Pricing strategy for selling photography work

I'm looking for information about pricing strategies for selling photography work. Both in print and selling the rights to use images for commercial use. Any success stories would be appreciated. Also, what are the limitations of signing and numbering a particular image?

Its good to stay as close to Photoquote as possiblle but economy, location & your product apply.

Stay on the Marketting energy formost- you can't sell without an outlet.

Have you checked your competitors pricing? Lottsa questions but too little info.

Hi Bob, I just found the pricing links provided by this site so I'll start there. Thanks for your response.

Ken, just a bit of advice I have found valuable, Always give people the opportunity to spend money. In other words, never undercut your prices because you think it will increase sales, it just doesn't work that way. Many customers will spend an exorbitant amount of money on things they really like and that's the key, "Things They Really Like".

Brad, that is great advise to avoid undercutting prices. It is interesting how the current "market" affects confidence in pricing. Thanks for the encouragement!

Brad's viewpoint is interesting and one way to look at this pricing issue. I am not sure what he means by "exorbitant amount of money" and who these customers are that he talks about. In my personal opinion, most photographic artwork available for purchase in galleries and at art-shows are over-priced. Relatively unknown artists have price-tags in the several hundred dollar range (in some cases even in the thousands). The artwork doesn't sell and then we blame the economy and sometimes even the lack of support for the arts by the general public.

I like the approach adopted by Brooks Jensen (of Lenswork Magazine), which is to produce the best prints you can and then offer them at a reasonable price, such that the common man who likes the artwork can actually afford to buy it. An example closer to home would be the prints offered by NPN member, Tony Kuyper (www.goodlight.us). His work is absolutely brilliant and his prices are very decent. Something to really think about...

Two important questions are, first, how large is your audience and second, are you interested in making a profit or just selling your work? Selling at extremely low prices, such as Anil suggessts, requires that you sell large volumes of work. If you don't, this pricing approach simply does not work.

We use Fotoquote extensively for licensing and a formula we have derived on our own over the last 20+ years for studio prints. In the case of being paid to shoot, then licensing the photos rather than licensing stock photos, we generally average 2x to 4x the shooting fees in 1-year license fees.

But when you get down to art prints, it's what the market will bear. Looking at it as a print buyer, if your work is significantly better than others in the same galleries, I'd expect to pay more. If it's run of the mill, I'd walk right on by it if your prices were higher.

Edit- I see you're from Montrose. In that region I'd expect pricing to be different in Montrose, Grand Junction, Redvale and Telluride, depending on the gallery. At the other end of the scale I'd expect you to get less in Delta. Of course, I wouldn't show the same work in any two galleries if the prices were different. Idle speculation, but I think it's valid to recognize the differences in local markets even within your geographic area.

Speaking to Hanks point, you could sell the same image in an 8X10 in Montrose for $20 while selling a 20X30 in Telluride for $250. Just don't sell the 20X30 in the two regional markets at different rates. You can probably get away with this if the galleries were in NYC and Houston, but not with both that close together.

Mr. Briot wrote a nice essay on photographic fine art print pricing recently. Fotoquote is a useful reference for pricing licensing. And at the end of the day, you've got to have a feel for where your customers will be able to afford to buy.

Thank you for all your comments!