[00:00:00] Are you a photographer struggling to make ends? Maybe you're sick of chasing that next paycheck to just barely scrape by, or maybe you have dreams of finally quitting your nine to five and doing photography full time. In today's podcast episode, we're discussing photography pricing. Yes, that's right.
This is a topic not many people want to talk about, but today I'm laying out how I price my things using real numbers. There are some very important shifts that photographers should make that will revolutionize their creative business. I'll share my personal journey of how I went from barely scraping.
It's making over six figures a year. In my first two years of product photography, I felt like I was barely making any progress, but by year three, I made a shift that drastically increased my revenue. And the best part, I was working with less clients than before. I was able to make nearly triple the amount of money with this shift in pricing, and I guarantee you'll be able to at least double your own rate if you stick with this method long enough.
All right, so in the intro there, I pitched the dream outcome, right? We can make more money by [00:01:00] working with less clients. How is this possible? Well, we need to avoid some critical mistakes when it comes to pricing. I made a lot of mistakes when I was starting out with my pricing. I didn't have a mentor for the longest time.
I had no resources online to turn to like this YouTube channel or this podcast, and I was left with no choice. Then to just guess how to do. Welcome to the Creative Biz Launch Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale to six figures. Whether you're a photographer, filmmaker, or designer, you'll find something of value here.
It wasn't until I actually invested in my business education that I start getting results. Since then, I've never thought twice about investing in myself. In this video, I wanna break down my story, my pitfalls, and the wrong way of pricing, and at the end, we'll discuss the best way to price your photography or really any creative service.
If you're a videographer or a graphic designer, you'll get just as much value from this video, from this podcast as a photographer would. All right, so let's get into it. Let's rewind the clock all the [00:02:00] way to early 2019. This is when I first started getting paid gigs as a photo. . This is before I started doing product photography.
I got the occasional headshot gig, or lifestyle modeling gig, mainly from being in the Chicago photography scene. When I took these projects on, I charged hourly. That was what I thought everyone did. I quickly realized this was the wrong way to go about it. So when I started my product photography business from the very start, I charge per deliverable rather than hourly.
Here's why pricing hourly was a mistake for me and for almost every photographer out there. This is especially true if you're a beginner or intermediate photographer, as I gained experience. And improved my skills. I noticed an interesting and frustrating phenomenon. My earnings would start to decline.
This happened because I was able to work more efficiently, which meant that I could spend less time on each shoot and because I would be charging hourly. This meant I would be earning less despite delivering better results. So if I was pricing hourly for my proc photography, I was [00:03:00] actually going to get punished for producing better results.
That doesn't make much sense. So I could either deliberately work slower and produce the same results, or continuously raise my rates if I decided to just work slower. I was accepting mediocrity, which as an entrepreneur. I did not have that in me. I wanted to be the best. If I raised my rate, then clients would start asking questions after each new shoe, well, this cost 50 bucks an hour last time.
Why is it now $70? If I kept raising my rate like this, clients would get frustrated and stop working with me. Sure, I could explain why I raised my rate, but then they would probably just want the old rate and the worst photos that they were used to. So that brings me to option three, charge per deliver.
I would have a set price per photo. This seemed to solve all my problems. Now, as I got better at photography, my price per photo would stay the same, but I would be able to produce much better work and produce it more efficiently. This meant I could make more money in the same timeframe as before. I [00:04:00] thought I solved all my problems with this pricing strategy.
So as soon as I switched to product photography in late 2019, I decided to price my work per photo, and it worked exactly as I thought it would. The pricing structure was super simple to follow, so it was easy to explain it to potential clients. So that's why I did for a few years, I priced per photo. If you wanna know the actual price per photo, well that varied a lot.
For me, it was 20 to $200, but I know photographers who charged $500 plus per. Now I can't tell you exactly how much you should be charging. I have such a broad audience that listens to this podcast. If you want more personalized pricing advice, I'd recommend joining Creative bis Launch next time we open.
That's my program that teaches photographers and videographers how to scale their business to six figures. Guaranteed. Wait list for that is in the podcast show notes. With clients when I would get on my sales calls, this is what I pitched. I pitched per pricing photo, but soon I start to see a problem and a solution to that problem.
I had a minimum photo quantity of 10 photos per project at the time. [00:05:00] When I talked with leads and prospects over the phone, I would tell them that I had a 10 photo minimum, and then I would ask them how many photos they wanted. Some would say the minimum of 10, others had no idea. So when I sent the proposal over, I would usually put 15 or 20 photos down inside the proposal, and to my surprise, most clients rarely change the number I put.
This got me thinking. They're perceiving me as the expert here. They think they need 15 or 20 photos because that's why I put down. All right, so let's build out some big packages with this number. This was a huge light bulb moment in my head. I noticed clients trusted the amount photos I put, so I was gonna build out high ticket packages with this quantity.
This is a secret I'm sharing with you today. We're no longer pricing per deliverable. We're building out massive packages with massive value for the client. For a big price tag, a big price tag here, meaning thousands. I started imagining what my business would look like if I had the financial stability I longed for.
I realized that I would have a lot more freedom to do what I want [00:06:00] with my time. It gave me freedom to pursue more projects. It also unlocked the ability to spend more time on client work and really create the best photos possible. For my clients, because now I had a bigger budget to work with. Higher budgets really just meant that I could create the best photos that I was capable of.
No longer was I constrained by a $500 budget. I was working with $5,000 budgets here. Another thing that happened that I was actually surprised by was that the higher budget clients tended to be a lot easier to work with. They didn't micromanage me and they trusted me with the process. That was a perk I just didn't see coming, but one I definitely welcomed.
Another perk was I was able to work with a lot less clients and be more selective with who I worked with. I had more money coming in, which meant I could actually become more and more picky, but it wasn't all roses when I raised. This much and started pitching these packages. There was a really tough side to charging so much money.
My close rate went down a lot when I pitched my services on sales calls and through emails, I got a lot more [00:07:00] nos, mainly because of that price tag. At the very start of this, I was really discouraged and it took me a while to actually land a client with this big package, but I stuck with it for a long time, and when I finally started getting those yeses for these high ticket packages, it was all worth it and I ended up making more money even though I was working with fewer clients just because I was charging so much for these package.
Once I figured out the package I want to sell, the results were pretty extraordinary. In the first three months after I implemented the strategy, I made 50 grand and then another 50 grand the following three months. That was pretty wild for me and pretty wild for most photographers. Honestly, I'm telling you these numbers so that you know what's possible with these high ticket packages.
I'm no different than you are. I just learned a strategy and implement it into my business using a systemized approach. Now, when I'm talking about high ticket packages, this is anything over two grand. In my book, I was selling on average three to $4,000 packages, but there was also some $10,000 packages in there as well.
It took me a really long [00:08:00] time to actually figure out how to create a compelling package like this. The book, a hundred million dollar Offers by Alex from Mosey really helped me out, but a lot of it was trial and error for me to apply these teachings into a photography or creative business. I identified problems.
My clients had proposed solutions and then reiterated over time until I got something that really stuck in the creative field. Now, I mentioned Creative Biz Launch earlier, and we actually have a whole module devoted to creating packages that you can sell for. That's 15 plus videos devoted to teaching you the exact strategies to make that kind of money inside of your own business.
Again, the wait list for that is in the, in the show notes down below, so check that out. Right now we're close for enrollment, so I'll quickly go over the package strategy here inside of this podcast. Photo or video packages need to provide a lot of value for the dollar amount. This means you include a lot of photos in there for a relatively good deal.
You, you need to convey your value with previous case studies and show exactly how you provide high ROI and other clients' investments. I also love including bonuses in all of my packages. Bonuses are [00:09:00] things that most photographers don't do, but you can do to set yourself. This can be anything like super fast turnaround times, like two to three days.
It can be free licensing, free prop shopping, free styling, stuff like that. Now, build out your package with your core deliverables, add on those bonuses, slap on a high price tag, and sell that package. This is how you massively increase your revenue. When I did this, my revenue skyrocketed. It nearly tripled in.
Don't price, hourly price per photo, but then switch to packages as soon as you can. My name is Chris Pieta. This is the Creative Biz Launch Podcast. I'll see you in the next episode. If you have an extra 10 seconds here, please, please rate the show. It really helps spread the message to more and more people.
Thank you for listening.
