Pricing question

[Carpe Imago]

The unthinkable has occurred...I have someone that wishes to pay me for services.

I have been approached to shoot approximately 15-20 team members for a local real estate firm for promotional use (website, business cards, etc.). I'll be bringing in my equipment and shooting on site. Won't be the greatest use of my creative juices, but I am practically giddy.

I've got a boiler plate contract for just such an occasion, but it's missing one thing. Prices. How do you calculate your fee for somthing like this? Per person plus post production time? Per person includding touch up? Straight time? My intention is to include ownership of said images to the company. Is that crazy or acceptable?

The contact for this job is a friend and I want to make sure that I am fair to both of us on pricing. If I err, I would prefer to err low so that she looks good to her boss. That said, I have heard on more than one post that setting the bar too low is suicide.

Discuss amongst yourselves, and as always accept my thanks for your input.

[Arkie]

I do occasional stuff for local real estate agents and usually price it in the basement. I have them come to my studio, shoot 25 shots, let them pick one, do touch-ups and size for prints and the web and burn them a CD of the three or four images. I charge $25 each. I keep the rest of the images in case they decide to order more later (at my regular prices). The upside is that I schedule them at my convenience and so do not miss jobs that pay real money. Also, they see some of my work, so I am "advertising" to a captive audience and promoting myself one-on-one. I usually end up doing family groups or other work for them at regular prices, which makes it worth the trouble. Added bonus? They are in contact with new people every day moving to my area (who see their business card with my photo) and can tell these new people about me.

[RANGER8755]

I did the same type shoot except for a car dealer with 25 salespeople. I charged a flat fee of $1250.00 which came out to about 50 a head. It was set up to take place in their conference, basic two light portrait setup w background. I did not provide any prints just a cd with the images for them to use in ads or on cards etc. It took about 4 hours and was pretty easy money. I realize it is not much money for some of you high dollar guys but for those of us that rarely get someone who pays I thought it was great. Hope this helps.

[Carpe Imago]

Thanks guys. Ranger, that is the ballpark that I was thinking. I figured at $40-50 per person I could come out okay and still be very accomodating to them financially. Thanks for the input!

[BGPhoto]

I've done some looking into this in the past, and it seems like $50-75 is a pretty fair number, given that there are 15-20 of them shooting at the same time.

Remember, this isn't a personal portrait sitting as a favor to a friend. They're going to be using the images to make money, and you should, too.

[Ron_C]

If you are doing all of them on the same day, you could go as low as $50.00 per head if that is all your market will bear, $75.00 to $100.00 per head is what the market in my area is. I charge the later of the three no matter if it is all shot in the same day or spread out over several days.

[Ron_C]

Don't go so low that you under cut the guys in your area that are trying to make a living at photography call around and see what they charge.

[Carpe Imago]

Originally Posted by Ron_C

Don't go so low that you under cut the guys in your area that are trying to make a living at photography call around and see what they charge.

That is exactly it Ron, I'd like to have strong relationships with the other people that have to feed their families with this profession.

Of course with the attitude that I've gotten from a few local guys (no one at G1 to be very clear) there are a few I wouldn't mind "upper cutting".