edding Photography Pricing Models - This posts follows on from my previous Wedding Photography Business Models post.  It's not meant to be a super in-depth article, more of a taster to et you thinking about doing things differently.

Wedding Photography Pricing Models

Ok, so first off I'm going to assume you have already figured out how much you need to cover your cost of sales.  Now we are going to take that and look at how you can package it together to give you a pricing model that stands out from the crowd. You know what you need to make for a day's wedding

A few options (not exhaustive)

Wedding Photography Pricing Models - Option 1. You think carefully about your cost of doing business (CODB - get my downloadable spreadsheet here) and add into your pricing structure everything you feel is reasonable for a couple to expect from a wedding photographer. You set an initial low price for you attending a wedding, at say 8 hours. You then charge for each extra area, e.g.:

• Prints
• Extra hours
• Digital files
• Extra copies converted to Black & White
• Album
• Extra retouching

etc etc etc/ This, in my opinion, is great ONLY if you want to attract clients based on price alone.  They will see the low price advertised and visit your website. YOU then have a tough job of getting them to spend the required amount to cover your CODB.  If you are good at it - fine, crack on.  if not you will find it's an emotional roller coaster. They may even book you for your 8 hours and the images on a USB. What you have to do then is to "Up Sell" the rest of your services.  This usually requires what is known as IPS - In Person Sales.  So great if you have a studio / spare room in your house etc.  Not so great if you need to take them to a hotel, or as I have actually seen, a motorway service station. t usually requires more of the hard sell technique than Option 2. This also means that you never have an idea of what your cash flow over the year is going to look like. It will be up and down like a yo-yo depending on what your IPS skills are like.  And when was the last time any photographer attended a "Wedding Photography Sales Course" workshops!!! ;-) So in any one month, I could have 4 weddings.  My CODB is set for £1500, but my initial advertised price is £500  I, therefore, NEED to make a minimum of  £4000 on upselling in each month to meet that CODB. How long will be those IPS meetings, before the wedding and after the wedding?  Remember that time has to be added into the CODB also. If you fail to get the £1500 mark you are down on your cash flow, down on your monthly target and will need to make it up someplace else. Wedding Photography Pricing Models - Option 2. You think carefully about your cost of doing business (CODB - get my downloadable spreadsheet here) and add into your pricing structure everything you feel is reasonable for a couple to expect from a wedding photographer. So, fo example, in my collections:

• Pre wedding photography session
• 12 hours attendance at a wedding
• Digital files available as a digital download
• Full copy in Colour and Black & White
• Wedding album with 70 images