A very common question among newer photographers is what to charge for their work. Many jobs in photography can be broken down with a basis of time, such as hourly or daily work. I've written about the pros and cons of time based rates vs value based rates previously, and would generally recommend charging by the value, not strictly by time.
However, there are benefits to charging for your time, even if this is just a baseline for also charging for value.
A good standard for this is charging a day rate for your work as well as a licensing fee that values the impact and use of the photography produced. So, how do you determine a day rate or even your rates generally as a photographer? In this article, we'll look at some approaches for how you can determine how much to charge for your work.
Cost of Business Calculators
As a general rule, any larger markets like LA or NYC, I feel like we should be looking at day rates starting at $1000 to $1500. That's just to show up and shoot, before expenses and licensing considerations. But how do we arrive at these rates?
One essential approach to understanding how much to charge is to use a cost of doing business calculator.
Using a business calculator, you can understand the minimum day rate you should charge for your time based on you income, living and business requirements. You can use the “non-assignment income” for licensing fees or any non-photography income.
The NPPA has a great cost of doing business calculator that is free to use.
An important factor with a cost of business calculator is understanding all the aspects of living and business that amount to expenses or reductions to your net income. From taxes to utilities to equipment costs and other expenses just to live, the reality is that you're only keeping a fraction of every dollar you make.
When you set a desired net income after expenses, this figure is what can allow you to invest for your future or retirement, put away money for vacations, and generally not live paycheck to paycheck. If you're a freelancer doing work where net 30 payments or longer is a reality, this buffer is critically important.
A cost of business calculator is very much like the exposure triangle in photography. Change one variable, everything else shifts. The more you work, the less you might charge to meet the same minimum net income. The more you want to take home, the more you have to charge for a set number of days worked, and so forth.
A cost of business calculator is just one factor in determining your pricing, but it is a valuable one. This should ideally be used in combination with context of your market, peer research and other means following in this article.
Even if you are not a full time freelancer, you can still use cost of business calculators by using your relative time and goals to achieve the same calculations as what a full time freelance rate would look like.
It's worth mentioning that even if you are a part time photographer who doesn't rely on creative work for your livelihood, you should still be charging the market rate for professional work. The simple fact is that anything less is undercutting the market and your peers who are full time professionals. Doing so helps all creatives by helping maintain our collective value and the future sustainability for artists to making living from our talents and work.
Community and Peer Based Rate Research
One important factor in determining your rates can be researching your peers and the community. What are peers in your market charging for their goods and services? One reason I'd encourage everyone to share their own pricing is that pay transparency benefits all of us in making sustainable rates a common goal.
I started the Music Photography Rates Sheet in 2023. This is a great resource if you're a music photographer. There are also sheets for sports photography, and I'd love to expand this resource in the future.
Ask your friends and people in the industry that are established in your market. If someone says they want to set their rates fairly and not undercut others, I think that's a perspective that most pros would very highly respect and respond to.
In the Music Photography Discord, there's a business channel where we discuss rates regularly. Regardless of your specialty as a freelancer, there are other communities and peers who are willing to share pay transparency, which only helps us all.
Industry Rates and Standards
If you're in an industry with established rates, these can be a good guide for your own pricing. For commercial and editorial licensing, the Getty Images has a pricing calculator that I've mentioned before as a resource for creating estimates as a photographer. The standalone FotoQuote is another option that is a similar pricing calculator for licensing estimates.
In the tv and film industry, the International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600) has rate cards for standard day rates. Note that these hourly and day rates are minimums. These and similar resources can be a great reference and starting point for pricing your own time and value with the context of the consistency of a film or TV set.
A Note About Freelance Rates
An important consideration with pricing your time in a cost of business calculator is that the expected frequency of work can be an important element. The higher the volume the work and the higher the consistency of employment, the lower the day rate can be to achieve the same desire net income.
When you view freelance photography rates, you might see rates that start at $1000-1500 just to show up and shoot — before licensing. This might sound high, but there's a very good reason for this.
For context, let's say you have a 9-5 job and you make $75k annually. Assuming there are roughly 230 days worked, accounting for holidays, weekends and vacation/sick days, your per day rate is $326.
The reason freelance rates are higher is because of the reality that in most instances, the volume and consistency of work is much less than salaried jobs. Therefore, the rates must be higher to make a livable wage. The lack of consistency with freelancing requires higher per-day rates as compensation.
This is also the context in which I recommend if you have full time job but also do freelance photography, you should always charge full market rate. The livelihood of full time freelancers and creative peers depends on us not undercutting each other.
End Notes
Hopefully these approaches for pricing your work are helpful. If you're new to charging for your work, understanding the mechanics for how and why to value your work is critically important. As creative freelancers, we might be artists, but we have to also operate as businesses, too.
