Work/Jobs - - Single jobs that bill at over $100

Doug Nelson · #1 01-25-2005, 07:42 PM

I'm not talking about jobs for commercial clients, but 1-up jobs probably for the mom or some other relative of the people in the picture. I've found the $100 mark to be a pretty strong barrier.

How often have you actually gotten single image retouch jobs where the final bill (just for retouching) exceeded $100?

westsidemaurice · #2 01-26-2005, 03:56 PM

I'm just putting a new biz together and can't comment on current customer responses, but for years I used to charge far more than $100 for retoucher's work that I middle-manned and delivered to clients through the custom photo lab whose services I sold. And that was 20 years ago!

If you can't get $100, somebody else can't get $50 for the same job, and somebody else can get $500 for it. There's no such thing as too expensive or too cheap.

Chip Hildreth · #3 01-26-2005, 05:16 PM

I guess being in a historic town makes a difference, maybe it's the storefront; I'm not sure. I can't think of a single digital restoration job that we've billed at less than $100.00. Now that does include prints, usually multiple 8x10 and 5x7.
We don't get easy restorations though, typically 2-5 hours on the invoice and frequently quite a bit more actual.
I've been pretty squeemish handing people $300 and $400 invoices before and then been greatly relieved when they left happy. Those are the ones that repeat too. I've got a couple of customers, older folks on fixed incomes that bring me lots of work and I cut my pricing way down. Now that I think of it; lots of those would've been under $100 on the individual pieces but they always come in with several pics at once.
The guy that got me into restoration to begin with is still doing it in nearby Chapel Hill and I know most of his invoices are over $100 including prints.

We charge $75.00 per hour for all digital imaging and design work and our invoices always reflect that. I frequently find excuses to credit the customer with discounts for things like non-profit orgs, senior citizens, veterans, local churches, frequent customers, etc.

With all that said, I have to qualify it by saying that we will soon move out of this shop and into a nearby house. Even at those rates we can't swing the overhead of a downtown storefront.

Chip

Jim Conway · #4 04-18-2005, 10:20 AM

Seems that the high end jobs are the ones that are still available. As far as restoration is concerned the bottom has dropped out the low end market so most of the orders we have now run $350 and up. I'm lucky enough to be in a building I own in a highly visable Historic District (End of The Oregon Trail) and surrounded by several communities where the income is in the high end for the nation so business survival is not in doubt - we just have to work harder for the money when the ten minute $89.95 jobs are no longer walking in the door as they were in past years!

Jim Conway

grafx · #5 04-18-2005, 12:11 PM

I only see $$$ like that when I do a same-day "rush" order. My rates are based on my geographic area and are fairly low.

Imagepro4U · #6 04-21-2005, 08:37 PM

I'm just like "Westsidemaurice". There was a time I was getting single jobs that sometimes billed well over $100, and that did not include the 50% surcharge the lab added to the bill. Of course before "digital retouching", I had very little competition. Now it seems everyone is doing was used be considered a real specialty.
Joann

chiko321 · #7 05-04-2005, 02:30 AM

That's the sound of me hitting my head.
Historic towns....the OLDER THE BETTER!!!! why didn't i think of that before.
Especially in cultures where tradition is paramount!!! OMG i'm slow.

nicks · #8 05-30-2005, 03:39 PM

I never got chance to work directly for a client.. Generally I was doing the work of middle - men I have to charge less to them, sometime fix rate for bulk work ... even I have done work of major restoraions in $30.. ( for regular clients only )... but now I have started my own site and hope to charge a bit more...

- Nick..

ganguy · #9 06-14-2005, 04:03 PM

I just got started selling my retouching and restorations after about one year of practicing on family and friends. Most of my work comes from a local photolab, and I charge between $25 and $50 per hour. But, I have to give a fixed price in advance, so when I get lucky, I may be able to do a job in a few minutes. I'm using PS elements 3.0, and some plug-ins. Ocassionally I use Picture Window as it has a border feature I like.
My scanner is a Microtek 6800, which is new, but very slow and awkward. I need something better.
I love this forum!
Reg

Darren Gibson · #10 06-15-2005, 04:01 PM

All I can say is, if you have trouble charging $100, try the UK market - before I discovered the wonderful resource of RetouchPro, I was getting quotes of £250 (approx 455 US Dollars) to restore a picture of my grandfather (view my post for help here - eternal gratitude to Flora)

Darren

ajcutler · #11 06-16-2005, 07:53 AM

I have charged over $100 about 5% of the time. On these restorations, the damage was extremely severe and took several hours to restore. In each case my Client did not say a word about the price, which I quoted to them up front before any work was done.

Alan

mpholiday · #12 12-31-2005, 04:08 PM

I've been retouching for a number of years now, but mostly in an office environment where my time is sort of factored into my salary. The last restoration experience I've had involved an older woman. I gave her my quote after showing her a sample of what I could do with her photograph, and she accepted. A few hours later, the job was completed and she refused to pay me, saying her grandson claimed he could do the same job for twenty bucks.

I told her to let her grandson do it and I've kept it as a portfolio piece. I've run into plenty of people who say, "you should CHARGE for that kind of service" once they see my work, but they never offer to pay me for it.

This was done a few years ago, so I'm sure if I were to redo it it'd look a little better, but here's the job I did for that old woman:
BEFORE:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...g/original.jpg

AFTER:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...g/restored.jpg

pepperphoto · #13 02-23-2006, 03:54 PM

Have been building a photo business for a year but the actual work has migrated into restorations, with is great with me, because I love the challenge, the final image and helping preserve someone's past. About half of my restores have been at the Ben Franklin level.
My business plan has my hourly rate at 3/4 of a Ben. I price each job by an in hand evaluation of the original. But, I have never yet billed for my actual time, never.
Larry
("Ben" and "Ben Franklin" are comic references to an American $100 bill, for people unfamiliar to US currency

)

Jon Foster · #14 03-11-2006, 05:57 PM

I've never done retouching for money but I'd love to start! If I could get $100 for a retouch and average two a day, I'd be happy.

Jon.

Jon Foster · #15 03-11-2006, 06:01 PM

I forgot to mention... A family friend showed me a picture she had restored professionally a few years ago. It was an ok job and I'm sure I could do just as good but I almost passed out when she told me it had cost her about $300. She also told me she had others that had been done in the $500 range as well.

Jon.