THE Austin Photographers Blog

If you are just starting off in your photography career or even if you have been photographing for years, you will always be faced with the question of cost. Maybe if you asked for a little less you could have gotten that last job, or maybe you could have asked for more and the client would have thought you were offering a superior service. No matter what, there will never be a correct answer to this question. I hope to give you some tips that I have learned along the way to help you with charging the right amount for your photography services.

This question is something that haunted me for the first couple of years in my photography career, and still to this day I question some jobs and the costs associated with them. In my last blog I suggested starting off like I did and offering free services to build your portfolio. That can only last so long before you start getting… hungry. I think my first payment was in the form of a Wal-Mart gift card. I think I bought the cheapest steak I could find then rushed home to cook it. It somehow tasted better than anything I ever had, and no this is not sponsored by Wal-Mart. It tasted so good because I paid for it with money I made from photography, the first time I was ever able to actually buy anything from doing a photography gig. After that I was hooked and I knew if I kept working at it I could make a real living from it.

After you are able to build up some work on your social media platforms and maybe you have a website showcasing your portfolio, you will start to get asked how much you charge. This is a major point in your career, after you charge your first client there’s no going back to free gigs. You cannot backtrack to unpaid gigs, word to mouth will keep spreading that “you are the free photographer” and it will be more difficult to break away from that. If you are covering events for free then some of those events will be held by non-profit organizations. Sometimes the only money they can offer is in the form of gift cards. Having an Amazon or Wal-Mart gift card is as good as cash, you can buy food, essentials for the home, or even more gear. Eventually you will have to get your first real payment in the form of cash or card payment and it is best to be prepared for this moment before it happens.

As I mentioned in the last post about creating your social media platforms and a website if possible, you should then move on to creating your payment accounts. It’s best to cover as many as you can so when a client wants to pay, you are ready to accept it. Some good accounts to start with are Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, and Cashapp. Most of my clients feel comfortable paying on any of these apps with Paypal being the most trusted. With Paypal, you can create a professional Invoice (this helps a lot with higher paying clients). Try to keep your info the same across all platforms so you and your clients don’t get confused. Something else to think about here is having all of this money funnel to a separate bank account. This will be your company or business account and will keep your personal money and business money separate. Doing this early on will help you keep track of your cash flow, how much are you making and how much are you spending. It also helps a ton when it comes to taxes at the end of the year and you can clearly look at your bank statements and see the income and expenses. Having a separate bank account isn’t totally necessary for the first few months of getting paid, but the sooner you can get it the better.

Now if you made it this far you are probably still wondering “HOW MUCH DO I CHARGE?!” and from what I found when doing my research is “there is no right answer”. When I was first starting off this is the same result I would always get from watching and reading most content. I will try my best to give an answer to this question though. I think a good first real payment to charge, after you’ve done the free gigs and have a portfolio, is $100. Get your first $100 photography job and things will start to make sense from there. How did it feel to do the work you did for $100? Do you feel like you could have done more, or was it too much work? Does your quality of work look better or worse than someone you see online who is getting paid? Was your client extremely satisfied or were there some issues? Once you get your first $100, seeing how much work you did, the quality of work, and how satisfied your client was, you can then start thinking about a set rate to charge your clients. I started off charging $150 for a full 1 hour session with all edited photos. I thought my work was pretty good when compared to other photographers, but it could be better. I made up for this by offering more edited photos to my clients than most photographers in my area. Your starting rate will also depend on your location. If you started off somewhere like I did, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then you are looking at a lower rate. If you are starting off somewhere like Austin, Texas, then you can probably start with a higher rate.

After a few months of charging your set rate you will have a much better understanding of how much to charge. Also, creating invoices and accepting payments will become a lot easier too. As you put the money you are making back into your company by getting better gear and offering different types of services, you will be able to increase your rates to cover the business and basic life necessities. A mistake I made when starting off was using the money I made from photography on things like bills and cheap steaks. As you are growing and repeating this you will be able to start charging for larger gigs such as small weddings and corporate events. Don’t shy away from these opportunities, get out of your comfort zone and grow your business.

Anyway I hope this helped you out in figuring out your first rates and getting you set up for accepting those payments. I think next we will go over organization, I am extremely excited to go over this topic. Stay tuned and follow us for more information!

Written by Zack Tullier, owner and primary photographer of Saturn Photography.