I had the pleasure of photographing the sisters in the fall – beautiful little girls, and I love how they are each so uniquely beautiful! We laughed during this maternity session that the only way to keep the unique streak going was for this baby to be a boy, because the other combinations had been used! The big reveal is coming soon!

I’ve started this post a dozen times, and for a dozen different reasons, I’ve deleted each one.

It was a conversation I had with a friend just a few days ago that made me bring it back. She said, “Okay, honestly, I just don’t understand. Some photographers charge $50 and you get a CD with all the pictures and others charge $200 for a session and $40 for a 5×7 and $800 for the CD. Why? I just don’t get it.”

And, when I started, I didn’t get it, either. I thought $50 for the whole caboodle was plenty, I mean, I was earning $50! I had no calculation of the cost of running a business at that time. I also knew that I was just starting out & my skills weren’t the same as more experienced photographers and that I had room to improve. Almost 4 years later, I have numbers of what it costs to run a business and a greater refinement of my skills.

The first deciding factor of pricing comes from how many sessions a photographer can take. Each session, from initial contact through order delivery is 10 to 12 hours of work for me. When I left teaching this last year, I knew my calling in this time is to be a Wife and Mother, so my goal is to be with my family more than doing other things. To attempt to make the majority of my work days fit between 8:30 and 3:00 on Monday to Thursday (because most Fridays are my hubby’s day off, and our day together), that gives me 24 hours per week to work while everyone else is at school or work. 10 sessions x 10 hours = 100 hours per month (which is actually 25 hours a week, shhhh). I accept only a handful of my sessions per month (family or senior sessions) to take place in the evening or on the weekend. Plus, limiting sessions will allow me to give each client my utmost attention. For instance, instead of waiting 3 to 4 weeks for images to be in your gallery (as has been the norm in the past), each online gallery of proofs is delivered within 10 days.

In December I took a little online business course designed for photographers. It made us figure our “cost of doing business” with some guidance, and here is what I found out about MY yearling operating costs (please don’t judge other photographers by my numbers, their business budget will vary widely depending on their business model):
$2,500     computer (hardware, software updates, templates, service, web hosting/design, etc.)
$    150      po box
$2,000     insurance (equipment & liability)
$   400      professional dues
$1,575     studio rental (for the time I was in an office space, but an equivalent amount for my exclusive home studio)
$4,000    equipment (new, maintenance)
$4,000     props (all those cute hats, backdrops, wraps, chairs, etc.)
$7,000    education (workshops – online & in person)
$500         travel for said workshops
Total: $22,125

Then, when I did the division of what I collected for session fees throughout the year, I discovered that I was making approximately .67 per session.  Yep.
This year I’ve vowed to purchase fewer props & lessen my workshop attendance (and since I LOVE to learn, that’s a hard one).

My projected cost of business for 2012 is $19, 300.
19300 / 120 sessions this year = $160 cost for me per session
If my session fee is $200: 200 – 40 (20% self employment tax) = 160.
So, my session fee makes me break even.

I have SO many clients over the years who never purchase anything. That makes me sad because that means that your memories are on my computer, but that’s all. So, I decided to add a $150 print/product credit to the session fee. You simply pay in advance for some of your prints or toward a CD option of your digital files with printing rights. After you subtract my cost of goods (which is a whole different mathematical equation that I’ll spare you of), I make some profit. (Profit – taxes) / hours per session = hourly wage.

There you have it. This is only one of about a dozen ways to figure hourly wage and such, depending on the model of business you have.

[photographers: remember, as with any business, your market and the way you run your business will affect your numbers, so I encourage you to do your own business analysis. this is simply what I found when I did my very simplistic analysis and is why I rely on a professional accountant to do all the heavy IRS stuff!]