Craig:

Somebody needs to conduct a photography pricing seminar where all the different scenarios can be discussed. Books are nice but they only touch on certain situations. Pricing situations always seem to come up that really don't fall into typical catagories.


I agree completely and I'm really getting tired of reading forum posts from people who push the usage model but offer no real practical advice for pricing for small local clients. Typically they will say buy Fotoquote or visit one of the big stock sites like Corbis, Getty, or Masterfile and use their usage rates as a guideline to establish your fees.

So lets take an example of a typical job that I do all the time and see how this advice works out. A small locally owned, independent business requires 10-20 pictures for usage on their website and in marketing materials like brochures, post cards, etc. The work will typically be completed in a half day or less, often by myself with a small location lighting kit.

According to Masterfile (I think Getty and Corbis use similar rates), usage for 12 images on a website for 5 years would be $2680 per image for a total of $32,160. It they want to use the same 12 images in 10,000 brochures for regional distribution in a one-year period they would add another $6360.

The total would be $38,970! And that's not even including any additional uses like postcards, an occasional ad in the local paper, etc, etc. Does anybody really think a small local business has this kind of money to spend on photography? Even if I give them a 50 per cent discount off the stock rates, we're still talking $20,000 or more once you factor in creative fees, digital fees, etc, etc!

So I'm asking all you proponents of the usage model out there: Is this really reasonable for small client direct jobs?

Cheers,

Andrew

Aloha all!
Andrew, I completely understand where you're coming from there on the "standard" use fees. Wouldn't it be nice if money just continually churned up out of air for all small businesses? Cause that's what they need to just stay in business! I know...mine is a small business, and I sure could use a magic money machine!

As Steve said he does, so I also do. That is, I include Local use plus web use in my commercial jobs for local small businesses. Depending on what all uses will be, sometimes I'll add $60 or $100 per year, for example, use on a Music CD cover.

When I shoot for a local kitchen & bath design company, and I know that they will use the image in a local magazine and some other local publications, I give 'em a batch use for all the images made that shoot for $100 on top of my creation and post fees. And I ask them to put my studio name on the image or in the ad.

If I ever get hired by Smirnoff or Abercrombie & Fitch, I'll at least try to get $20K...or more!!

Aloha,
SPC II

StephenDantzig:
Remember--it is YOUR skill level that makes a job look "easy." It took a lot of work, studying and practice to become the professional that they are hiring. Same thing goes for post production.

About how easy things can look. Yesterday I went to the "glass room" here at SIUC in search of photographs, and watched a guy make a really cool bowl. The process requires two people and was just great seeing him pull some liquid glass from a 2300 degree furnace. He made it look easy. It took about an hour, and I got some pretty cool images. Afterward he said this type of thing could sell for $150 to $300 (depending on the area). A fool might say that's a lot of money for an hour's work that looked so easy. I'm sure I'd melt my hand off if I tried the same thing.

I think it's the same concept when others are like "dude, photo students have it so easy. They just go around taking pictures of stuff for class."

But no matter how great the image is, if the customer can't afford that price you won't get it. So yeah, how can this work for both people? Maybe on the small local jobs we throw out the pricing model, and go at it from the "how much I need to make off these images" angle? If you've got an idea how much they've got to spend, and you know how much you need to make, just find that middle ground? Is this a bit naive?

Cool Beans,
Jason Martin

Hi Jason,

Good points but I am not throwing out the pricing model...I let the local clients know that the "local" usage is included and start the education proces...for example, if they suddenly get enough "magic money" [funny, Stan!] to place a few full page ads in a bunch of national publications then we'd be adding a zero or two to the usage fee.

As far as web-use goes for local clients [read as you want more local clients] how about indicating to them that you are including the web-use fee in the overall price and asking them to provide a link to your website in exchange for waiving the "additional" fee?

I agree with what Steve is saying. We can't just throw out the usage model completely, but on the other hand I don't think it's reasonable to let Corbis or Getty establish our rates for assignment photography for small local or regional clients.

What I do is provide "marketing rights" to local clients as part of my normal fees. This means they can use the images in marketing and promotional materials such as web sites, brochures, postcards, etc, with no time limits or restrictions. I will typically provide exclusive usage for a year or two, but reserve the right to resell generic images after that period. However, this does not include usage in paid advertising space such as magazine and newspaper ads, billboards, transit ads, etc. If they want advertising rights they know they have to pay extra for that.

I've only been at this a couple years and marketing and promotional rights is all any of my clients have asked for. So I'm honestly not sure how I would handle this, especially when clients like this typically don't have engage in clearly defined advertising campaigns with multi-million dollar budgets.

Cheers,

Andrew

I know this thread has pretty much ran it's course but I was just reading through some of the forums where I don't normally participate and came accross this thread.

I found it very interesting but have a question. How do you monitor how much these clients use the images? Do you just trust that the client will tell you when they use the image?