I attended a Photographers Assoc meeting yesterday and a interesting question came up- How you you price your work? 

The speaker gave a damn good response and I was courious to find out how do photographers here price their work?  Again, I'm not asking to determine how I should do my pricing.  Instead, I'm asking to generate conversations from a business perspective.

Shawn

I compare the difficulty of achieving the goals of the client to the value of the shot to the client.  Generally the more important factor is the value of the shot to the client, but if the diffulty of achieving the shot greatly outweighs the value the bidding can be more frustrating.  However if the value of the image to the client is high and the difficulty is low:  happy day for the photographer. 

Unless the client comes out and says what the value to them is, photographers have to approximate (guess).  There are many factors that go into determaining the value to the client: distribution, frequency, notarity, and linkage to direct sales.  And of course there are sub-sets in each of those factors.  And so on.

Bidding/Estimating/Pricing is one of my least favorite tasks.  It ranks up there with negotiating with model agencies.

Dan Howell

im gona agree with Dan too

That's why I say I shoot for free but charge a lot of money for paper work, figuring out pricing, estimates, and managing the rest of the staff that it takes to pull off a shoot.

That's why I say I shoot for free but charge a lot of money for paper work, figuring out pricing, estimates, and managing the rest of the staff that it takes to pull off a shoot.

Corporate Acronym (CA), ICB, Individual Case Basis.

It starts with a day rate, less consumables, and goes from there.  Other than standard pricing I do for actor headshots and a quoted price on return standard work from existing clients, all else is governed by the scope of work.  I really wouldn't know how to approach it any other way.