What to charge?

[ette]

I know I've seen some threads on this subject somewhere, but I'm not finding what it is that I need.

I have an Epson R2880. I have a client that wants to purchase some of my floral images, printed either 13 x 9 or 11x17 on fine art paper. I know what the paper costs me, but since I've never charged for anything I have done professionally, I'm not sure how to cover costs of ink for images of this size.

She will be having someone else do the matting, mounting, and framing of the prints. All I need to be concerned about is covering my costs, at this point.

Does anyone have any ideas as to some sort of average cost of printing (per print size) on this printer?

Thanks,

[JimL]

Red River Paper, a quality paper supplier, has their esitmated cost per page on several standard size papers.

Red River catalogue

Jim

I would STRONGLY recommend you NOT give anyone (except your mother) a print at what it costs you to make the print. It cheapens your work and makes it difficult to charge for the time you spent getting to the photo location, editing the print, maintaining supplies, and also a fair hourly rate (at the minimum) for your work.

[Landis]

First of all, you need to realize this person is buying your PHOTOGRAPHS, not just paying you to print them. You are selling YOUR art, not printing her photos, which is entirely different situations.

Jim's URL is a good one for your printer, but keep in mind it is for the cost of the INKS only, not the paper.

Pricing out your work is always a painful process. There are so many ways to think about this, it always gives me a headache. If you price too high, you won't sell much of anything. If you price too low, people will take advantage of you and you will cheapen your image and work. All this is highly contingent on the area where you live and what the people will pay. I suggest you look around and see what people are selling their photos for in your area, keeping in mind the size of the print, framed or not, etc.

In this area of New England, photos of that size, framed would normally go in the area of $100 or so. Framing today is expensive compared to 10 years ago. I do all my own printing, matting, framing, so my costs are quite low compared to having this done by a framing shop. I normally take my total cost of materials and multiply that by 4 or 5 and that is my sales price for a framed work. Maybe that will give you some guidance.

[ette]

Thanks for the suggestions Jim and Landis.

I would think then, that I should charge somewhere between $25 to $30 (per print) of a 13x19, that's for just the prints. That sounds fair to me and it will help pay for the cost of buying a box of that size paper as well.

I'll have to order the sampler pack from Red River to compare it with other papers that I have. Thanks for that link Jim.

[king grant]

My equation for this was pretty simple. I looked up the average amount of prints a consumer would get from a full set of ink cartidges with whichever printer I was using. then take the price of the package of paper I was using at the time divided by how many sheets. therefore I could determine the price per sheet of paper, price per print for ink. then add the two together and that was my cost. then I take into consideration what it cost me to shoot. Did I drive somewhere special, did i rent a new lens, did I buy the client lunch? this usually got me a cost of say 1.50 per print on my canon pro 9000 MKII for a 13x19 plus on average 5.00 per shot i shoot... and I charge anywhere from 25.00 to 40.00 for a 13x19.

[brucep]

An attorney (for instance) doesn't look at how much his paper will cost and factor in the price of a suit for appearing in court. The attorney sets his fees based upon what they'll "sell" for to the public. Not everyone has to afford him, but if he's good enough, he'll make a decent living. He just has to be careful not to be giving his services away.

I look at how much someone would have to pay to get the quality of service/images/graphics which I have proven I can deliver. When I get too busy, I just raise my rates.

[Claire]

Do not quote too less, you end doing social service, or loss. Do not quote too high that you lose the project. Just be fair to yourself and your customer.

[ette]

Wow, this is an old thread. Thanks for all the recommendations.

I see a lot of people advertizing as "budget photographers" and I wonder how can I compete with that if I am making my own prints. It just can't be done like that because these people are giving CD's for clients to take to their printer of choice.

Sheesh!

[king grant]

I agree this is an old thread. Old enough to where I forgot commenting on it some time back. I do like the explanation Bruce gave with the attorney. That makes a lot of sense. Landis breaks it down a lot like I did and that makes sense too. Landis won't lose any money through his pricing, and Bruce will make money through referrals and reputation (as Landis probably will as well) but both models have the same principle.

It reminds me of some advice I received on another thread on this forum. I'll try and remember enough to translate for you based on your comment about the "budget photographers".

The advice was along the basis that you could have 10 budget clients that have their holiday pictures done by you at $100 per family, or you could have one client with a blue ribbon race horse that wants one portrait of him next to the horse and he'll pay $1000 for that one print. In both scenarios you make $1000. However that horse client didn't take nearly as much time, stress, drama, equipment wear, footwork to get the gig, or responsibility as the 10 families did, and unfortunately in today's day in age 1 of those 10 families is probably going to complain about something mondain and make a scene to get refunded or discounted even though the other 9 were just as happy with the same result. But that one client can spread enough PR damage around to kill your business.

I personally share work with my younger cousin. I have a full time income as well as my photography income so I value my weddings at $1500 minimum and my photo shoots have a $150 sitting fee to obtain the images and then I figure out what the best mode of delivery for the client is and charge for that as well. My cousin, on the other hand is unemployed and really enjoys putting in the extra effort to create stunning images and will commit as much time as necessary to get the result that not only his client is satisfied with but he also finds perfect. He's not afraid to spend too long tuning an image and producing a fantastic product and cut into the profits. I refer clients to him that can not afford the $1500 wedding and he may only charge them $700 and include a cd of images. Out of the $700, some gigs actually profit him about $150 whereas, my $1500 gig where I include a package of prints and a 4x6 album may total $1800-$2000 by the time of delivery and I profit about $800-$1000 per gig. The moral of the story is in order for me to book a wedding and request time off from my full time employment and commit the time and effort to the event to provide the product I would be comfortable delivering I charge way more then my cousin does. He gets about 5:1 ratio of gigs then I do and we make approximately the same amount of profit when it is all sad and done and we are both still enjoying what we do.

Where "budget photographers" may get more gigs they still make the same profit as those that turn down jobs and wait for the right client with the deeper pockets. Both may provide the same quality of service and the images may have the same value but one works 5 times as hard to get the same profit as the other.

Hopefully this short novel provides some insight to the OP and other members that search for "What to charge" and as a community we can hopefully start taking the industry back to where you really needed skill to be considered a photographer over that guy with the camera. That's my goal and I'm sure I'm not alone in the dream.