for an hours worth of time and three pictures; the prices go up to $1000 for a full days work and 20 photos depending on the type of photography needed. The lowest rates being for portrait type work and the highest rates reserved to commercial photography gigs.

Me being the skeptic that I am, signed up for an account so I could look through the talent pool. I have to say, I was honestly surprised to see such a large majority of  professionals with rather impressive portfolios on there. I also found it interesting that you could book just about any type of gig. There’s pricing for corporate photography, real estate, advertisements, even sporting events.

However, most of the advertisements for Togally are aimed at average people who just need to hire an affordable photographer to cover events like birthday parties and reunions. Togally hopes to draw in new customers who are tired of being behind the camera  themselves and not being in any of the photos they take or customers wanting better quality photos than they’ve been able to capture with their cameraphones.

As the founders of the company are well aware, times are tough for photographers trying to make a living from their craft. As we all know, the industry is pretty saturated at the moment which got me wondering if I would use a service like this were it available in my area (At the moment it’s only available in the San Diego area). At the moment, the service is free, but as it picks up steam they will start tacking on fees, which I presume will be paid by the photographer. With rates that are already on the low side, any cut in the margin will hurt.

What do you guys think, is this the kind of business model that will help draw in new clients who would not otherwise have had the resources (or motivation) to hire a pro “tog”?