Hey all, I want to begin this with admitting my fault in not starting with an offer. The reason I didn’t send one in is because my customer had already worked with a few different photographers and the project is part of a networking exchange. My bad. So I went there and took pictures for a bit more than two hours. My own expectations of quality make me edit every set of pictures by hand, so no presets. That makes another two hours in editing. Now I’m based in Europe and I calculated my prices based on my cost, my taxes, my expected wage, available hours deducted by holiday and sick time and an overall paid workload of 40% of those hours. That makes me start my prices at 130 per hour of photography and 70 per post processing hour. Of course there is deductions for longer bookings, and networking opportunities etc. Overall I gave my customer the price of a bit more than 300 euros for the job. Sadly my customer wasn’t to happy and very confused as her recent partners oy charged her 100 or got invited for dinner. The customer also wanted to edit the pictures themselves. Again I’m at fault for not following proper procedure here. My questions are the following. Was the price unreasonable? Do you not edit your pictures the way I do and do you only use presets? What would you recommend to do in that situation. Thanks!
Never, ever, start a job without agreeing terms. If they agree, great. If they don’t, also great - you avoided a situation like this.
We are always too scared to address prices and terms and it shouldn’t be that way. It’s always good to get things clear from the start, then it can all go smoothly, or you can agree to negotiate, or you can agree that you aren’t a good fit for their needs.
Always, always, always, get agreement on the rates , times, deliverables, what’s acceptable and what’s not before you do any job.
Chalk this up and accept the €100. But not the dinner, that’s just condescending and insulting for them even to offer. Photographers are doing a job, not begging for food.
Thank you all for your insights and advice! I explained the pricing structure and of course it was my mistake not to be transparent about it before the shoot. We’ll find a solution that is fair for both parties. I’ll remember it as a learning.