What should I price my photos at?
“How much should photographers charge?” Questions about photography pricing can be both reasonable and complicated to answer. A good answer might be $100-300 per hour or $75-350 per image for professional photographers in the United States.
So, when you price your art, the equation will look something like this: (“X” x 100) / (100 – “Y”) = Retail Price. “X” is the amount you need to make for your work (cost+time). “Y” is the gallery commission in simple numerical terms. For example, 30% would be 100-30.
At the most basic level, your photos need to look technically sharp and polished. Take them with a professional camera (or at least a very good smartphone camera), and make sure the shots are in focus, correctly exposed, and properly framed. Unappealing or amateurish shots won't sell.
Several factors go into the pricing of digital image files. Your level of experience, portfolio, amount of time spent working, cost of labor or resources, and terms of use regarding royalties all come into play. The more unique and harder to create the art is, the more value it will have, at least in monetary respects.
If you recently completed photography school but still don't feel comfortable calling yourself a professional, you need to grow your portfolio by beginning to book some shoots with initial clients. Getting started, we recommend you charge anywhere from $25 – $100 per hour for your time and for the subsequent images.
Price Image is how shoppers perceive a store's pricing relative to its competitors. It is not the same as Price Index. Many more things go into establishing price image, including promotion programs, elasticities, seasonality, price ending numbers, and the overall design of a retailer store.
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Know and Charge Based on the Value to Your Client
- Semi-pro photographers with their first client: $50–$150/hour; $25–$125/image.
- Professional photographers who have been paid for their work before: $75–$250/hour; $75–$250/image.
Multiply the painting's width by its length to arrive at the total size, in square inches. Then multiply that number by a set dollar amount that's appropriate for your reputation. I currently use $6 per square inch for oil paintings. Then calculate your cost of canvas and framing, and then double that number.
Stock photo agencies pay $0.32 per sale of a royalty-free license on average. Stocksy pays the highest commissions, up to $200 per royalty-free sale and $8,100 per extended license. The Shutterstock Contributor program pays out the most money to photographers.
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Compare the cost of hiring a party photographer to other cities in NSW.
City | Cost of 2 hour photoshoot |
---|---|
Sydney, NSW | $537 |
Newcastle, NSW | $417 |
Central Coast, NSW | $417 |
What makes a photo valuable?
If you make pictures that inspire awe and wonder in your viewer, and you can sell those pictures for a lot of money, the pictures are “valuable” in an economic/monetary sense.
Candid Photos Sell Better than Posed Shots
They want candid. The difference here wasn't as vast, but definitely noticeable: 62% of best-sellers are shot in a candid style, while only 38% are obviously posed. Lesson Learned: Take candid photos.

A sellable image must convey more than just a person, place, or thing. The fact that we can't see the model's face makes it more engaging, as it forces the viewer to fill in the blank about who this person is. While capturing a concept is a challenge to achieve it opens your image to a wider market.
This price can range anywhere from $50 to $250 depending on what's being offered. The session fee is the base price it will cost a client to have their photo taken by you.
A great way to sell your photography prints online is to sign up for a print-on-demand marketplace such as Printful, Redbubble, or CafePress. These platforms let you sell physical products by simply uploading your images to the website while they take care of inventory, printing, packaging, and shipping.
For portrait sessions, I find that clients expect more images the more they pay for the session. Therefore, if it's an expensive session they'll likely expect 70-100 images whereas if it's a shorter session they might expect 20-40.
- Cost-plus pricing. Calculate your costs and add a mark-up.
- Competitive pricing. Set a price based on what the competition charges.
- Price skimming. Set a high price and lower it as the market evolves.
- Penetration pricing. ...
- Value-based pricing.
Value in photography describes the range of light in your image. Altering the light in a photo is how you create contrast.
Price format, besides determining the price value, involves another methods of price display. One of them is price font. By simply increasing the price font, you can benefit from more purchases.
- Maintain a Flawless Online Portfolio. ...
- Start a Portrait Photography Blog. ...
- Attend Portrait Photography Conferences. ...
- Volunteer Your Time And Photography Skills. ...
- Offer Special Deals. ...
- Get Listed in Photographer Directories. ...
- Enter Portrait Photography Contests.
How do I pitch myself as a product photographer?
- Make Sure You Have a Professional Portfolio. ...
- Research Brands You'd Like to Work With. ...
- Know Everything You Can About the Brand You're Pitching. ...
- Research the Best Contacts at Those Companies. ...
- Compose a Persuasive Pitch. ...
- Shoot Off the Pitch. ...
- Set a Date to Check In.
That being said, selling prints of your original pieces can allow you to make money as an artist that doesn't force you to part with your precious original artwork. For those who are keen to sell their work but may want to keep their originals, producing high quality art prints is an easy and affordable option.
A good place to start could be anywhere between 20-250, while some artists go as high as 500 prints. Again, it all depends on your collector-base and how in-demand your work really is. You may have to arrive at this number through good old fashioned trial and error. Try taking a look at artists with similar popularity.
Another source of income is your photos. You can sell them as prints or products, turn them into a photo book, sell them on stock websites, etc. As you can see, there are many ways to make money with photography online and offline. The best thing about it is that you don't have to choose just one.
Pay yourself a reasonable hourly wage, add the cost of materials and make that your asking price. For example, if materials cost $50, you take 20 hours to make the art, and you pay yourself $20 an hour to make it, then you price the art at $450 ($20 X 20 hours + $50 cost of materials).
- Etsy.
- Amazon.
- FineArtAmerica.
- Saatchi Art.
- UGallery.
- Shopify.
- TurningArt.
- Pixpa.
Considered the easiest way to sell photos online for some, Shutterstock is a leading stock photography website for selling photos online. The platform has paid out over a billion dollars to its community in the past 15 years, and it can get your photos seen by millions of customers.
You need to have realistic expectations
It's extremely unlikely that you're ever going to become rich doing photography. In fact, if this is your only income and you have a family, it's a hard income to live off of and you're going to have to make sacrifices. That doesn't mean you can't do it or that it's not worth it.
Foap is one of the simplest places to sell your mobile photos. The iPhone and Android photography marketplace is one of the many corners of the web you can turn to for micro-jobs in your free time.
Average photographer cost per hour (USA) | $195 |
---|---|
Minimum Cost | $25 |
Maximum Cost | $1,250 |
Average Range | $96 to $295 |
How much should I charge for touch up photos?
How Much to Charge for Photo Retouching? As a beginner, charging around $20 per hour would be the best way to go. With time you could charge up to $180 per hour, according to your experience.
The average
There are many ways to decide family portrait photography pricing, but there are some standard prices. The average portrait photographer charges $150-350 per hour. Packages usually start at between $200-$300 and increase with experience. In metropolitan areas, family portraits packages can range from $300+.
There are many important components to creating a stunning photograph. Some of the most important are your ability to capture the right light, the right composition, and the right moment—the three elements of a great image.
Basically, there are five common elements that great images typically have; Good use of light, color, a captivating moment, correct composition for the given situation, and the photographer's choice of distance to their subject.
The three variables that matter the most in photography are simple: light, subject, and composition.
Photos with more background space attract more likes than up-close, macro photos. To gain more likes on a particular subject, maybe take a few steps back and focus on your subject. A well-shot subject against a grainy or blurry background makes for a wonderful photo, and generates 29% more likes.
- Portrait Photography. Image via Shutterstock. ...
- Still Life Photography. Image via Shutterstock. ...
- Landscape Photography. Image via Shutterstock. ...
- Food Photography. Image via Shutterstock. ...
- Wildlife Photography. ...
- Macro Photography. ...
- Fashion Photography. ...
- Newborn Photography.
- Vector artwork.
- People doing everyday things.
- Nature.
- Animals.
- Seasons.
- Transport.
You will generally need to seek permission before you do so. There are licences which you can obtain to use images for commercial purposes, such as advertising your business on a website, and usually you will have to pay a higher fee than for non-commercial use.
# of Products | Price / Product |
---|---|
0 – 5 | $60 |
6 – 10 | $55 |
11 – 20 | $50 |
21 – 50 | $45 |
How do you price yourself as a product photographer?
Lifestyle Product Photography Pricing
Typically, you'll pay a flat rate for every day of shooting, plus the production expenses. This can add up to around $2,000 to $5,000 per day. If you want to be present for the shoot (which is recommendable), you'll also need to factor in this expense.
How much should I charge for photo editing? You should charge $25–$150 per hour for photo editing, depending on your experience, skill level, complexity of edits, turnaround time, and number of photos.
There are many sites and tools where you can upload your photographs and sell your pictures as photo prints on paper or physical products, such as mugs, t-shirts, and calendars. Let's look at some platforms for how to sell your photography online this way: Fotomoto. CafePress.
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