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Archive 2014 · Suggestions on pricing structure

  
 
andylaiphoto
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Suggestions on pricing structure


I have a new client that works with stones and rocks for residential and commercial use. The job is to take pictures of existing products and also to take pictures of homes that have already had the products installed. There are up to 200 locations that I will need to drive to take quick exterior shots then move onto the next location. Post work will be fairly minimal. Color correction, exposure correction, and cropping.

So 200 homes plus about 75 product shots. This company is continuously creating new product so there is a possibility for continuing work. I don't want to price too low because then I'm stuck in that range for future work. But I also don't want to price so high that I don't get the gig.

Suggestions are welcome.



May 23, 2014 at 04:17 PM
swoop
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Suggestions on pricing structure


I would just do an hourly or day rate and add on another rate for mileage.


May 23, 2014 at 04:32 PM
andylaiphoto
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Suggestions on pricing structure


Thanks for the reply. I was torn between day rates, hourly rates, or per location rates. As far as travel goes they're supplying me with a car and paying for the gas.

With that said, ballpark day and hourly rates?

swoop wrote:
I would just do an hourly or day rate and add on another rate for mileage.



Edited on May 23, 2014 at 05:01 PM · View previous versions



May 23, 2014 at 04:34 PM
Kannalaphoto
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Suggestions on pricing structure


I would avoid a day rate. Charge a creative fee instead. Think about it, if you charge for a day, and get all the shots you were requested to get in a few hours, the client might expect you to keep shooting, or might add on locations and shots trying to milk your time, which adds to post production time also. Personally I would do by location since each location will add to your computer time also.


May 23, 2014 at 05:00 PM
andylaiphoto
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Suggestions on pricing structure


I've never had a shoot structured like this so initially thinking on a per location basis, $15 per location kept popping up in my head.

Given that it is more of a hit-and-run situation and each location. I thought this was maybe somewhere in the ballpark or is it way too low? A few angles of each home, pack my stuff, then onto the next one. In all honesty I think I'd probably be spending more of my time driving than anything else.

Kannalaphoto wrote:
I would avoid a day rate. Charge a creative fee instead. Think about it, if you charge for a day, and get all the shots you were requested to get in a few hours, the client might expect you to keep shooting, or might add on locations and shots trying to milk your time, which adds to post production time also. Personally I would do by location since each location will add to your computer time also.




May 23, 2014 at 05:08 PM
glort
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Suggestions on pricing structure


andylaiphoto wrote:
I've never had a shoot structured like this so initially thinking on a per location basis, $15 per location kept popping up in my head.


Seriously

And what if it takes you an hour to get from one location to another? May not be far but what about traffic and accidents and road works? What if you go to a location and can't get in or you can't go from one job to the next closest and have to travel a distance to the next one that is available and then come back?
And what if they want to send you to a location in the future to shoot that? You going to go to them, get the car, drive there, shoot even for 2 min, drop off the car and go back home for $15

How much you reckon the guys you are working for are going to charge you to come out and glue a bit of gravel to your wall? 2 min job, no skill required. You reckon they would come out to your various rental properties to do that for $15 ea even if you provide them with with a fueled Vehicle? No hope in hell! it's not profitable and I'll gaurantee they are not into charity work.
So why then are you even thinking of doing your work for a price they would laugh at?

What do they charge an hour? There is something to take into account in your rate and get you near something reasonable.

I'd definately be doing it by hours AND not for some stupid rate either. 200 locations is a LOT of places to go. I did courier work for a while. I know how hard you have to push to get to 15 locations in a day on one side of the city and that didn't require using any equipment and parking was always at the front door. You want to account for all the variables so you are covered and not working for next to nothing. You'll soon be sick of it and the money will seem a lot less than when you quoted the job.

I'd be worrying more about what it's going to take to do the job rather than a fear of losing the job and quoting some unrealistic prioce to get it that you are going to hate yourself and the work for very quickly.



May 23, 2014 at 08:42 PM
andylaiphoto
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Suggestions on pricing structure


So what's your suggestion in terms of an hourly?

I'm not sure about the distance traveled yet. We are having another meeting after the holiday.


glort wrote:
Seriously

And what if it takes you an hour to get from one location to another? May not be far but what about traffic and accidents and road works? What if you go to a location and can't get in or you can't go from one job to the next closest and have to travel a distance to the next one that is available and then come back?
And what if they want to send you to a location in the future to shoot that? You going to go to them, get the car, drive there, shoot even for 2 min, drop
...Show more



May 23, 2014 at 09:12 PM
glort
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Suggestions on pricing structure



I'd work out what you want to earn a week as a base starting point. Then I'd work that out as an hourly rate and add a loading. You can factor in whatever costs and depreciation and carry on as people often suggest and come up with a figure from there.

I don't know if you are going to do this a couple of hours a week, a day, full days or what but obviously you wouldn't want to be doing it for less than the hourly rate a photographer would get for other basic work.

The only person that can come up with a number is you because only you know all the factors that are relevant. That said, $15 per location is a very wrong number and pretty silly when you don't even know what your travel time would be.




May 25, 2014 at 03:50 AM
Micky Bill
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Suggestions on pricing structure


This is one of those projects that sounds like it was made up by three guys (client side) sitting around the table after lunch throwing ideas around. Guys who have no real idea what they need want or how to get it done. 200 locations? Of what? Quick exteriors of homes? What, Where, and Why as well as Who will see these are questions that should be asked.
Are these to be used as some sort of legal record showing they installed product A and C at house #4 and it looked like this on xx/xx/xxxx date? With those kind of shots you might not really need to get out of the car and it won't really matter if there's crap all over the place, the shadows are going the wrong way or there's a ratty 2002 SUV parked in the way.
OTOH if they want to use these for marketing purposes they may expect nice pics shot at the right time of day and garbage cans out of the frame and a decent shot of their product, good enough to show prospective customers. If the home faces east you'd want to shoot in the am, so you'll spend some time on google earth.

Without knowing much about the client and the project or about the OP I can't give a price to be sure. But I think $15 per hour or per house is very low.



May 25, 2014 at 04:01 PM
rkgatteleport
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Suggestions on pricing structure


+1 on what Micky Bill said - the usage here is important. Do they -really- just need grab shots you can get by doing "drive by shootings" (for a private record of what they've done for a scrapbook that sits in the office/on their phone or something), or are they expecting to use these location shots for ads - which means you're going to be wanting to shoot them at certain times of day and/or only on days with flattering weather, contact the owners about moving junk/cars, possibly having to bring along a lackey to help prep each location, getting the appropriate releases signed, etc.

While it seems like the trend these days is for small businesses to use images of their products/work that are either manufacturer provided stock images or look like they were shot randomly by somebody with no clue what a good image looks like with a bad cellphone camera, I'd be worried that you wouldn't get any repeat work anyway if they were planning to use drive by shooting images in an ad campaign and weren't happy with their work not being shown in its best light...

That said, I'd be tempted to bill your location shooting on a day rate + mileage + other expenses basis as well as the travel here is not easily quantified, with maybe some per image fee for the post (in this case, just because of the "cramming" issue). And do a per image fee (maybe plus expenses if you're shooting at their location) for the product shots since you can control/get a handle on the costs in that situation. I'd actually be leery of using their vehicle (there are indemnification issues - I can see their insurance, your personal liability insurance, and your business insurance companies all pointing fingers at each other if something happens. But hey, if one of their guys wants to drive you around...).

From your questions about what to charge, it sounds like maybe you haven't figured out your cost of doing business - you might want to go through that exercise sooner than later - its really helpful in determining what you need to charge to not make this a charity gig, and its usually a lot more than you think.

That said, you can do a sanity check of that vs. the local market by seeing what other guys charge for a day rate and maybe what the lower end realtor photographers charge (for the location shots anyway).

Good Luck,

rkg
(Richard George)




May 26, 2014 at 11:09 AM
dmward
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Suggestions on pricing structure


This is the classic business model question.
Its not about this one job, its about the business model that permits one to do a job like this.
2000 hours a years. Livable income, expenses, amortized equipment, insurance, etc. Add all those numbers together, realistically estimate how many hours you will be able to bill for as a photographer. Estimate how many hours you will be able to realistically bill for editing, (That's probably a lower rate.)

Most of the time it comes to between $125 and $200 for shooting and about half that for editing to get to a realistic livable wage.

Now, knowing how much you need to charge based on an honest estimate of the time involved, including travel you can come up with a gross figure. How you put it on the proposal is up to you and the client's best estimate of how the job should work out and as an easy to refer to basis for future work.

Base on your description, I'd estimate about an hour per location, including driving time, and another hour to prepare the two to 5 images you may have per site. So, per site would be somewhere around $200 for both shooting and editing.

When you tell them that, they will realize that shooting every installation isn't economically realistic. Or then again, they decide its a good investment.



May 26, 2014 at 04:08 PM
dmward
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Suggestions on pricing structure


Oh and don't forget, because you are photographing private property for commercial use you will have to get a property release from each property owner. That will take time, so add that to the mix as well. I'd charge $100 per site for the release. And get those before you drive to the site.


May 26, 2014 at 04:11 PM





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