163: A Guide to Wedding Photography Pricing

Ever wondered how to set the perfect price for your wedding photography services? 
In this episode I'm breaking down the why and how of profitable pricing.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, my name is Catherine Guidry and today I'm going to be talking with you about how much you should charge for your wedding photography. Before we dive into the content, I want you to know that we have a free pricing guide available in the description, so that you can download this and learn the exact ins and outs and details of determining your base price. Some of these things we're going to be talking about in this episode, but the guide does go into a little bit more detail and includes those mathematical equations to help you. So the first thing that you want to do when pricing your photography, ironically enough, is to determine your costs your personal costs, your business costs. We need to know, as photographers and business owners, how much we are spending on a monthly basis in order to really know how much money we need to make right. So you need to know your financial position. If you're the sole provider for yourself, if you have a little bit of assistance or maybe there's no pressure on you, all of these things become factors in determining your price, because, in order to be a sustainable business, you have to thrive in the industry. You have to be able to pay your bills right. So we want to, first and foremost, determine our costs. One of the things that's really helped me is breaking my finances into monthly costs versus annual costs, so that I don't have any surprises. It also really helped me make sure that the things I'm paying for month to month I'm actually utilizing and using for my business or for my personal life. So step one is going to be determine your costs. The next thing that you're going to want to do is determine how many sessions and weddings you want to photograph within a year and be realistic about this. So you know, when I say be realistic, you want to know how many you want to shoot. So say, for example, I want to photograph 25 weddings a year. But also we need to be realistic about how many we're booking, where we are in our journey and price accordingly. So if our financial goal is X and we only want to shoot X weddings, but maybe we're not quite there yet in terms of our bookings, that could impact the price. But we do want to have an idea of exactly how many weddings we want to shoot, because we don't want to burn out and we want those numbers to all match up Once we determine how much we need to make and how much we are going to be photographing. We can take that number of the amount you need to make, divide it by the amount of weddings that you're going to shoot and end up with our base price. This is what we're talking about in that free guide I mentioned earlier. That goes into detail, but the base price is essentially your minimum that so long as you book the amount of weddings that you planned for, you'll be able to make enough money to pay your bills. Right, if we're working in reverse, that base price will also be attached to your base offering, whatever the minimum booking is that you're offering for clients. So X number of hours, whether or not that includes a second shooter sessions, so on and so forth. From there you can build out the other offerings.

Speaker 1: 3:09

I personally have experimented with both one offering or collection or package whatever you'd like to call it that clients can add on to, but I have found the most success in offering a variety of offerings, a variety of packages or collections. I usually call them offerings or collections, but I like for clients to be able to choose. It's very seldom that you're going to walk into a store and see just one option of what you can buy. Right. We like to see options, things that we can bundle together to save money and the ability to customize. So these are all things that I do inside of my offerings. I actually have at catgeducationcom a one hour course on pricing alone. I have had so much wonderful feedback from that course because I actually lay out for you in the video what my offerings look like, how I'm laying those out, the discount tiers that I'm providing and so on and so forth. If you are someone who really, really, really wants to know the ins and outs of pricing and use that as a guide for your own pricing, I encourage you to go to catgeducationcom and get that mini pricing course. It is absolutely phenomenal and in one hour, can help you restructure your pricing.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Once you have your offerings laid out and you have an idea of what you'll be charging, it's good to get an idea of the market. I don't think it's a good idea to start with your market and to start with what other people are charging and just charge a little less. Not only does that undervalue your competitors, but it also really doesn't give you a good foundation to stand on in your pricing. You want your pricing to be based on your business, your experience, your bills all the factors that really apply to you. But also have an awareness of the market. If you're somebody who isn't familiar with what other people are charging, make friends with the photographers in your area and ask, talk to other vendors, the wedding planners, the venues and try to get a pulse on what the market rate is for photography in your area. And I can tell you just having done this for almost 15 years that it really varies. It varies a lot on where you're located, how many venues there are, how many weddings are happening in that area, whether or not you're willing and able to travel. So I think knowing your market and having a really strong sense of what it looks like is going to be very, very, very valuable information to have.

Speaker 1: 5:38

And lastly, you want to consider not only your portfolio but also your experience. Those two things really go hand in hand. If you have a ton of experience as a wedding photographer and you've shot a lot of weddings, then you're going to be able to bring a really unique approach to wedding photography, because you know how to think quickly on your feet. You know how to get really good images in awful lighting, you can make adjustments on the fly and create a good experience for your clients. All of those things are really, really, really valuable to what we do as wedding photographers.

Speaker 1: 6:12

And then, of course, in addition, your images. Do you offer a unique perspective? Or your images highly sought after and known? Do you have a standout style that people can recognize your photos with? Those things will help. You charge essentially a premium as an artist, because I oftentimes think about painters, because I love painted works, like, if you came to my house, you would see all the paintings in my house. But you know, when for me, it comes to art, I get really attached to specific artists because they speak to me and they create a consistent color palette, a consistent style and work. Maybe they have a personality that I'm drawn to, but having that unique perspective is going to elevate your brand and give clients incentive to pay a premium in order to have your vision and you there with them on their wedding.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So, when it comes to pricing, as you can see, there are a lot of factors that do impact how you price your photography. If you came here in this video to understand exactly what you need to charge, there's really no one who can tell you exactly what you need to charge without taking a deep dive in your business. We do offer one on one coaching. I do have that pricing course to help you as well. So if you're interested in any sort of you know navigating of pricing, go to catchyeducationcom.

Speaker 1: 7:34

I know pricing is a very, very complex topic, but it's one that can be quite simple if you have all the information. Use the things that we've talked about today in this episode to help guide you in your pricing journey and understand the factors that you know have an impact on what you're charging for your clients. Make sure your pricing is valid, that you're not just having arbitrary numbers out of the blue to charge them for their wedding photography services, but rather are based in truths and research and numbers and facts to help guide that decision. So thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you. If you found this information helpful, be sure to subscribe and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.