As a photographer myself, there’s a lot of content on the internet that suggests what strategies to employ when trying to set your price, and for the most part, some of those strategies are correct. Your time as a photographer is worth a lot because you just don’t spend time shooting people or their products, you also spend time in the post-production process and that right there is where my guide comes in.
Measuring the worth of your time and transcribing that into monetary terms is primary when setting up a price sheet for your services. Based on the geographical location you find yourself, the wealth distribution might differ, and pricing yourself according to that wealth ceiling goes a long way to determine whether or not people employ your services when they need you. There’s the argument that you should know the value of your work and that is true (understanding the value that you bring helps you determine what kinds of job to take and when to walk away from projects that don’t appreciate that value) but understanding your value sometimes has nothing to do with pricing. You could greatly understand your value and still under-price your work and vice versa… This is where that wealth ceiling effect comes to play. A wealth ceiling is described as how rich a certain area is in Industries and wealth distribution. An area with a high wealth ceiling means there are industries and companies around and money is in circulation and vice versa and this affects just how high you can price your services because where there’s a high wealth ceiling, there are people who understand your value and are willing to pay for that value. Let me explain the previous statement in photography terms; To the public, a Canon R3 and 250D are both just cameras. It takes a professional to understand that both cameras offer widely different spec sheets and image value and so do people. Irrespective of how good you are, unless the people around understand your value, you would almost never be paid what you’re worth or what you charge which in turn might leave you frustrated.
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Another factor that could/should affect your pricing is the level of expertise. You can’t as a beginner price yourself as a seasoned professional would. As many would say, you have to “pay your dues”, learn the ropes, figure out your niche and work hard to develop your strengths in that niche before you begin to charge the big bulk. For some, it might take longer than others but it will take time.
Finally, Pricing is all dependent on your target market. You can’t bill top Naira if your target audience is a student population. Understanding your audience’s financial ability will mean that you can offer them the most services within a certain price range that doesn’t affect your ability to do great work and make a profit. Pricing is not the easiest route to navigate but once you understand all of the factors around it, it is most certain that you’d make the best of every situation and charge what is due to you and the value you bring to the table.
