Senior Portrait Tips - Pricing

There are two basic types of pricing by photographers and portrait studios. The traditional method of pricing is the sitting fee and then selling the client prints. This was the case for many years, the sitting fee covered the cost of the photographer’s time and the cost to develop film and print the proofs. The benefit of this pricing is the low initial investment cost. If you do not like your portraits you do not have much money invested in them and some studios even waive the sitting fee so the only real investment is your time. The downside is, if you like sharing images on social media sites you may not have permission to use files because the photographer needs to sell prints to make a profit for the studio. Since the inception of digital photography there has been a trend to creation pricing. That is where the photographer charges a price that includes their time and then provides you with files, prints or both. The initial cost to creating portraits is larger and many times more than just a sitting fee but with this pricing you know ahead of time what you will be receiving. The scary part for many clients is what if I don’t like my portraits? You need to find out what the photographers refund policy is. There are benefits to both and different photographers prefer one or the other. The important thing is to find a photographer whose work you love, then understand how the photographers pricing works. I prefer to use the creation style of pricing because then I know what the budget is and know I will earn a fair profit for my time. I do not have to worry about selling prints and I can concentrate on the creative and artistic part of photography.  I also stand behind my work and if someone does not like their portrait I will give them a full refund.