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What is the going day rate for a commercial shoot?
I am just wondering what photographers charge for day rates for a commercial shoot, and does that include the release to all of the rights to the images? Sep 02 05 03:07 pm Link You need to be more specific as far as market, usage dificulty of the shoot. I never give full rights of the images. If I absolutely don't see any use for the images in the future then I will charge double the usuage fee. Sep 02 05 03:13 pm Link For instance, the images might be used for an ad for a jean company. The shoot might involve five or six different looks, and the lighting would be relatively simple. And then, how do you determine the usage rights? Sep 02 05 03:18 pm Link Usage rights depends on how they are going to use the images. Is it for ad campaigns? Where? North East? Mid West? Whole US? Billboards? Magazines? The broader the range, the more money you charge because your work is being seen in more places and holds a lot more value for the company to make sales. Determine what your normal day rate is (if you havn't done so already), add expenses (assistant fees, MUA, equipement rental, etc) add usage fee and thats your price. Usuage can be anywhere from low end $1000 to high-end $40,000. Sep 02 05 03:29 pm Link Neiko Roman wrote: That's one helluva client that would pay 40k simply for usage. Not saying that wouldn't happen, but unlikely for the mass here on the Internet. I suspect Dan Howell would be one that has one in the client base that might extend that sort of offer...but I also suspect that fee would be way doubtful as a norm. Sep 02 05 06:40 pm Link Check out fotobiz.net - there's pretty cool little database program (fotoquote) that will help you determine what to charge for say, a quarter page ad that will run in a national magazine for 3 months with a distribution of 300,000. Or whatever. Generally, this stuff gets hammered out before the shoot - how many shots do they want to end up with? Where and how are they going to be used? Is the usage going to be exclusive or non-exclusive? Usually, when you sell usage rights to an image, it's for a specific time period as well, such as "1 year from date of first insertion". If they want to use that same image again a couple years down the road they should contact you and work out another usage fee. I've had the distinct pleasure of NOT working out the details before the shoot and let me say it's no fun trying to negotiate usage and stuff after you've shot. It really helps if you're working with an ad agency and not directly with the client. Ad agencies understand the whole 'usage' concept whereas the client may need to be educated. Anyway, do the best you can to avoid an "all rights" buyout unless you're pretty sure there's no future use (for you or them) for the pictures. When you give up your rights, you take the chance that the client could end up using the stuff (or selling it) for some major campaign or other use that would have netted you a ton of money if you still had the rights. That's why most pros charge an arm and a leg for a buyout. Day rates themselves are (theoretically anyway) supposed to be based on overhead. Take all your studio expenses for a year and divide that by the number of days you think you'll be working. So, if your overhead is $50,000 and you can reasonably exect to shoot 100 days that year, you need to be charging 500 bucks a day at least just to cover overhead. Now, if you know that the going rate for other photographers in your area is $1000 per day, then you're golden. Ask for 1000 or more and if they balk, you have room to come down a little. Based on that, you can see that usage fees are where the advertising pros make their money. The largest usage number I heard was for that WindowsXP image that's on all the boxes - you know, the one with the rolling hill and blue sky? It was a stock shot and Microsoft bought it for (I think) $140,000. That seems like a ton of money (and it is), but think about how many times that's been printed for Microsoft? It's pretty much their brand identity now, so I think they got their money's worth out of it. Sep 03 05 12:10 pm Link digital_tmax wrote: There is not really a "standard" day rate. There are usage rates that are recommended, you can find thoughts rates in some of the photography business books.. As for your personal rate, what you got to do is add up all of your expenses divide them by how many jobs you expect per year, and give about a 10% markup. Your FIXED expenses include stuff like rent, office supplies, equipment, insurance, taxes, gas, and your estimated income yada yada... Some VARIED expenses is stuff like promotions, film, uuhhh, I cant think of the rest.. But basically got to your local book store and read up about it.. You may not be able to get all this together right off the bat but you should deff start educating yourself, photogs who donât do this destroy the market! If you got a job coming soon you got to look at a few things before giving an estimate. I can tell you my day rate is about $890, now depending on who it is for, where it is going, and why they are doing it will effect the price. Bring us some facts and maybe we can help you a bit more! Sep 03 05 12:37 pm Link area291 wrote: 1. A national editorial cover has absolutely NO relation to Advertising rates. Ad work and Editorial work are entirely different animals in terms of payment. A Fortune/Newsweek cover will probably be around $1200 in addition to whatever the day rate was on the assignment (maybe $500-800). The big magazines have very established rates for these things. Sep 04 05 12:41 pm Link |
