Advice on Pricing for New Business

We pay $100 per session and I'm fine with that. We get the CD and are allowed to print and post to facebook etc as many pics as we would like.

I've gone to a couple people like yourself.

One lady did it for $55 for sitting fee & cd. (She was really good)
Another girl did it for $30, and the pictures were $10 8x10 $5 5x7 $4 4x6

I prefer an upfront cost with rights to the cd. I would pay up to $100 for this. (I never by big packages at places like JcPenney's.)

Coming from a family of photographers, it depends on many factors. What kind of experience do you have? Do you have any history with photography, or did you just buy a digital camera and decide to become a photographer? (There, is nothing wrong with that, and I'm not meaning that to sound condescending, or anything. It can affect price, though) Are you a true business? Do you have a tax ID number and business licenses? Do you spend a lot of time editing? Do you have expensive equipment to make up for? Such as, camera bodies, lenses, etc. IF you don't have or do any of these things, I'm sorry to say, you really shouldn't charge much.

If I went to get pictures taken and a photographer showed up with one camera, I would pay WAY less. Good photographers really use different equipment for different lighting, activities levels, effects. If they took a ton of shots and relied on PhotoShop to make them look professional, I would never use them again.

I would strongly suggest having a wide variety of options and price points. You can't compete with the chain stores, but then again you will be targeting a different market. People who can afford to hire photographers to come to their home and photograph their family are probably not running to Sears after school for portraits. Honestly, we go to Sears for our Christmas pictures due to the shear volume of prints we need, but for occassions (wedding, new baby, artistic family shots) we use the woman who shot our wedding.

Call around your area and see what the "going rate is" then offer a "first time client" discount. Have a broad menu of options and a few "locations" you have scoped-out and used before. You could also offer some of your first clients "free prints" or a CD as a "thank you" for using their photos in your advertising!

How far will you drive? I see you are in Dallas and that would be a major factor with the traffic. Can you imagine charging $50 per half hour, but having to drive to Saginaw or McKinney? It would not be worth it to me.

If you showed me a portfolio of many different families and the shots were good(lighting, angle, not too busy) and you would come to my home or site when I wanted you to(and not bring your kids to distract mine), I would pay $100 to get a cd of photos for an hour of your time. Here I know 3 people who started this type of business.

The first was THE BEST photographer at any chain store. I would have paid her more because she was so good, but she was not available on most weekends or after 6 due to having her kids and their events. She had professional lighting, a background, and professional digital camera. I tried scheduling her at least 3 times before giving up.

The second used her connections at the scrapbook store to schedule 3 days of photos for the holidays in the scrapbook store. She set it up like a sears but everyone got exactly the same background. She charged $35 for a half hour and used your disk in her digital camera. Before Easter, she set up at a park and we meet her there. She has professional background, lighting, and such. They were beautiful candid shots we still display.

The third man used his connections at work in a photo processing department of a chain store. He charged a flat $50 per half hour and you can keep the disc or he would print them and edit them for you and charge like $10 per 5x7 and $20 per 8x10. He was willing to go anywhere, anytime except when he was working as his wife took the kids. To be honest, I didn't feel comfortable with him enough to allow him into my home to take candid shots. He didn't have a portfolio or any references.

I would just try to keep in mind the economy right now. It is not the best time to be starting a new business, so if you cannot do it for competitive prices, then you maybe should wait until the economy gets better. Obviously you don't want to be working for nothing you know? I think it is a great idea though! I wish I was artistically inclined! I hope that it all works out for you!

I am paying a photographer to do maternity and newborn shots, she is comming to me for both and I get the digitals. Its 2-3 hours for maternity and up to 6 hours for newborn. Total for the package was $300. I felt this was a great price and totally worth it. Also make sure you have a great website with your work up, this was a must before I hired someone, I wanted to make sure that I liked there take and look of things. Hope this helps, and good luck :)

I used to do this for extra money, there is a lot of people out there doing this, so it is a little hard to keep up. Plus raising two toddlers with husband working weekends. IT was not a great schedule.
I charged $25 for my time, and $15 for a CD of pictures. So about $40 bucks per session. Yeah that seems low, but I also was not completely familiar with some of the programs I was editing in. So I did not want my work to seem PROFESSIONAL pricing, when I was not. Some of my competition charged $150.
Good Luck Photography is so FUN!

I would probably pay $100 for a CD of all the pictures. I have a friend who is going to do something like this after she gets over having a baby. We just took our girls for Christmas pic at a local chain store and I was so disappointed. We did get a couple usable pics, but I was not happy with them at all. One girls was being trained and they other looked like she could care less about the quality.

I do like getting actual photos, but I am really thinking we will redo pics with her when she feels she is able.
I also think that if you do actual photos, not just a cd, you will have to do a bunch of pricing, ie. if you buy 10 sheets would you get them at a better rate than if you bought 6? If you bought 10 sheets and a CD would it be cheaper than if you bought them individually?
The friend I mentioned used to work for that same company and we always made sure we scheduled pics for when she was there.
BTW: the friend also said that there would be a TON of pics on the CD.

A good rate I have found and really works for us... 100 to 150 for a session with rights to the CD. I hate ordering prints directly from the photographer- I would much rather spend time looking them over and choosing the ones I need. Good luck I would love to have your job!