Establishing a Price Based on an Images Usage

Pricing? How much to charge? What’s a reasonable fee for an images use? These are all questions I have seen in various forums and from students I have had take my class on the business.

Last week we ran a series of posts on determining the value of an images usage and the questions to ask the client. This approach to image licensing is Right Managed, where a client requests the use of an image and inquires as to “how much” and the photographer establishes a fee and manages the usage.

We are not talking about Microstock or Royalty Free pricing because there is no negotiation going on there. Prices are set for a one price fits all usage that are forever and downloads are automated.

Rather the client here has contacted you and described a specific usage they have in mind and wish to negotiate a reasonable price with you. 

In this post, the first in that series, I listed questions that I always ask the client such as:

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

• How is the image going to be used?

• Where is it going to be used?

• What size?

• What are the print run and/or duration of time the client needs the image?

• What rights is the client asking for?

Potential uses by clients can be far and wide and cover every possible scenario from billboards to magazines, brochures to web use and it’s not possible to cover all those scenarios in this post.

But what I will do instead is look at one hypothetical use based on those clients questions and list how I would have created a quote.

THE CLIENT

This hypothetical client is an Optometry Clinic with 4 stores in the South Bay (San Jose, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, and Fremont) California areas and they were looking for a beautiful scenic image of the California coast.

The client has looked at Microstock sites and just did not find the right image, but even more they had no time to wade through the volume of results. Instead they handed the search off to the designer handling the project asking him/her to find the image.

The designer has worked with the photographer and knows first hand that the photographer has a collection of suitable imagery and they also chose this photographer because they know where their images have been used.

• First question: How is the image going to be used?
• Answer: Brochure

• Second question: Where is it going to be used?

• Answer: A rack brochure to be displayed in all 4 stores.

• Third question: What size is the usage?

• Answer: Cover (3.5” x 8.5”)

• Fourth question: What is the print run or length of time?

• Answer: 10,000 print run.

• Fifth question: What right does the client want?

• Answer: Non-exclusive.

ANALYZING THE USAGE

So the client has asked their designer to find an image that has not been widely used, wants to use it on the brochure cover with a print run of 10,000 to be displayed until that print run is expired.

Then what should the price be? This is always the most difficult part, but the answer is ‘as much as you can get.’  I have my own pricing guide that I use to quote prices, but I wont use it in this case instead I will use the pricing guide available on the net, Photographers Index, as this is open to the public to be used as a guide for establishing prices.

For the above described usage PI suggests a low price of $425.00, a median price of $637.00, and a high of $850.00. I would then consider the following to determine where in the range I should quote.

First, the image is beautiful but not terribly unique. Other photographers shoot in the area but the photographer has not see any images published that are close to theirs and the designer confirmed that they “had not seen it shot that way before.” So they chose $700 or the midpoint based on the ‘uniqueness’ factor.

The distribution of the brochures is in a pretty small area (4 communities close together) rather than national or even regional distribution through the state of California.  In this case, considering something close to $500 on that one point alone seems reasonable.

Combining the small distribution and a fairly unique image, the quote to the client would be $600. What happens after that who knows? In the time of tight budgets and stiff competition from RF and Microstock, the client may gasp or not.

An educated guess is that they would come back and suggest something closer to $400 -$500 and I would expect that because as mentioned previously, the designer knows the photographer, came to them because of familiarity of the image collection, and probably knows roughly what the photographer usually charges and has told the client such.

Establishing a price is very challenging and then negotiating the sale is just as hard. Hopefully these guidelines will give some a heads up on a good place to start and from there who knows.

If you have any suggestions, experiences, or ideas on how you have successfully handled pricing and negotiation, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

Related posts:

Related Posts:

Part 1: Determining the Value of an Image Usage

Part 2: Asking the Right Questions.

Part 3: Where is the Image Going to Be Used?

Part 4: What is the size of the usage?

Part 5: What Rights Does the Client Want?

Part 6: How Unique is The Image

Good Book:

Selling Nature Photography