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Archive 2015 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images

  
 
sherijohnson
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images


I know this has been discussed here before.... but rather than trying to figure out what to type in to search, I am just going to put this out there. I have been contacted by a local jeweler that wants to consider using some images I have taken from a client's wedding to promote their company.

Is there a simple way to calculate how to price this? I don't want to sell myself short but I also would love to have the opportunity to explore this additional form of income from my images.

Thank you!!!



Feb 23, 2015 at 02:16 PM
nolaguy
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images


Hi Sheri,

There are tools online to estimate usage and licensing fees but depending upon the client, they may not be of much use to you.

One approach might be to estimate their total marketing/advertising budget and consider what percentage of that would be reasonable to allocate for your work.

The typical independent, single location retail jewelry store's gross sales range from $1M to perhaps $2.5M per year. The advertising budget might be 5% or so - maybe higher for very well run stores.

If you want to PM me their website I may be able to give you a better guess.

I would also clear this with your wedding client.

Good luck with it,

Chuck



Feb 24, 2015 at 08:43 AM
sherijohnson
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images


Thanks, it appears it is already okay with the wedding client as they have supplied high resolution images to the jewelry company without clearing it with me first, at least the jewelry store is working directly with me to make sure we take care of details.


Feb 24, 2015 at 04:54 PM
nolaguy
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images


Hi Sheri,

Thanks for the link. Based on the website, store description, location and photos they probably do $2 million a year, maybe over $2.5M and their advertising budget is likely to be at least $80K to as high as 225K.

I know very little about licensing image rights but factors to be considered are:

How do they plan to use your photo or photos – ads in newspaper, magazine, tv? …in-store mural, etc?

How long will they have usage rights and what time of the year?

What’s the size of the audience and territory?

Exclusive to them?

…and so on.


A quick stab using Getty’s pricing calculator suggests $3,765 for the following conditions: up to full page newspaper or magazine ads for 3 months beginning today, 1,000,000 circulation in the United States.

http://www.gettyimages.com/pricecalculator/sb10069475ab-001


Those pricing tools generally heavily favor the licensor/artist so the number is probably high and if you consider the client, it’s unlikely they’d allocate 4% of their budget for short term use of your image.

So, what to do from here? Surely other FMers have experience with this but in their absence, I would suggest getting a sense of how the client plans to use your photography. Is it a nice-to-have backdrop for ads really driven by other content or are they wanted to build a campaign around your images?

If the former, charge them $500 for non-exclusive rights to one image, if the latter, $18,000 for exclusive rights for two years (I’m not being literal, just tossing out points). Is there an opportunity for co-branding – your coverage of their customers’ weddings – Sheri being the preferred wedding photographer of XYZ jewelers and they create an ongoing campaign around it, etc.


Lots of things to consider. If it looks like a promising relationship I’d try to make it easy to get started with you and build from there. As you mentioned in PM, they’re new to this too so you don’t want to freak them out, but you should be able to help them imagine possibilities and begin setting expectations for an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship.

Keep in mind that small businesses like this generally have crappy visuals or use canned images that their customers couldn’t care less about. The idea of professional work commissioned or licensed by them takes them up several notches in prestige – particularly images tied to the community and exclusive to them. They probably understand that and want to test those waters.

Good luck with it all. Let us know how it goes.

Chuck



Feb 25, 2015 at 07:35 AM
sherijohnson
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Calculating commercial licensing fee for images


Thank you Chuck for taking the time to reply, I sure do appreciate it. I have been asking them questions about intended usage and they have mentioned the possibility of partnership, however I think it is wise to not factor that in since it could be nothing but empty promises that may not provide any bookings, we have all heard of promises of exposure and business that haven't lead to anything tangible. There was mention of social media paid ads, usage in printed materials and potential for billboard ads. Some of the images they want to use are better than others and one of them they mentioned I shot down and offered up a better option from my selections. I was thinking of creating my own marketing piece with images featuring their jewelry from the wedding to could be left with them to share with customers.


Feb 25, 2015 at 11:37 AM





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