{"id":2695,"date":"2018-05-16T10:44:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T10:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2018-05-16T16:38:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T16:38:56","slug":"pricing-and-profitability-for-photographers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/pricing-and-profitability-for-photographers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pricing and Profitability for Photographers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear? Lack of confidence? Ignorance? Why are some (most) photographers not profitable? I began my photography career like most, as a hobby. I photographed my experiences along my travels and tried to document everything around me. I pretended my Facebook audience was a National Geographic subscriber and they cared about my trip to New Orleans. Desperately waiting to see where I went, what I ate and the beautiful landscapes in between. After 15 years of that, I finally decided to start photographing people. A few friends asked me to photograph their weddings and the rest is history. Three months into starting a real photography business I was profitable. One and a half years later I had built a six-figure photography business. How? I\u2019m not the best photographer by any means. I don\u2019t have the most followers<\/a>. I don\u2019t have some secret formula or some magic trick. It\u2019s about building a sound business and pricing yourself to be profitable. I went into starting my Orange County Wedding photography business<\/a> with profitability in mind. So how did I do it? Let\u2019s dig in.<\/p>\n

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Actually, before we begin, let me drop in a disclaimer. The following has worked for me. Everyone is different. When you talk about price and profit people seem to get super weird. Maybe it\u2019s because photography is an art because we\u2019re insecure because we lack confidence in our work, whatever. I am not an accountant, and if you\u2019re not one either, I\u2019d recommend working with one to make sure you cover yourself for the dreaded taxes and learn about all of your expenses. With that said, let\u2019s jump in.<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s figure out how much you want to make this year. Let\u2019s say $100K. For me, I\u2019m a wedding photographer so you would figure out the number of weddings you want to photograph this year. Let\u2019s say 30. You can do this for whatever type of photography you do, just come up with the number of shoots you want to do.<\/p>\n

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So if you want to make $100K and shoot 30 weddings, you need to take 100K and divide it by 30. You end up with $3,333. That is the average amount you need to charge per wedding.<\/p>\n

Want to shoot less? Increase your prices. Want to make more? Shoot more or increase your prices. Pretty simple.<\/p>\n

Next, let\u2019s figure out the expenses you\u2019ve had or are going to have for the year. \u201cThe Cost Of Doing Business\u201d. Here\u2019s a sample of some things to get your brain working:<\/p>\n

Camera equipment (lenses, bag, cards, bodies, etc)
\nWebsite hosting and domain
\nExternal Hard Drives
\nComputer
\nEditing programs (Photoshop, Lightroom<\/a>, Alien Skin<\/a>)
\nJPEGmini<\/a>
\nPhoto delivery program
\nClient management system
\nLLC, Business License, etc.Permits
\nInsurance (General liability, gear, etc.)
\nClient Gifts
\nCamera cleaning\/servicing
\nInternet
\nDriving (track your mileage)
\nCell Phone
\nAdvertising costs
\nHealth Insurance<\/p>\n

Try JPEGmini Pro For Free Now!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s probably quite a bit more, but that should get your brain thinking. Now add all those up. You\u2019ll get a big number, let\u2019s say $25K. That\u2019s your known expenses for the year and a write-off on your taxes so make sure you keep those receipts.<\/p>\n

So then you take $100K and subtract $25K from it, you won\u2019t have to pay taxes on your expenses (again, check with a real accountant). You\u2019re left with $75K. Now you\u2019ve got taxes, as a safe estimate let\u2019s say 30%. $75K x .3 = $22.5K in taxes. $75K minus $22.5K = $52,500. That\u2019s your net sales. In margin terms, you\u2019re running a 52.5% margin. Not bad. In most businesses a 50% margin is the benchmark, so you\u2019re sitting just above that. If you want to increase your margin\/net profit, you can lower your expenses, work more or charge more.<\/p>\n

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So where do people go wrong? They desperately try to book jobs at too low prices. \u201cI can shoot your wedding! Oh, your budget is only $1K? I\u2019ll do it!\u201d. Thirty one-thousand-dollar weddings later, you\u2019re tired and broke. Between taxes and expenses, you\u2019ve ended up losing money. That\u2019s the formula for a failing business.<\/p>\n

So you know your expenses, you know your average price per wedding you need to charge, what next? I recommend creating your packages with somewhere around the $3,333 price at the bottom end of three packages. That way every wedding you get is hitting your average and driving up your median. The lowest package should offer enough to cover the wedding but be missing some crucial items like an engagement shoot or enough time to truly cover the entire day. Your middle package should be the one that\u2019s most attractive, include an engagement session, enough hours of coverage and really be priced to make people be drawn to it. The highest package is the one with all the bells and whistles, add-ons people didn\u2019t even know they wanted. Chances are you\u2019re only going to book a couple of those in the year if any, but you\u2019re stoked when you do. The psychology of the middle offer has been well studied and proven to work. If your pricing and packages make the middle package seem the best you\u2019ll be driving higher sales than your necessary average. I\u2019d highly recommend reading some studies on it before setting up your packages.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fear? Lack of confidence? Ignorance? Why are some (most) photographers not profitable? I began my photography career like most, as a hobby. I photographed my experiences along my travels and tried to document everything around me. I pretended my Facebook audience was a National Geographic subscriber and they cared about my trip to New Orleans. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,35,4,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jpegmini","category-marketing-strategy","category-photography","category-photography-tutorial"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jpegmini.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}