Hey all, I want to begin this with admitting my fault in not starting with an offer. The reason I didn’t send one in is because my customer had already worked with a few different photographers and the project is part of a networking exchange. My bad. So I went there and took pictures for a bit more than two hours. My own expectations of quality make me edit every set of pictures by hand, so no presets. That makes another two hours in editing. Now I’m based in Europe and I calculated my prices based on my cost, my taxes, my expected wage, available hours deducted by holiday and sick time and an overall paid workload of 40% of those hours. That makes me start my prices at 130 per hour of photography and 70 per post processing hour. Of course there is deductions for longer bookings, and networking opportunities etc. Overall I gave my customer the price of a bit more than 300 euros for the job. Sadly my customer wasn’t to happy and very confused as her recent partners oy charged her 100 or got invited for dinner. The customer also wanted to edit the pictures themselves. Again I’m at fault for not following proper procedure here. My questions are the following. Was the price unreasonable? Do you not edit your pictures the way I do and do you only use presets? What would you recommend to do in that situation. Thanks!
Everything that I would recommend to prevent such a situation should have been done before the actual shooting. The first things to clarify before setting a date is a) What does the client want exactly? (Does she want the photos edited or does she want to edit them himself?) and b) What is the client willing to pay for the service she wants?
Do you know what photographers she worked with before? If yes, call them and ask about what they’ve billed her. And then go from there.
Do you have a website where clients will find your pricing structure?
In the end, you have two possibilities:
- Tell her, that this is your usual pricing for this kind of project and that you expect her to pay the bill in full (she might not want to work with you again, obviously, and also get legal advice).
- Call the client and thell her that you are sorry for the inconvenience. This is your standard pricing, but you are willing to give her a discount. How much of a discount depends on your negotiating skills. ;) Maybe only send her the unedited pictures and remove the editing costs from your bill?
I think your prices aren’t unreasonable, but I expect people who have nothing to do with photography be shocked about how expensive it can be. And I guess there are a lot of photographers who are cheaper.
I will (usually) edit the pictures myself, but in the end I will do what my clients order. And clarify their order before the shooting, not afterwards. ;)