The topic of how much to charge comes up all the time. In the old days, wedding photographers used to charge very low upfront fees, but depend on print and album sales to increase the overall price of the services. This is essentially the pricing model for portraits now. However, now, what we do is charge upfront for our services, and then, we don’t worry about back-end sales. Basically, brides and grooms are pretty cash poor after the wedding, so it’s best to get as much as possible up front.
The pricing model I am going to share assumes that 100% of your studio profit is from weddings. This model is essentially my view of how to price your services as a wedding photographer.
Let’s assume that you need to keep, after taxes and all expenses, $60,000 annually to live the life you want and be comfortable. Let’s also assume that you plan on shooting 30 weddings per year. You can do more, but you can’t do less than that in order to live the lifestyle you want. So, if you say $60,000 / 30 = $2,000 per wedding. We’re off to a great start!
Now, add in the products that you provide in your packages. If all you do are shoot and burn packages, keeping your cost very low, you’re almost done. However, if you add prints, 2nd shooters that you have to pay, albums, or anything at all, add that cost in. So, let’s say that my direct cost per wedding is $700. Now, my price per wedding is $2,000 (my money to live) + $700 (direct cost) = $2,700.
See how easy this is?
For the last step, you have to add in all of your overhead costs. These would include your insurance, gas, website registration, advertising, business cards, association dues, rent (if you have a studio), computers, software, gear, subscriptions and all the things associated with your business. Let’s pretend that the cost for all of that over a year is $15,000. Keep in mind that advertising all by itself could exceed $10k. Gear can eat up a good chunk of your budget too. But, for simplicity, let’s stick with $15k for overhead just as an example. Your overhead per wedding now would be $15,000 / 30 (the # of weddings you plan to shoot) = $500 per wedding.
Add it all up:
$2,000 per wedding (yours to keep to pay for your mortage, car payments, food, vacations, and enjoy life),
$700 in direct costs,
$500 in overhead expenses =
$3,200 per wedding.
This all looks very easy, doesn’t it? Well, it is that easy.
If you have packages that vary in cost, just take an average of what most people buy. If you don’t know what most people buy because you are starting out, or because you have restructured your packages and pricing, then take a SWAG at it. (note: SWAG means Super Wild Ass Guess).
A couple of points:
The above theory assumes that you are starting out, and that you are not really established. If you have a good client base, you can charge way more than this model will allow, but this is a good point to start from.
The above theory assumes that you do not have other income. If you shoot portraits, commercial, or sports, as an example, you may be able to use that income and therefore don’t have to charge as much. For instance, if you net $30,000 from your sports photography business, then in order to live your life nicely, you can cut the number of weddings down from 30 to 15, or you can simply drop you price (although, I don’t recoemmend being a cheap wedding photographer – it’s very hard and demanding work).
Cheers.
Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com
