Negotiating / Pricing an Estimate (For Young Emerging Photographers)
Negotiating / Pricing is the one thing that a lot of us have the most trouble with, and I get a lot of questions about this.
When I was young and in my teens, I thought "oh psh, im gonna get good at photography, then i'm going to get an agent, then I'll 'make it' and then they'll handle all of that business stuff" and then I got older than I thought..."wait I'm not going to wait for an agent to "discover" me, get me work and do my business for me. It doesn't work that way. That's not a real goal. I don't need an agent. I have to be my own agent. I need to do the business stuff"
Through networking, I've been lucky to have mentors/advisors through the APA and YPA, who are art producers and photo agents (or sometimes former photo agents and art producers), who have helped and guided me through a basic understanding of how to determine what to charge. Also, it's been great to have blogs to read about pricing / negotiating like aPhotoEditor, the Wonderful Machine blog, and the Lab from Agency Access.
The bulk of my paid commissions are seasonal lookbooks for designers and brands. In the beginning, I've gotten a lot of help making my own estimates, but since I've done my own for most of my requests. BTW I use BlinkBid...which is excellent and $100 off for students!
Lately, I've been helping a few of my peers and assistants make their first estimates for look books, e-commerce, corp. headshots and other misc jobs they've obtained. (if any of you wants some advice or help from a peer, email me [email protected]).
**DISCLAIMER: the treatment, usage license, fees and expenses are for different, unrelated jobs **
1. You get an inquiry.
A designer or a brand or an art producer or an art buyer or a publicist or a person will send you an inquiry about a project that they would like you to shoot for. After this initial email, you should ask a TON of questions. These are some good questions, but obviously, tailor questions to the client who's asking (a student who's shooting their senior thesis, will not need catering...a high budget client will not order from seamless)
-How did you find out about me? (friend? reference? social media?)
-When will the images come out?
-What is the date / date-range of the shoot they want? A month away? A few weeks? One day? Two Days?
-How many final images do they expect to use / how many final images are you expected to have retouched?
-What's the concept + location?
- Will there be catering or ordering food off Seamless?
-Will we be holding a physical in-person casting for models or will we be casting off of online portfolios?
-Should I include in the estimate the cost of creative team, models, etc...or will the client be billed direct for those items and/or sourcing them separately from me?
-How will the images be used? circulation? what kind of media/platform will these images be seen in? for how long / period of use? Usage terms are VERY important.
2. You make a treatment
you make a pdf to send over so that you and the inquirer are on the right page. , one that puts some detailed descriptions and visual references to how you would approach the project (review the answers to all the questions you asked in step one). high-end clients with bigger budget projects expect a treatment along with the estimate, but it's not necessary for smaller clients (like design students or indie magazines, where having an email conversation with them about the shoot's details would be fine)
*here's a treatment I put together, for a portrait job
3. They say: I approve this creative direction! Let me get an estimate.
Now using everything you've put in the treatment and discussed prior, find out everything you're going to be in charge of charging for and price all of those line items. I have a model of fees + expenses.
Fees: I charge for a shoot per-day fee (how much it would cost for me to show up and spend my day shooting for you), a post-production fee (i do a per week/per project fee, but some people do a per hour/per image fee), and a usage license fee.
I mean it's acceptable to skip on the usage fee for students who are asking for really small usage, like basically their professors are the sole people that they're printing their lookbooks for, and other than that it'll go on their social media. But when you get into bigger companies and commercial usage, it's really important to charge proportionally.
A lookbook with solely promotional use for one year is going to be worth way less than a commercial shoot where the images will run in a variety of ways / mediums, for any number of years
^here's an example of a usage license that I listed in one of my estimates, under the job description, and above the line items to charge for
*used not sued
*under broadcast I accidentally copied the line below it, so I crossed out the term "social media" in red so it wouldn't confuse you
Expenses: Tally up everything extra you'll need to pull off the creative direction that they are asking for...any that you're responsible for booking / sourcing, and the amount you think you'll end up paying for it.
That includes everything you can think of(but not every shoot will have all of these things obviously): a location scouting day, a casting day, studio space, meals/catering, travel costs, parking, hair stylist, makeup artist, prop stylist, assistant, digital tech, model, retoucher (if its not you), stylist, props, producer, lighting designer, set designer, set materials, rental equipment, location fees, etc
^here's an example of the fees + expenses portion of one of my estimates for an indie designer's lookbook. **hm, I had another draft of this estimate that included a 20% agency fee for the model, but I don't have it on this laptop, so just pretend that's in there :o
My rates would serve to confuse so I blocked those out. I mean, any photographer's fees depends on the project, their experience level, their relation to the client, how big the client is, the genre they're shooting, their base city's market and a bunch of other factors.
But try to charge what you think you're worth (or get a second opinion from someone who knows). Consciously think about if you're devaluing yourself.
Zak Krevitt said some wise words: "Undervaluing yourself not only screws you over for future gigs but devalues other young creatives as well. You didn't take out 100k in student loans to get paid $100 for a gig....ASK FOR MORE MONEY, YOU DESERVE IT." Unless you're doing a job for a family friend or a close friend, don't work for peanuts (unless its editorial work, in a creative direction that you really like).
Last word of advice about the initial invoice: Send your ideal numbers, you can always negotiate down, but it's awkward to be trying to negotiate up.
4a. They said no, it's too high (out of budget) or too low (yes, if you lowball out of inexperience, some art producers will respond saying you're estimating too low, and their client is going to think you're inexperienced if you don't bump up your rates a bit)
too high: if you want to negotiate down, find things to cheapen out on or cut. maybe casting (online instead of in person?), assistants (1 rather than 2-3?), catering/food (aw, although some art producers will be insisting that you don't skimp on this, the clients like catering), etc. if all else fails, maybe nudge down your usage fee or see if there's any way that you can slightly have it so that you're expensing less.
too low (don't worry about this too much, unless you're getting huge budget clients already): pad it !
4b. They said it looks fantastic, we approve it, we want to move forward with this project!
Yay! Get a signed estimate if you can, and a 50% advance on the fees + expenses (make sure you have a clause in your estimate that dictates you want a 50% advance before the shoot) before you start working on this project. You booked a job! Yay!
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Good estimate templates: in the APA member business manual available for download in PDF form, or build through BlinkBid.
Other resources:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/category/pricing-negotiating/
(if you get an agent someday, you'll want them to do this stuff for you)
