Pricing your Work

Okay so we have covered many topics from rules to equipment and common mistakes that transitioning photographers make. So now I hope to talk about the price the of your work or really the price you can and should command when you reach a certain level of experience and skill. Now as a hobbyist photographer you are probably doing a lot of work for free or for very little money. That is at cost (the cost of production and not labor) or below cost. Starting the break down at an hourly rate at certain experience levels. Then we will get to a brief per photo break down. An hourly rate is to be used when you have a good number of photos. A per photo rate is when you only have one to five photos that a person wants. A series or small number of very specific shots instead of a range. A lot of student photographers will also do a lot of free or volunteer work simply to get experience and to start building a reputation or potential client base.

When people start to get to know your work and you have logged anywhere from fifty to one hundred fifty hours just taking photos and not counting any editing you may have. This is when you reach the Amateur/Student level and you should be able to command $25 to $50 dollars an hour. Between student and professional you have semi-professional as a level this means about a year or two of heavy photography experience. I got this experience working as Neosho County Community College’s Ottawa Campus photographer. I did a great deal of all their on-campus photographer work for free as a way to get experience and a reputation for great photo work. At the Semi-Professional level you should be charging $50 to $125 range. Where you are in the pay scale depends on experience, skill, quality of work, time it takes you to complete the product, and the client base you have hopefully started to build. Professional Photographers the people who usually have three to five or more years of experience. These professionals can and should charge $80 to about $250 an hour depending again on various factors and what kind of photography you are doing. Now the top tier professionals can charge even more from $200 to $500 dollars an hour no problem because of their experience, skill, quality of work, and their reputation. Reputation and Client base are key for these Top Tier Professionals. Now per image with student being the low end and top tier professional the high-end photos per image can be anywhere from $25 to about $1,500. I will break down senior portraits, weddings, architecture, and website photography pricing and practices in a later post.

P.S. If you are wondering where the Jim Richardson Interview is I am working on editing and figuring out how to embed it in a post.