No offense to John Harrington, but looking at his website and reading through his highly complicated pricing gives me a headache! Most customers will quickly find another photographer whose pricing they can understand. He has more unheard of fees than Citibank! Give me a break!!!

Interesting threads on advertising billing and estimates and bidding

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I have several associates where that is basically the case.

Depends on what kind of work you do and the market. See the above ad estimate…

The interesting aspect is when I meet potential new clients, and tell them what projects and concepts I have shot. Some of them think I might be too expensive or high end for them, until I explain the 5% of placement. After that, they can get an idea of how they might work with me on one of their future concepts.

Obviously some clients will not want to tell you all their placement usages, nor will they want to reveal their budget for placement. Sometimes that can be tough to work around when writing proposals. Usually I find that if they can give me their largest placement destination, or at least their top three (for an ad campaign), then I can at least find out the rates from those publications, and get to a workable usage fee, based upon their time running the campaign.

Clients who might not want to tell you budget, or be more specific about placement, could be calculated through FotoQuote. Then the explanation for the usage fee becomes that it is “industry standard” rates.

-Michael

I like the idea in principle but worry that most of the clients I’ll be dealing with have never done this before, and thus it would present me with a number of headaches.

Refusing to do non creatively fulfilling jobs that pay well because they bore you is just as ridiculous as these people over extending themselves on vacation properties.

An example would be a client using an image I shot for a campaign running for one year in a publication: the rate the magazine charges my client would be used to calculate 5%. If that becomes too low a number, based upon my CODB, then I revert to FotoQuote, or I decline doing the campaign; unless I get a great deal of creative freedom, or there might be potential for more notoriety for my work.

I shoot corporate and advertising, so I don’t think my percentage based system would work too well for editorial photographers. The main idea is that the 5% method places a value on the images that is tied to the cost of running an ad campaign (or other types of usage).

There are many different budgets out there looking for images and photographers. I have found a method that works for me, and is easy for each client to understand; and it places a quantifiable value upon the images. I don’t know that there is one true method that works for every photographer and shoot, but this has worked well for me.

“If you’re in the arts ‘for the money’ then you will soon be creatively bankrupt.”

How creative can a person be with no resources, struggling to pay rent? Balance!!! But before that – There are no free lunches!

If that’s your attitude then you’ll always be paying interest, never principal.

“Personal fulfillment” wasn’t accepted by my mortgage company last time I looked.

“…every time I’ve done something just for the money, no matter how much they paid, it was never enough.”

It was never enough, because the only fulfillment you expected was money. If you’re in the arts ‘for the money’ then you will soon be creatively bankrupt. That may explain why it is hard to make a living as an artist – there is always (at the very least) a minimal value in the personal fulfillment of creating something amazing. But it won’t really fit in the calculator.

And I don’t feel sorry for Annie or these two, just as I don’t feel sorry for Plexico Burress ruining his career by shooting himself. Which, by the way, is a good metaphor. I just think that, once you get to a certain level, the responsibility to stay at that level should be a priority.

For example, for the average, everyday, general consumer I have a retail pricelist structure for simple studio or location portraiture. Then I use online proof image hosting and print order fulfillment.

However, I also have a commercial pricing model for jobs that have various commercial image usages.

My standard invoice formats as line item fees that include a creation fee that includes usage fee, a digital image management fee that accounts for my post production time on the computer, an administrative fee that is equal to 10% of the job (Reference – John Harrington’s “Best Business Practices for the Professional Photographer”) , any other expenses related to the shoot. It also includes a second page of Terms & Agreements that act as my contract with the client.

John Harrington’s website is also a great resource for my pricing needs.
If I ever have a question about pricing here is the first place I visit.
http://johnharrington.com/dc-photographer/site/pricing/

I am also a member of a few professional photographer organizations which help me network with other photography professionals like myself where we can all get together and discuss how we should charge.

BlinkBid and FotoQuote are also great resources for the professional photographer who needs help in pricing.

And the thing that really pisses me off is that they get praise for high production value, but i could do that too if I didn’t worry about actually paying for it.

Fotoquote helps with obscure usage fees, but after a few years, this has become somewhat intuitive. But, current economic conditions have really put usage rates in shambles…