How to PROPERLY Price Your Headshot Photography

so i recently saw a post in a facebook photography group specifically for canadian photographers and it was a question about what do people charge for headshots i get the intention i think the person asking the question was looking for an idea as to like what headshots go for and what maybe they should be charging this is definitely the wrong way to go about figuring out how to price your services but the thing that really shocked me really shocked me 90 maybe 95 of the responses people were saying that they charge 150 to 200 for a headshot session and the reality is you cannot make a living shooting headshot sessions for 150 200 150 200 barely covers the cost of a studio rental in toronto if you price your photography wrong not only could you be losing money but you could put yourself into a position where you're not even making enough money to keep your business running what's up everybody it's kpr so last week's video did really well it's my best performing video but it's not the video i intended on making last week this one is and this is a video about how to price your head shots that came out of a discussion i had with my friend alex about pricing headshots for group photography so when you're pricing your photography you have to price in such a way that covers your costs but also allows you to keep moving forward as a business so that's what i'm going to cover today but i'm also going to cover three different ways to price group headshots so stick around for that as well so when we talk about headshots headshots are a commodity headshots are something that people need not necessarily something people want people don't go looking for a photographer because they think you know what i would love some headshots of myself just for my personal use they don't for headshots headshots tend to be for very specific marketing purposes if you're an actor they're to market yourself as an actor on websites such as casting workbook imdb pro the casting websites that are used in the different countries around the world for businesses they tend to put them on their business cards or they have them on their website so you can see hey here's our team here's what we do and you want to and need to be able to as a photographer match their brand style so when you're pricing your headshots you have to cover the expenses of the shoot such as studio rentals makeup artists travel parking permits even location permits if you have any gear rentals that you've done for that specific shoot whether that's cameras lenses or lighting cover the expenses for the shoot then you also have to cover your ongoing business expenses such as your rent if you have a studio your camera your lighting equipment your lenses insurance business taxes if you're incorporated or an llc and if you're not incorporated or an llc and are a sole proprietor then you have to cover your personal taxes you have to cover your taxes you then also need to cover your living expenses your rent and your mortgage your utilities your automobile expenses such as gas insurance repairs maintenance you're a person who deserves to be entertained and have a normal life like everyone else you deserve to be able to do those things and then also putting money away for your personal savings whether that's in a tfsa or an rrsp or anything else for your personal retirement and beyond that then your business should be making a profit this is where you have some flexibility in your pricing everything prior to this those are expenses that you have to cover you do not have a choice you have to cover your shoot expenses you have to cover your business expenses you have to cover your personal living expenses those things need to be covered in the price of your sessions but never go lower than your costs that's just in insanity you might want to take some of that profit and reinvest it back into your business or put it away for capital expenses later on now the way to figure this out is you need to take all your expenses it's it's easy to figure out your rent your mortgage your studio payments your utilities your monthly expenses those are very easy to figure out get an average of that what does that cost put them all in a spreadsheet figure that amount out but then you also have to take a look at what is your camera cost my camera that i'm talking into right now is a canon r6 cost me after taxes four thousand dollars so i then need to figure out how many shoots am i doing a year this camera i expect it to last me about five years before i need to replace it let's say i'm doing 40 shoots a year over five years that's 200 shoots every time i use this camera that's gonna be twenty dollars gonna cost me twenty dollars to use just the camera not the lenses not my lighting equipment doesn't cover any other expenses so if you use a camera that's only half as much as this if your camera is a two thousand dollar camera amortized over five years twenty shoots a year that's still only ten dollars that's the difference between a two thousand dollar camera and a four thousand dollar camera amortized over all of your shoots over a five-year period is ten dollars per shoot that's it less expensive equipment isn't going to decrease your cost significantly when you amortize them over the lifespan of the camera now i say this because a lot of photographers who are just starting out they think well i don't have very expensive gear so i probably shouldn't be charging as much it's such an insignificant amount that it should not be a significant factor once you add all your other expenses together and get that final number then you will see that this is the number that you need to make per shoot so let's take all your expenses for the year assume you're going to do 40 shoots a year here are your expenses for a month multiply that by 12 you have your expenses for the year divide that by 40 then you have your costs your expenses per shoot that's what you need to baseline charge to break even if you have not done this before i guarantee you that number is going to be significantly higher than you previously expected the final considerations for setting your price when you're pricing for an individual headshot session what are you worth what is your experience what is your value what do you bring to the table i know what i bring to the table as a photographer you need to as well and then also market considerations are you going to price yourself competitively as a luxury or as a bargain my price is just a little bit higher than the average price in the market mostly because when i'm shooting in toronto i then have to rent a studio and i have to cover that cost that's a shoot expense that i need to cover every single time i do a shoot but before i continue on i want to take a just a quick moment to say please click the like button the like button it really really helps me out i would love it if you subscribe but the very least that i could ask is if you find value in these videos please click that like button so let's look at pricing group headshots and that's when you have a group of people call you up maybe you'd say we need to photograph our entire team we need headshots for the 25 people in our office or we're having an annual get together for all our staff and we want to do headshots for everyone how do you price that so the first thing you need to figure out are what are the factors involved what are your client needs where's the location going to be how many people are going to be photographed how much time do you have to allocate per person now the first way that you can price headshots is just a simple per head rate if you have five people and you want to say okay five people is four hundred dollars per person ten people is three hundred dollars per person or 20 people is 200 per person it's a very simple multiplier um you know you have 14 people it's 300 per person so that's going to be a 4 200 shoot the problem with this method is that it can create gaps in your pricing for example if your group rate for five people is four hundred dollars per person then that's a two thousand dollar shoot but if your group rate then is also three hundred dollars for six people then that's an eighteen hundred dollar shoot so you will actually be doing more work for less money and the other pitfall for this is that you may have higher rates for fewer people so let's say you have two to five people's four hundred dollars six to ten people is three 300 but you have a client that says okay we have six people coming at 300 and then approaching the shoot they say oh actually someone took a new job they then assume that your rate for five people is three hundred dollars per person and to tell them no my rate for five people is four hundred dollars per person so with someone leaving your shoot is actually going to cost you more money just doesn't fly i made this exact mistake once never make it again you know it's okay to make mistakes when you're building your business but you have to recognize okay i did something wrong and now i need to correct it so the next method that you can do is you can apply a day rate plus a per head rate so you can say okay my day rate for shooting groups is a thousand dollar base rate if you have a five person shoot then your day rate is a thousand dollars plus two hundred dollars per person at five hundred dollars but then if you add a sixth person it's just an extra two hundred dollars the price doesn't go down it always goes up the final way in which you can do this and this is the way i do it it's more complicated than anything else but i feel good about it and it's very easy for me to calculate and that is i use a stock brokerage formula called the layman scale and so when i price headshots my base rate for a single person is 500 the next four people are 350 each and then after that the next tier six and beyond are 200 piece so for a group of five people that's going to be a nineteen hundred dollar shoot because you have one person at five hundred dollars then you have four people at three hundred and fifty dollars so that's seven fourteen hundred plus five is nineteen hundred each person after five is two hundred dollars per person that's how i price things out it's very similar to having a day rate than a per head rate but what it allows me to do is say that like as they continue to add more people i can continue to bring the price down for people beyond a specific number and that's just the way i like to do it if you have any questions please leave them in the comments below i don't want to know what you charge for headshots but please tell me the methodology that you use and and the logic that you use i'm always open to new ways to to think about pricing my photography and running my photography business in the meantime there's a lot of great content on this channel so please click this link right here and continue watching and i hope i can continue helping thanks a lot you