Beautiful Beasties: A Creative Guide to Modern Pet Photography

Business Essentials

Pricing

Pricing yourself for profitability is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner. Without profit and a solidly booked pipeline, you don’t have a business; you merely have a very expensive hobby. All of that fancy camera gear, software, Photoshop actions, product samples, camera accessories, website, mailbox rental, studio rental, accounting software, pretty packaging, and promotional materials doesn’t pay for itself. As is true with any industry, being overworked and underpaid is one of the quickest routes to burnout. If you only plan to do pet photography part time on the occasional weekend days, profit isn’t as important as when you need to make a living at it, but you still need to generate enough to cover all of your expenses. If you plan to do pet photography as a full-time career, it’s critical that you price your products and services to optimize profit. So, how do you price yourself for profitability? What are competitive rates for pet photography? What are the industry standards?

To begin, I’d like to talk about something called perceived value. I have learned a very valuable lesson over time with my business, one that resulted from a lot of unpleasant experiences, trial and error, and general research over the years. ...