This is one of those topics people don’t like to discuss. But let’s face it, when you’re looking for a photographer, the investment price and what you get for it are two pretty important factors to consider! It’s no secret that every small town to big city has multitudes of different photographers these days who would love your business. You post a message on a social media board looking for a photographer and suddenly you’re bombarded with way too many to choose from and lots of direct messages trying to get you to choose them! I’ve written other blog posts that are available on my site, that discuss what to consider when choosing a photographer. However, today, I figured we’d discuss pricing and answer that question…Why are some photographers more expensive than others?
No matter the type of session you are looking for, you will find there are a wide range of prices out there. It’s easy to understand how someone outside the business would look at the vast number of photographers and their different pricing options and struggle to make sense of what works best for them.
And let’s face it, most people don’t know everything that goes on behind the scenes to onboard a client, photograph their session and deliver a final product. How hard can it be? We push a button and snap a photo in under a second. Voila! But not really… For the new photographer with less experience, or the hobbyist who shoots sessions on the side, their process is usually pretty simple. They upload the session when they get free time, toss the really bad pictures, throw a basic preset on top of the rest, then deliver the images. Done! Easy!
But the professional photographer is a bit different. We have a registered, legal business. That business supports our livelihood and we have a vested interest in ensuring our client experience is the best it can be and offers our clients professional work that will last forever. So why does it matter if the photographer is running their business legally? Well, insurance to start with… Things happen. You want to work with a photographer who carries valid business insurance. If that photographer has a registered business, they are undoubtedly carrying a significant CODB (cost of doing business) and therefore take their job seriously. They will likely adhere to deadlines, deliver galleries on time, and strive to make your client experience top notch so you will return again. It’s their livelihood after all!
And here’s a big difference…When a photographer is not paying business taxes and shooting on the side, they have minimal expenses. They can charge you a cheap fee of $200 for a session and they take that full amount home. However, the professional photographer ends up paying about 30% of their income to taxes and another 30% to paying their CODB and what’s left becomes their take-home. Sometimes that amount can be hard to stomach for all the work.
The reality is, running a photography business, like any small business, is pretty expensive when you do it the right way. This is my full time job. I have to make a living and pay the same bills as you. Over all the years of growing this business, I have invested countless hours and funds into continuing education, developing professionally, purchasing new equipment, improving my skill set and developing my artistic vision in my work. It is the artistic vision of a photographer and what you see and feel in their images that first draws you to them and each photographer is unique in that.
For each hour of shooting sessions, there are countless hidden hours that you don’t see when we are working on your session and client experience. A professional photographer will easily invest an additional 10-15 hours or more of work behind the scenes, to create the magic that comes to you! Whether it’s planning sessions, styling clients, answering client questions, planning consults, location scouting, editing, writing, creating albums, marketing, etc. we seriously wear multiple business hats because that’s what it takes to create a luxury client experience for you!
Each photographer’s CODB is different, but a professional photographer knows their business costs must be worked into their session fees in order to keep their heads above water and stay in business, while making a profit to live on. In addition to maintaining our equipment and replacing older lenses and camera bodies, we maintain software for our client management systems, invoicing, accounting, taxes and back-end system processes. We invest in training and computer equipment, backup systems to maintain your images, business insurance and so much more!
When you work with a professional photographer, you are likely working with someone who has spent years perfecting their craft. You are not simply paying for a digital file or a photograph. You are paying for a luxury experience that you will look back on and remember how much joy you felt in creating the memories you made with that photographer. You are paying for that photographer’s unique artistic skill-set that will create photographs you absolutely fall in love with and cherish. You are paying for high-quality photographs that create living artistic images that you may print and carry with you in photographs and photo albums and share with your generations to come. Those photographs become a part of the story of your life and your love and your Legacy.
At the end of the day we are just people like you who love to pour our hearts into serving our clients and creating magic with them, all while trying to make a living doing it! Most of us will cut costs where we can but we need to make a profitable income, just like you.
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR! Yes, professional photographers are more expensive…But not using a professional can be very, very costly! Not all photographers have the same skillset or vision. The skillset of each photographer is the one thing that will make an incredible photograph stand out from a decent one. And that difference is everything! In a world with many photographers to choose from, it means the world to me when my clients connect with my “why” and choose me. And it means even more when they value the unique client experience I give them and become repeat clients! I am truly blessed to be able to do what I love to do!
