Guys…I have a confession to make. Running a successful photography business is not a natural part of the way my brain works. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time talking about money. Well, that’s not entirely true. I love talking about budgets–I love to write down my goals for each month and follow my husband around the house telling him my step by step of how I plan to achieve my monetary goals. He’s not such a huge fan of that. As long as I am talking budgets, I don’t mind talking about money. But the other part of finances…the taxes, the spreadsheets, basically anything dealing with the business side of making money, my eyes start to lose focus and my mind wanders immediately.
I still often think back to a conversation I had with a friend when I first started my photography journey. We were sitting in the library talking over what we wanted to do when we left the Navy, and I mentioned that I loved the thought of taking pictures for a living. When he asked how I planned to make this dream business a reality, I laughed a bit and said, “Oh, that’s easy! I’ve already purchased my camera and most of my equipment, so there’s really very little overhead from here on out. Really, photography is a great field to get into, because once you’ve made your initial investment, it is basically all profit.”
I remember looking at other photographers’ pricing, and after picking my jaw up off the floor, swearing to myself that I would never price gouge honest people like those photographers were doing. I figured that if I kept my prices as low as possible, the rest would work itself out in the end.
How naive I was.
Turns out, there is a bit more to running a successful photography business than owning a camera and a few good lenses. Like so many other people out there, I was only focusing on the hobby side of the photography and forgetting the business side of it. I figured that if anyone charged more than a couple hundred bucks, they were ripping people off. When starting out, I was basically throwing numbers into the air and hoping they stuck…hoping I could run a successful business off of completely imagined numbers. When I finally sat down and plugged in the numbers to run a successful photography business, I realized that I was not making a profit. Had I been paying myself an hourly wage, I would not have even met the national minimum standards. I needed to raise my prices, and that hurt.
I write all of this simply because I want to explain, which I know is a bit silly. At the same time, there are a few companies who do explain their price mark-ups, and as a consumer I appreciate their transparent pricing. I am not an expert in the various fields, and so it’s interesting to hear how much goes into the process of what I buy. I also have a feeling that many people out there feel, just as I used to, that running a successful photography business is little more than pressing a button and delivering images. All of that being said here it goes:
Budgeting for Taxes
Before I begin any session, I know that roughly 30% of what I charge will go straight toward taxes. I believe the standard tax rate is around 25%, but I always like to reserve 30-33% to cover my bases. For now, I typically roll anything left into additional savings for equipment upgrades. Eventually I would love to use this extra money to cover an accountant. I will use a simple $300 session as an example. For this imaginary $300 session, after putting aside taxes, I will be working with just $200.
Budgeting Business Expenses
From this $200, I will also need to pull money to help cover business expenses. The obvious photography expense that most people think of is the initial purchase of a professional camera and lenses; beyond that are the behind-the-scenes expenses: the memory cards, hard drives, computer, subscriptions to photoshop and lightroom. I have to be prepared to pay for any unexpected repairs or maintenance on these items that may arise.
By choosing to not own a studio, I am able to cut down my expenses. If I utilized one, that would be an additional rent + utilities bill. Even so, every month I still need to cover gas, vehicle maintenance, vehicle insurance, business insurance, retirement, subscriptions to galleries, website hosting and a domain. I also want to continue bettering my craft. To do so, I pay fees to a professional photography organization and budget in several photography courses each year. For now, I try to cover all expenses on another 33% of what I earn, but eventually would love to move closer to around 25%.
Budgeting a Living Wage
That means that with the remaining $100, I have to pay myself. This amount needs to cover the time I put into initial correspondence with clients and location scouting (avg. 1 hour), the session itself (avg. 1 hour 30 minutes with setup and travel), photo upload and editing ( avg. 3 hours), gallery upload and final correspondence (avg. 30 minutes). So for every $300 1-hour session I do, I would typically pay myself a wage of $16-$20 per hour. At this rate, you can imagine how many $300 sessions a photographer needs to book to make a full time salary. Even with additional product sales, l will only be pocketing about a third of any sales brought in. Eventually, I would love to move my model closer to about 25/25/50.
So there you go! This is my current financial breakdown model. Hopefully this shines light into why my original $75 per session turned out to not be a sustainable business plan. In my best case scenario I was only earning about $5 an hour! I want you to know that I will always do my best to take care of each and every one of my wonderful clients. Please know that if I raise my prices in the future, I am simply doing what I need to do to continue doing what I love. I want to run an honest, ethical and personal business for each and every one of you. Thank you so much for your continued support, encouragement and understanding!
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Christina Freeman is a lifestyle photographer based in Anna, TX. She specializes in photographing families, newborns and children in Collin County including Melissa, Van Alstyne, McKinney, Plano, Princeton, Farmersville, Prosper, Frisco, Wylie, Celina, Little Elm and other Dallas suburbs. Send an email to christinafreemanphotography@gmail.com or call her at 940-453-4962 to get a conversation started today!