Best Business Practices for Photographers, Third Edition, 3rd Edition

Chapter 17

Pricing Your Work to Stay in Business

How do you establish your prices? This is seemingly an age-old question, and certainly one that perplexes many of the more experienced photographers, who, when asked, simply shrug their shoulders and respond with something like, “I sort of just guesstimated.”

If this is you, don’t be alarmed—you’re not alone. That doesn’t mean you’re free and clear; it means you need to reverse-engineer your rates to see whether what you’ve been doing meets your long-term goals. You also need to know which types of assignments are revenue positive and which may be, without your even knowing, revenue negative. (Yes, that means taking a loss on a job.)

Although 15 years ago resources were few and far between to help ...