I am an commercial and corporate portrait photographer. When it comes to pricing, I distinguish between small clients (companies with <20 employees) and big clients (>20 employees).
For big clients i charge my day rate (only full and half days, no hour rate) and charge extra for camera, lights, copyrights, studio, …
Smaller clients usually can not pay for that, so i charge a reduced day rate (and hourly rates) with everything included, about 1/4 of the total big client price.
Last week I did a press portrait of an employee of a smaller company (1/2h studio shooting) for € 150 including everything (session, studio, lights, camera, retouching, copyrights, … ). That's a minimum rate for me, since i want to offer quality portraits and don't want to be confused with a press photographer.
He recommended me to a friend of him working in a big company. Now I'm not sure what to charge. If I'm booked by a big company for a whole day doing, say 10 nice portraits, I would charge > € 4000 in total. So i should charge at least € 400 - € 500 for one portrait, right?
How do I decide, what to tell someone on the phone who wants a portrait. It sounds strange to me, to tell him, small company -> 150, big company -> 500 for the same thing?
If I refuse to work for big companies for less the half a day I lose some good small portraits jobs.
What's your pricing model?
Any suggestions? Thank's a lot!
Why not come up with your prices for 1-1000 (or more) sessions and provide the discount based on the # of portraits the clients needs?
We don't base pricing on how big their company is as that doesn't matter to me. The only thing that matters is how many sessions I have to shoot.
Some large companies have me shoot (1) portrait of their CEO. Some smaller companies have us shoot all of their senior management (8, 10, sometimes 15 people).
We have developed pricing that works for us and that we think is fair.
Delane Rouse
Washington DC Corporate Headshots
There is a way to standardize pricing by company size but it is not based on size of company but rather on usage. A small company is typically interested in regional usage and a larger company is typically interested in national or even global usage and typically for longer periods of time.
I think that standardizing the prices for your work based on the size of the company is not a good idea. For example, I know a lot of "small" companies that make a lot more money than "big" companies. You could be losing a lot of good potential profit by working under this model.
I would suggest that you stick to a standard rate that you are comfortable with and then deciding what your total fees will be only after meeting the potential client and finding out what their needs are.
This model gives you: 1) A better idea of what the client wants 2) The client has the ability to see what value they are getting from using you 3) Gives you the flexibility on the total amount to charge and gives you an opportunity to give special discounts if needed 4) You can decide if the job is actually worth your time
Offering two prices from the get go is going to get you into trouble in my honest opinion.
It is really a mistake to charge customers with such differential prices!
I do a lot of on location portraits with studio lights and backgrounds and have a minimum rate (350-400$) and
I shoot 1-2-3 people for this price. For each extra, I ask for 70$.
But when it comes to more than 6-7, I convert into day rate ( 1000-1250$).
I think that gives me the flexibility prices for all size of companies
PS.
Those are medium/high prices here in Israel.
I think the problem is you are trying to operate in two different markets as the same business.
So I guess the way out from where you are now would be call the first guy and straight up ask him what price point did he recommend you on, then when you talk to the second guy, you can explain what you work for and you owed the guy one so did his for a huge discount... (insert your reason here) ?
Long term to avoid this again I would say if you want to do the lower stuff and why not money is money, I would look at maybe a sister business so you can separat your highend $4000 work from the $150 jobs.
An eg: My old man used to run a large jewelry business that dealt in imports, exports, wholesale and a retail store.
Now the trick was he had items in his store branded differently (and sold as exclusive) than the same stock he sold to others and was for sale in other shops in the same street(as not to directly compete with them)! When the wholesale stock gets to the end of the run, he would sell it out at a hugely reduced rate to cheeper discount stores. He knew this would destroy a) his stocks brand or the brand he sold to other retailers so it was sold on at a different brand again.
So in the end three different customer price points for the same product and every one is happy and no one is the wiser.
For the cost of a set of business cards and a website (cheeper stuff could have a cheep site) you get a call for cheep work "oh I am sorry sir, I can't help you but can highly recommend _____ they do really good work and would be a better fit with your budget"
Cheers Matt
Now that’s an interesting answer! Not bad, but I am not sure how practical it is...especially if you operate under your own name. In Japan there is only one Juergen Specht, but in Germany, we are about 50...there it might work ;)
Yes I see your point, to run it under your name it would be tricky if not impossible to pull off but to register a business name and for it to appear to be a different business it would most certainly work and if it is setup to be an offshoot for your existing business the name and "being found" is less important as you are directing the work there from your main business. It would be used purely as a way to except small jobs with out the above sticky situation. Some shoots could even be done in your own studio as you could easily make it look like you "rented the space" off the more expansive "better studio"
One other way it could work is setup someone to work out of your studio. My best mate is a tattooist and he only wants to do bigger custom tattoos, so he has another guy at the studio that handles all the smaller work and he takes a %. (I think he has it set up so the other guy is renting studio space thus is not employed but it rather an independent sole business) This gets tricky with is he an employee, insurance, workers comp, tax and all the fun stuff but there would be ways you could set it up to take a % of the referral but you would need to look at your local laws on the details. This only works if you don't want to do the work yourself so might not apply in this case.
Oh, looks like your concept put you a bit into a corner...if the small client talks about the price to the big client, they wonder why you charge more...difficult and interesting. I am curious what people will advise.
commented:
February 13, 2011
Juergen Specht
Shakodo Staff
guys, thank you all for your input!!!
one thing I've realized so far, is I can't tell any client how much I charge, before I don't have an idea of their exact need, i.e. i won't publish price lists any more (i used to do it before)
i only do personalized offers depending on the exact needs (ken, you're so right!)
nevertheless, there will be a point, that big client A talks to small client B and will find out the differences … still don't really know how to justify the differences :-(
@matt: you're right: 2 markets
i already had that idea of building up a second budget brand. problem is, i operate under my name and work in a rather small city (200000 inhab.). so people will find out who's behind the new brand. just like juergen i think, its impractical.
2nd idea is also great, however, i'd rather do all the jobs on my own, maybe at a later time … good idea, but not the right solution for me :-(
i think i should rather concentrate on marketing in the big client market and will have to find a good argument why i give huge discounts to smaller clients (usage, less service, …) don't know by now … difficult
@hadari: thats a fair model. however, i have clients, that would be okay with paying that rate maximum and i have a few clients that are willing to pay much more … given i take a lot of time and passion for the portraits … that's my dilemma
@seth: yes, you're right, but a simple headshot for web usage and press is pretty much the same for small and big businesses, but you can charge more with big clients :-) but that's a good point, maybe i can justify the price differences depending on usage, i have to think about it
@ken: of course, you're right! the exact truth is: a big client for me is one with > 20 employees OR > 2.5mio € business volume / year
commented:
February 14, 2011
robertm
Professional