4 Photography Pricing Mistakes You're Probably Making

Knowing how to price your photography business can be downright tricky at first, and it’s one of the biggest, and most common questions I get asked - both by new business owners, and those that have been charging for a while.

When you first start your photography business, you can easily find yourself at a total loss at what might be a fair price to charge, or simply feel nervous that you’re either over-priced, or not charging enough!

It’s SO important to price your photography services and products right, so today we’re talking about 4 photography pricing mistakes you’re probably making - aaaaand most importantly, what you should do instead.

Making sure that you don’t make these mistakes will set you up on the right path to making a profit - which, after all, is the purpose of a business!

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Mistake #1 - Not Understanding Your Business Costs

Before you can determine your pricing for your photography business AND make sure that you’re profitable in the process, the first thing you need to do is work out your costs.

Unfortunately, this is a step that most new photography business owners skip, either because they don’t want to spend the time on it, OR because they don’t really understand what costs they need to cover.

You need to think about your costs in three different areas - your operating expenses and overheads, your time investment, and the costs of goods sold.

(We’ve included our Path to Profit workshop in the Photography Biz Start Up Kit - be sure to check that out if you struggle with pricing!)

Operating expenses are expenses that you have regardless of whether you make a sale or not!

Some examples of operating expenses are photography website hosting charges, internet usage, your subscription to the photography plan from Adobe, your insurances, props and even gear depreciation.

You also want to make sure that you cover ALL the time spent in your business - this can include actual shooting time, but also all the other time that goes into a paid shoot such as editing time, driving time, or even uploading images to Facebook.

Finally, you have your cost of goods sold - this is costs that only occur when you make a sale, so these are usually pretty easy to determine! These are things like the cost of prints, or a photo book.

If you are not sure what expenses you are incurring right now, never mind in the future, then the first step is to make sure that you are logging your expenses and income correctly - get yourself a spreadsheet and start logging them! You can get a totally FREE one from me right here:

Mistake #2 - Setting Your Prices Too Low

I know it probably seems like a good idea to charge a really low rate to begin, and then raise your prices once you get more experience and have a bit of a client base built up.

The problem here is one of expectations. When you start off charging $50 and then begin to realise that doesn’t even cover your camera deprecation, never mind your time, and you raise your prices significantly, the client base you’ve built up won’t pay those higher prices.

Why? Because you’ve anchored the value of your work at $50 in their mind, so everything above that seems expensive. And when they’ve referred you to their friends, they’ve done so with that lower price, and anchored that price in THEIR mind too!

Which all means you’ll just have to go out and find a whole new set of photography clients, and all your hard work until that point will have been for nothing.

So, how do you combat this? Set your pricing FIRST, and then discount for portfolio building / experience building. That way, you’ve anchored the higher price in their head, and that special portfolio building price will seem like a great, one off deal.

Mistake #3 - Copying Pricing From Your Competition

I know you’ve done it - you’ve looked up other photographers in your area, and had a look to see what they’re charging, and you’ve either copied the pricing, or you’ve tried to undercut them so you’re cheaper.

This is such a HUGE mistake to make, for several reasons.

You’re only seeing the price that photographer wants you to see, but you have no idea of everything that is going on behind-the-scenes in that business. You don’t know what they’re including, what their cost of goods sold are and their overall expenses, what they’ve included (that might not even be there on the price list) what they HAVEN’T included, and most importantly, you don’t even know if they are profitable!

Stop looking at what everyone else is charging, and work out your OWN unique costs and pricing structure based on the people YOU want to serve, and your unique business. You can then use your competitors pricing as a sense check if needed, for sure, but please, please, please don’t blindly copy - you will only see the tip of the iceberg on their pricing page, so don’t do it.

Mistake #4 - Wanting to be the cheapest

I get it. You want to get clients and you think the best way to do that is to be the cheapest in your area.

Although you can certainly create a business by being a low-priced photographer, provided you are very strict on your costs of doing business, never, ever, ever (EVER) compete solely on price, for two reasons.

One, if price is the only differentiator in your business, then you will always be lowering your prices. What’s to stop someone coming along and undercutting YOU in 3 months time? All you’ll do is have to lower your prices in response and no-one wins. Always try to be unique in OTHER areas, not on price.

Secondly, when you are the cheapest, you’ll actually put off a large number of potential customers because they won’t trust you because you are too cheap. If you don’t value yourself, how can you expect other people to value your work?

Now if you’ve already started making some of these mistakes, don’t panic, because the wonderful thing about pricing is that it is not set in stone. You can start to make changes today - start by working out your costs, and how much you need to charge to make a profit, and then make a plan to raise your prices if they’re too low. The sooner you do, the more likely it is that you’ll create a thriving business!

You can also check out Photography Biz Start Up Kit which has sample contracts, pricing workshops, marketing guides and more, which will help you put all of this into action.

Don’t forget to download your totally free Income & Expenses spreadsheet here to help you understand what expenses you should be considering as part of your business, and to log everything so you can make sure you’re profitable! Grab it by clicking on the image below: