What Is the Most a Photographer Can Charge a Client?

Not knowing how much to charge as a photographer is a surefire way of giving you and your business a major headache. Here are a few pointers which you should never forget when working out what you are worth.

The team over at The Futur is back once again with another motivating video on the topic of charging clients. This week, Chris Do speaks with young designer Ria Hardcastle to dispel some very common myths about the limits of what can be charged.

The video begins with Hardcastle asking how can she work out the limit of what she can charge which is a question I'm sure many of us have asked ourselves. Do replies to this question with an equally important one and asks why she believes there is a limit. Hardcastle goes onto mention some of her insecurities around education and experience to which Do talks about the correlations of education while stressing not to put too much emphasis on these things. I really like the questions Do suggests asking clients to help work out value and how that is an important factor in working out if you can actually charge more.

While this video is about graphic design, all the points mentioned are equally relevant to us photographers. Feelings of doubt about your craft are common and can happen at any stage of your career. It's videos such as this one that remind us all that what we provide to clients is valuable and should be priced accordingly. I think we sometimes forget that.

Lead image by Mohamed Hassan via Pixabay, used under Creative Commons.

Paul Parker's picture

Paul Parker is a commercial and fine art photographer. On the rare occasion he's not doing photography he loves being outdoors, people watching, and writing awkward "About Me" statements on websites...

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9 Comments

If Apple can charge $999 for a piece of metal then photographers can charge whatever the heck they want and should be charging a lot more.

I wish that was the truth. In reality, there is a limit. Even Apple realizing it.

Haha if only it worked like that.

People pay what things cost. If you go to a small town or a tourist donation stuff costs more. Why? Because there are less options and people have to pay what things cost.

Now if all photographers charge higher rates people would have to pay them. It's actually really simple.

Well, body is conductive, but if you isolate it from the ground you can get some sparks...

Ask this to Peter Lik ..

I have a go away price. I don't want to shoot anything anymore for random people and projects. When asked, I quote them my go away price. Strange thing, every time I've resorted to that, they've gladly paid it.
Don't be afraid to ask for what you want for your work.

I do too. There are times when I just don't want to work with certain people or just couldn't be bothered then I have a fun price ready for them. hahaha