How Much?

[dipech]

Dear Kstein & Mike:

Thanks very much for responding to my post! I am still a bit confused what to do in this situation. Let's say you could do a minor restoration in 30 minutes (or less) and that a certain customer has 10 such restorations. Would you then bill him approximately $10 each for the minor restorations? Wouldn't $100 for the 10 not be too low?? What if this client is from your community where others are likely to find out your arrangement and you'd like to be earning about $20 if a client has just one minor restoration?

I am just starting up and any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Diane

[roger_ele]

Hi Diane

My feeling is don't package and quote per type of damage, here is our format;

We charge for scanning which includes global corrections, the more originals to scan, the less each scan is.

We charge for art work based on the amount of damge, the kind of detail needed, and the subject matter of the damage. We have written up a chart to help keep us consistent. Subject matter means face, arm, clothing, background, etc. 2 faces with medium damage would be twice as much for art work as one face.

We charge for each print we print for the customer with quantity discounts off of the same image.

By charging this way the customer can choose what to have us do and what to not have us do and each thing that we are doing that is part of the process has value in the eyes of the customer. We can also discuss how large the customer might want to enlarge the photo, how they intend to use it (to preserve what the people looked like or perfect for framming ... ), and how much art work to do (yes, it is important to cll it "art work" and to give the option of doing less to save money when it might be appropriate).

To address your question, by charging this way you won't have the problem of the quantity feeling to low because the seperate scanning charges raises your base charge - and then lowers it appropriatly for quantity - without touching the art work charges which would be consistent with the amount of art work done no matter what the quantity was. Everyone iwll feel life they are being treated fairly.

You could also give a certificate for a free scan for each referral or a certain volume of work, without the scanning, if you did any promotions you would be cutting into your time (not that it doesn't take time to scan - but not as much time) and there will usually be art work and printing to come from the photos scanned free.

Hope this helps, Roger

[roger_ele]

If you are interested our price list, some samples, and some copy and restoration FAQ's are on our web site ...

www.eleakis.com

Roger

[Jim Conway]

A solid approach to pricing might be to go at it as follows: First, decide what business you want to be in. For example wholesale doing business for established photographers and One Hour shops and Camera Stores or the alternative, going into retail, where you prepare a promotional plan to market your services directly to the public.

The next step would be to make up a list of the services that you intend to offer, for example retouching, restoration, scanning, traditional wet lab and/or digital printing, oil paintings, custom albums, conversions such as photo collections to DVD's etc. Try to be a little different so you can create something of a unique servicing niche for your area.

Next, remember that no one got up this morning just waiting for you to go into business - the buyers out there are all already going somewhere - so find out where and why. Get on the phone and "go shopping" and drive throughout your trade area to check what the other guy is doing and how much they are charging for the services you plan on offering.. Are you as good as they are ? Is there anything different that you can offer that will be something prospective clients would prefer or that perhaps isn't available in the trade area now?

Any "by the hour" system will not mean much when you are starting out, that's putting the cart before the horse - the price you can consistently get is all that matters and until you make up a price list of some kind, you may not even be sure what it is that you are trying to sell! Will your new price list work? That is determined by the market (willing buyers) and to find out exactly what that market is and where you can fit into is a very important part of startup planning if you want to be among the few that survive the first two years.

Jim Conway

[roger_ele]

Jim - ALL THUMBS UP - excellent advice!

[kstein]

$100 for 10 would not be too low for me. If that's how long it takes, then that's how much I charge. If customer 2 comes in and says, Customer 1 got 10 restores for $100 just explain that some are minor and restored very quickly and some are more difficult and therefore take longer and cost more. It's that simple. I also have brochures and business cards in my booth. The Brochures and signage explain this, the Business Card just tells them how to contact me.

My customers are quite satisfied even though many of you are not charging by the hour. I still cannot look at a photo and tell for sure how long it will take. I do try and give an estimate and write it on my iinvoice. If I run into a special problem and use the time I gave the client, I'll call them up and ask them what they want me to do.

I am a beginner in business so may be doing it all wrong. But plumbers and lawyers and car repairmen all charge me labor by the hour. That's where I got the idea.

I don't mind paying people by the hour, it seems fair one should be compensated for their labor.

[kstein]

I may add,
I do not have a web site

I do not do mail order

I cater to my community only and this is a very cheap place to live.

To get your hourly fee if you do that you need to add up your overhead and expenses such as rent, utilities, supplies paper ink, services, taxes & accounting, legal, brainstorm and make a list and get some quotes so you have a real idea..... add in what you think you're worth when the bills are paid and divide by how many hours you want to work. If you manage to stay busy, you'll pay the bills and there will be some leftover. If this is all you do and depend on it as your only source of income, you need to make sure you have some sort of retirement account and liability insurance factored in. God forbid you lose or damage a picture and get sued.

This is not my only source of income, but if it was, I could have a very humble existence doing this alone as my rent is $32.00 a month and the shop pays all of the utilities etc.... My husband provides my health ins.

I do purchase all of my own equipment with my income and buy my own 401k for old age.

It's a lot to think about and every one of us lives in a different area with different needs.

[Mike]

Some thoughts in no particular order:

Someone wrote about scanning, if more than 1, then the cost per each gets cheaper. WHY? takes about the same time for each (at least for me). Printing, where you can just send the image to the printer and tell it 5 instead of 1 maybe one could make sense of this, but my equipment does not do scans in that manner. When my daughter had twins, the doctor did not give her a break in the price because there where two in there

Some one wrote, this is not my only source of income. So why is that a reason not to make your business something that you could make a decent living at? This goes along with another comment I see that goes something like, I am just begning, do not really know what I am doing so I charge a very low price. So I suppose when you learn what you are doing you are going to raise your prices and tell your customers the reason you did raise them is because you now know what you are doing? So the work you did for them before is really not any good because you didn't know how to do it? Sounds like a real good way to install confidence in your customers

To me one of the more important things to do when starting up a business is to project a very professional manner. Of couse you know what you are doing! Your prices should reflect your percived skill level. If you have doubts about how to do something, come here and spill your doubts, ask your question, but never to the customer.

I think you should set your prices at a level that covers your expenses, provides you with a living wage, and if you have enough volume, could provide you with enough $ to be your only source of income. To do less is not only cheating yourself, but is not good for the industry as a whole.

Anyway, like I said, just some random thoughts to chew on.

Mike

[Jim Conway]

Good points Mike! Even if someone intends their business to be nothing more than a sideline, there is no reason to assume that it should be anything less than "professional" in the approach to it.

When a business cannot match the workmanship of the local competition, it goes down the hard way and it's always the customer that loses regardless of the price that is paid for the work.

The learning curve will never end but you can be selective in the product lines you offer and limit it to what you can do (or outservice to people who are qualified).

Making a good living is a measure of success, so why would anyone want to assume failure at the start?

Jim Conway

[roger_ele]

Hi Mike, I am the scanning quantity culprit

Even when pricing by the hour I view what we are doing for the customer as a service, not as a strict charge for how long each step takes - as we get faster we make more per hour, when we stumble and fuss we make less per hour. Our individual scan price is high enough to allow for a discount for quantity - it is really based on our perception of what the customer will percieve of the value of our work structuring it the way we do - and when a customer brings us a quantity of work where we want to be able to say thank you - this way the customer feels there is some consideration for quantity.

We are seperating in the customers mind which parts of the process are more mechanical and which parts are a service that only we can provide the best because of our expertise (if our competition doesn't address an issue, and we do, we are seen as being more knowledgable and careful to give the best quality). By attaching optimization of the image to the scan we are adding our expertise so that it has a special value and is more difficult to compare to the competition.

Also we don't charge for quotes and consultations - the scanning surcharge actually pays for our consultation time, one consultation with multiple originals is a lot less time spent than with multiple customers with one original each.

So yes, from an hourly point of view we over charge for one scan - so that we can lower the price for quantity. Scanning is also a more mechanical process, if we want we can do all of the originals of the same same size and quality back to back to speed up our work flow.

Roger

[Mike]

Jim
Thank you, sometimes my thoughts do not get to the keyboard in quite the same form! You sum up my thoughts quite well.


Roger
I hope that you do not think that I was trying to pick you out and point fingers at you. The nice thing about these boards is the ability to really toss out ideas and thoughts and let others look, comment, etc. I perhaps do not exactly agree with all you say, but that does not make me anymore righter (new word there ) or wronger (2nd new word today! ) than you or anyone else.
Its the flow of ideas between all of us that counts.
I too give free consultations and quotes, altho my camera repair shop charges a fee for a quote, which is the applied to the cost of the repair if they do it. I am not really too sure if I could get away with that.
By the way I do not think you are the only one who give discounts for quantity........
Mike

[roger_ele]

Mike, I didn't take it bad at all! I think I am really trying to point out that the price list is a very valuable sales and marketing tool which can be approached from many different directions. None are wrong or right, just depends on you and your market. Everyone will find what they are comfortable - only trying to get all of the choices out on the table.

Roger

[kstein]

Hey Roger,

You have a beautifule web site. It's real fancy! It looks like you do both portraits and restorations and are very very talented in your profession.

I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. Lil' ol me ain't gonna hurt any of you big fancy boys. I was real curious 'bout what you big city folks were doin' 'cause we don't know nothin' 'bout good business around here!

Looks like you're doin' mighty fine, maybe I might stick around and git me some learnin'.

Thanks Ya'll

[roger_ele]

Us city folks get this way ... we need some country around to keep us real

Thanks for the compliments. You will never be stepping on my toes, I love to help, and being involved keeps my mind open and learning.

Glad to have you around, Roger

[dipech]

Roger,

In response to your invitation to check out your prices on your website, I did so and discovered that it would cost about $88 minimum for the least expensive scan+restoration+a 8x 10 print, assuming a new customer walked in with just one photo to be worked on that needed just minor retouching.

Do others out there charge this much??
Is this kind of pricing the going rate for business clients as opposed to non-business clients--i.e. people who are restoring pictures just for their personal use?

Perhaps this explains why you are getting so many clients who want just the scan and a print, with no restoration?

My feeling is that this kind of pricing is what motivates some customers to spend the money on a scanner, a cheap photo editing program and learn how to do restorations themselves. I am discovering that many customers have lots of potential pictures to fix up; some have an entire albums worth. But there is no way they are going to spend such large sums on just one photo. Many also seem to like to start out by giving just one picture to be done, so the few dollars off for volume scans is not much value.

I also worry that such high minimum prices are not good for the profession as a whole and create demand for things like the "Picture Perfect" Do it yourself photo restoration machine they just installed at my local Kinkos. For just $4.99 you can scan your photo yourself, crop it, add a sepia tone, remove any red eyes, improve the contrast a tiny bit and then print out your picture! Yes, thank G-d it's a clumsy, slow, and very cumbersome machine to use, but it may be enough for some people.

Shouldn't we all be sensitive to these issues so that we don't price ourselves out of business?

Sincerely,
Diane