Any ideas on how to set up a realistic fee structure? I have been looking at other sites that feature retouching and have seen a wild assortment ranging from a flat hourly fee, to fees for individual techniques, sort of a tack on apporach, with per image cost dropping with the more that is being done. Any and all ideas, sugesstions, comments would be appreciated.

Not sure what you mean by realistic fee structure.

Are you doing retouching now as part of an existing photo business or on a more casual basis?

I am planning on offering 2 services to a very targeted population, (most of whom are well educated and well off financially), of specialized greeting cards. My purpose is twofold-1) to offer this service to the group (the greeting cards) , and 2) if I come across and image that captures what I am looking for, I can ask for a release and copyright. Towards this end I am offering a service whereby I will scan their originals, fix any and all problems and provide them with hard copy index and a CD with their images.

By realistic, I mean a structure, for services rendered, without causing people to go nuts. It was my hope not to split out and charge $x for bluing the skies, or $y for removing object, $z for color correction, and so on. I do not want to deal with the minutia of squalid little details. I see that as a big morass which could easily trap me into spending more time on administrative duties, than I did for the photo correction.

I would suggest keeping it simple with a flat hourly rate. Regardless of whether you are bluing a sky or removing objects, it is your time that you are selling. Hourly rated are like belly buttons though, everyone has one. Some people work faster than others so a rate of $50/hour may seem like a better deal than a rate of $200/hour but if the $50/hour person takes 5 hours to do something that the person charging $200/hour can do in 1 hour it is more cost effective to go with the person with the higher hourly rate.

Based on my experience hourly rates vary bsed on experience and what they can actually accomplish in an hour. So you have to figure out what is fair to you and to your client. Always remember this, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. What I mean is, if you bill too much and your client finds someone that can do the same, but cheaper you are SOL.

Just my .02

Great suggestions and wisdom David. I have little to add really.
But I do charge post-production houses by the hour and Photographers by the image. And it seems to be working for me so far.

David, I am just now getting a chance to look at your images. I have not forgotten. Sorry.

Cheers!

Chris

As Chris stated you can do a per image rate which I do as well for photographers but I would suggest you only do that after you have a feel for their photography and quality of their stylists so you can better gauge time required per image.

No worries Chris, I know your plate is full. Look forward to your comments.

I try to avoid the hourly rate for the simple fact that you cannot trust your prospective client to be able to acurately judge between what you can do in an hour versus what someone else can. So instead they just make their decision based on hourly rate. Those are the kinds of clients I tend to avoid. If getting the work done the cheapest is most important, than I am not their guy.

I'm a pretty fast worker and I don't want to hurt my earnings just because I'm fast. My clients understand that sometimes they pay more for me because I can get the job done right faster than anyone else they know.

So I price each job as if it were a custom job and they will receive an estimate for the costs. A couple of my clients pay hourly, but only because I have built a relationship with them over the years and they and I know exactly what to expect with each job.

I do a version of what emarts does. We give the client a "bid" on doing what ever it is that they want done.

We know what we want to make per hour but the client does not. And we never tell the client how many hours it is going to take to do the job, they just know the final bill. And of course we never give out a bid till we see the original! This also gives us a chance to do add on sales ie bigger prints, frames, digital files, etc.