Why You Shouldn’t Charge Your Worth
Wait, what?
I know, I know. You’ve been told to charge your worth a thousand times from all angles. Any photographer that has been in this business longer than a few months has heard those words before. But I’m here to tell you it’s wrong.
Ok, so hear me out. Let’s pretend you just started. You have a nice camera. You take pictures of your kids, or your pets, or your friends for free. You have fun doing it. Then their friends start asking (well, maybe not your pets’ friends - they can’t actually talk no matter how much we pretend they can). And your friends’ friends. And their cousins. And their great Aunt Sue’s daughter who is getting married next week… And suddenly this fun hobby actually has you making money! You’re making $50 an HOUR. That’s the same as a nuclear engineer! I mean, if you don’t count editing time. But still, $50 for an hour of doing something you love anyway? Awesome!
Then in comes somewhat more experienced photographer, Polly. Polly has been doing this for a bit longer than you, charges a bit more than you, and has only just realized how much work this business is, and how $50 a session is really not something you can live off of. So Polly catches wind of your pricing and decides to send you a helpful message. Sometimes this message might actually be helpful and kind - the one I was sent way back when I was new was actually well written, kind and uplifting. But most of the time these messages sound more like this: “You need to charge more. You’re bringing down the industry.” Well, that’s complete bullshit. (Can I swear on my own blog? It feels weird - like someone is going to shadowban me on here or something) As if you, one photographer in a sea of hundreds of thousands of photographers, can single handedly bring an entire industry down. As if you charging higher prices will make other new photographers do the same. No - that’s not what Polly meant. She meant to say, “You need to charge more. I had a client message me that I was too expensive and told me you were only charging $50. It makes me look bad to have you that cheap.” Most of the time Polly feels threatened. Some of the time she actually wants you to succeed, and not hit burnout faster than a new driver in a sports car.
Here’s the truth: There will ALWAYS be someone cheaper than you. There are photographers (like you were) that do it for free. You can’t beat free.
The message I got was better. She had seen one of my mini session package offerings back when I did mini session package offerings. I think I was giving away a few 8x10s, 5x7s and all the digitals for something like $50. She basically told me my photography was worth more, that if I needed help reaching clients to let her know and she’d help me out, and that by the end of it all, I’d pretty much be paying clients to let me take their pictures with those prices. I wasn’t considering shipping costs, taxes, business fees… Any of it. I was new, scared no one would book me, and wanting to just get people in front of my camera so I would have something to show other people and maybe they’d get in front of my camera. But she was right.
Except, she told me to charge my worth.
Now here’s the first problem with charging your worth. You are priceless. You are the ONLY one of you on this entire planet. No one can love your clients the way you can. No one can take the same picture you do. No one sees the world the same way. How do you charge for something that is so spectacularly unique? You can’t. No one could afford you if you did.
But most of the time what photographers mean is, “charge based on what your picture is worth”. This is also pretty poor reasoning. Where is the guide that tells me how much my picture is worth? Is there one? Can I submit my images somewhere and have a computer spit back out a price? I have seen some amazing photographers charge way too little… And, quite honestly, some really terrible photographers charge a LOT.
So how do you figure out what your prices should be?
Usually the second step after getting that message from another photographer (after the indignation of “but I want to be a photographer everyone can afford, because everyone deserves to have their memories preserved” wears off a bit), the next few hours, days, weeks, or months are spent researching what all the other photographers in your area charge and pricing yourself somewhere a little lower than the middle-est of them. For all the research that went into finding out other photographers prices, you could have just figured out your own the right way.
What I teach all of my students is to find a few things out first - and none of them have to do with anyone but you. Find out what your business needs to make in order to pay for itself (your Cost of Doing Business, or CODB). Find out what you need to make a year to support yourself. Then add in what it will cost for the life you want to live - because if your dream job doesn’t also support your dreams, it’s not really worth it.
If math isn’t your strong suit, I just released a workbook that will guide you through finding out each of those steps. And if you open it using Adobe Acrobat, it will do all the math for you. And it’s 50% right now!
