[00:00:00] I deserve to charge a lot for my work because I spent a lot of money on camera. Wrong. I hear so many photographers say this, and I can't stand it. The market decides you're right. It's your fault that you spent the money on the gear, not the client's fault. Okay? So this episode's going to be a bit of a rant.
You're gonna learn how to price your work the right way. I've seen these posts on Instagram and Twitter. And I wanna see if you find it familiar. So does this post sound familiar? Why photographers charge so much? Camera? $3,000 lenses, $4,000 computer. Two and a half thousand. Software. 200 bucks a month.
Yeah. I bet you've seen this type of post on Instagram or Twitter before. I know. I see these all the time and I had to make this podcast episode just to address it. Just because your gear costs a lot of money doesn't mean you deserve to have high rates. It's actually your fault that you took on these expenses.
It's not the client's fault. You don't charge a lot of money because you use expensive gear. You charge a lot of money because [00:01:00] you deliver value to the client. Value is the name of the game here. By the way, if this is your first time listening, my name is Chris Pieta. I teach career, business online through my education company, creative Biz Launch.
I also run a pro photography company on the side called Pieta Productions. This episode's gonna be me breaking. Why some photographers are pricing their work from a completely wrong mindset, then I'll offer a solution and I'll allow you to price your work in a way that clients will want to pay you for it.
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. Let's imagine a scenario right here together. You're walking around your neighborhood and you see this new coffee shop that opened up.
It's a small little mom and pop shop. You walk in and the small freshly brewed coffee hits you right away. There's artwork on the walls from a local artist and people are sitting around talking and working on their laptops. You walk up to the barista rate to order your drink, and there's this big sign [00:02:00] that's right in front of you.
It says, this is why our lattes cost $7 espresso machine, 10,000 bucks monthly rent, $3,000 staff wages, 600 bucks a day. You see the sign and something doesn't sit right with you. Why is this coffee shop trying to justify their expensive lattes? They're a business. Shouldn't they just factor in their expenses into their costs and not tell me?
Isn't that how a normal business should? Exactly. When you try and justify your rates because you bought expensive gear, you look exactly like this coffee shop. No legitimate business is gonna try to justify their prices like this. Their price is their price. They don't need to justify it. They've calculated what they need to charge to make a profit and they charge it.
They've found the perfect number where they still provide value to their customer. And they make a decent profit. This is a hard balance to strike. The coffee shop found that by pricing at $7, people will still want to buy the lattes and the coffee shop will make money. Does the $7 Latte provide enough value for the [00:03:00] customer?
Well, number one, it tastes really good. , they use fresh beans. They can make the perfect shot of espresso, and they're experts at steaming the milk. Number two, you can't make a better latte yourself. Chances are you don't have an espresso machine at home and you haven't learned the skills required. Number three, this saves you time.
Even if you have these skills, it takes time to master them and takes time to do it yourself. Every single morning. Grabbing a quick latte from a coffee shop saves you. And that's why it costs $7. The Coffee shop has created a product and you want to buy that product based on the value it provides to you.
They don't justify the price because they took on expenses. Every business takes on expenses. Your photography business is not unique. You shouldn't try to make clients feel bad for you because you took on these expenses. That is your own fault. Now, how do we use this coffee shop example and apply it to our own creative business and price our work in a way that clients will actually understand?
This is a tough thing to do. It's really hard to convey the value you offer, and people don't like to do hard things. They like the [00:04:00] easy way out. That's why they use the expensive gear example to justify their cost. They're taking the easy way out here, but you're different. You're listening to this podcast because you want to get better.
You want to improve your creative business. You want to help serve your customers better, and you wanna make mower money.
By the way, I've got a weekly newsletter that sends out lessons like this every single week. Go to the website and the show notes, creative biz launch.com. Scroll down and sign up for that. We just crossed 4,000 subscribers, which is crazy. The link for that isn't a show notes. All right, so strap in. Let's talk about the value that you actually.
Why did you buy the expensive camera in the first place? You probably thought that it would take better photos. It would help you take those better photos, and if it does help you take better photos, then that's great. You're able to charge more because of that as a business, because that's what you are.
You're a business. As a business. You take on expenses in the hopes of increasing your value. That coffee shop could have used a cheap $500 special machine, but they went with a [00:05:00] $10,000 one because they knew the coffee coming out of that one would be better. They'd be able to charge more for it. Your $3,000 camera is a lot better than a cheap $400 entry level camera.
It's got better resolution, more dynamic range. It can capture more photos A second. And all of this will help you take better photos for your clients. A $2,000 lens is sharper and gives you more Boca expensive flash lets you increase your image quality even further. You bought all these things in hopes of taking better photos and increasing your value.
let me say that again. You're hoping to increase your value with these expenses, so that's one way to increase your value, provide a better product, provide better photos. You've learned to take great photos with the gear you have. Your work has become better because of the gear you bought. Taking pretty photos is great, but a lot of people can do that.
How else can you provide? Well, taking photos for someone saves them time. Depending on your niche photography, this can be a big one. If you're a proc photographer, you'll be working with a lot of small direct-to-consumer online [00:06:00] brands. These companies are scrappy and a lot of the time it's the owner taking all the website and social media photos.
Eventually, they'll get so busy that they wanna hire this one out. That's where you come in and save them. They're, they can't do it themselves. You're great at photography. Most people aren't because you're good. You provide value to the client, you're better than them at photography, so you can charge accordingly.
So those are the three things we get from that coffee shop example. But there are so many other ways that you can charge based on value. Let's dive into those. The value clients derive varies a lot by what niche you're in. The value of a pro photo, Provides will be different than what a wedding photographer provides, and they'll differ from what a headshot photographer does.
Let's start with the value of a product photographer. This might be the most tangible form of value. Ask yourself, why would a company want a proc photographer to begin with? Well, product photos will help make their products look great. It's quite simple, really. They just want great looking products on their [00:07:00] website and their social media.
Yes, this is true, but why does this matter? They want to increase their. That's it. At the end of the day, they want good pro photography so they can sell more widgets. This is where you come in. You can talk about this in your sales pitch. Depending on the size of the company, you'll be able to provide different value.
A small company might pay you 50 bucks a photo. If they sell a few items, sell, make money from that photo. But the 50 bucks was a great deal for them because they still made money with your photography. A huge company will already have a lot of traffic on their website. Your photo might be the determining factor in a customer buying or not buying.
You could charge thousands for this type of photography, and depending on the size of the client, that could still be a great deal for that client. If your photo is a difference between their customers making a purchase or not, then there's a lot of value to your photo. No need to justify that You use an expensive camera here.
The client knows the value associated with this photograph. They don't care what camera you're. . If you're a wedding photographer, the value is a little different. There's no one profiting off your photos Here. [00:08:00] The wedding couple wants memories of their day. They want photos they can share with their family and friends.
They wanna look back on this day in 30 years and remember it fondly. This is what you need to talk about when you're discussing pricing, the value you provide. Is there happy memories? This is tougher to do than convincing a company. You'll make them money. And quite frankly, it's part of the reason I didn't pursue wedding photography.
Let's talk about headshot photographers here. There's actually a lot of value that you can provide with these photos, and it's a lot more tangible than weddings. First, if you decide to photograph models or actors, your photos can land them gigs. Those gigs pay their bills, your photos are making them money.
Just like those companies we were talking about. A great niche these days for hedge photographers is online dating. A lot of people are single and they don't wanna be single. If you can fix this pain point in their lives, you can charge a lot of money for it. Great photos for their dating profile can be the difference between them landing a date and not landing a date.
Lean into this and your marketing and your messaging. If you can provide value in this way, people will pay you [00:09:00] for it. And again, you don't need to justify your price by saying you have expensive gear. There are so many other ways you can offer value. Let's take two photographers. They will take the same exact photos, but photographer A delivers them in two days and photographer B delivers them in two weeks.
Same photos. Who do you think can charge more photographer? A? A two day turnaround time for the same photos is incredible here.
By decreasing the time it takes to get the final photos, your value goes way up. This is now
super important in this competitive landscape. This is actually how Netflix beat out Blockbuster. Blockbuster required you to go to the store, pick out a movie, come back home and watch it. That took an. Netflix is at your fingertips. It can take just a minute to pull up a movie and start watching it.
There are hundreds of other tiny ways you can actually increase your value as well. You can start offering bonuses like a mood board, preco Unlimited commercial license, various social aspect ratios. The list goes on and on. Since you've listened this far, I know you're serious about creative business. Go sign up [00:10:00] for my weekly newsletter.
I'm sure you'll get so much value out of it. Join the club of over 4,000 people. Link for that is in the show. . I know this probably isn't you, but if you're still trying to justify your expenses because you have expensive gear, please stop. This will ruin your business. You're leaning into this entitled mindset.
You feel entitled to charge a lot of money because you spent a lot of money on gear. And if you feel as if people should pay you for it, no one owes you anything. It's up to you to demonstrate your value if you decide to keep pricing this way. Well, I have bad news for you. All the people listening to this and all the people learning from me will learn the correct way, the price, and they will.
They will understand how to price based on value and they will win at this game. Now, with all this information at hand, please please price your work correctly. My name is Chris Pieta. Thank you so much for listening. If you have an extra two seconds, please rate this show on whatever podcast platform you're listening to.
That's all I got today. I'll see you next time.
