Five Commercial Photography Pricing Resources

Hello friends! One of the most commonly asked questions we get is how to price your work, and honestly it's something that we're still figuring out ourselves. I think it's a constant learning curve and that the way you price will always be changing as your business evolves and you work with more and more clients. It's something that's really hard for us to give specific advice on because there are so many factors so today I wanted to share a few resources that have been helpful for us as we have tried to figure out our own rates. 

A Photo Editor
This is one of my favorite resources and it's where I was inspired to start doing invoice breakdowns here. This site shares invoices from tons of different jobs and breaks down how the pricing was decided as well as a little about the job or client. They also share if the estimate was accepted and talk about any negotiating that happened. It was really helpful for me to see the different things they quoted for, and see how things were adjusted for different projects. 

Fotoquote
Fotoquote has been really helpful for me specifically with licensing. I like that I can choose different categories or even packages that I can offer to clients. It also gives negotiation hints which I like. I know there's a lot of features that I haven't even tried out yet so I'm excited to explore this software even more. 

Professional Business Practices in Photography
*This is an affiliate link to our amazon shop* :)
I love this book, specifically the first part of it. The whole first section on licensing and pricing was really helpful and it also confirmed that we've been doing things correctly which is always nice haha. To be fully transparent, I haven't finished reading it, I'm only like halfway through LOL but I think the first part of the book alone is worth the money. It'll give you a lot of confidence and reassurance. 

AOP Usage Calculator
This is another great resource for pricing usage, although if you aren't in Europe you will have to convert from Euros. It's by the Association of Photographers and it's similar to Fotoquote in that you can select different things to change the rate, but it doesn't offer too many different package rates. It also calculates the rate from your base usage rate which is the initial licensing fee so it's designed to price for additional usage. I think it can still be helpful for usage in general, but you'll also want to adjust based on the size of the company. 

Our Pricing Guide
This one is tooting our own horn a little but in my opinion, it’s one of the most through pricing resources out there that’s specifically for product photographers. We can’t tell you exactly what to charge, but we walk you through the mindset that will help you charge your worth and break down how to charge for both your time and value. We also share several real invoice examples from different stages in our business.

There you go! Let me know if you have any questions on any of these resources or if you have any that you think I should add.

Is it the weekend yet?
Elle