Should I Show a Price List on My Photography Website?

Price lists can be dangerous, but they can also be great. How do you know if you should reveal your hand and have one displayed on your website?

If you are making a living from your photography, then you have to work out some kind of pricing model. Yes, you could just guess, but it is much better to draw up a pricing scheme based on your particular business and your target marketplace. It is definitely better to know that you鈥檒l be covering all of your costs and making enough from your work rather than just winging it and hoping for the best. So, regardless of whether you choose to display your prices or not, you need to know what you charge and why.

Copying what other photographers do might seem like a good idea, especially if you are starting out and want to test the waters. But this approach assumes that they are working profitably, which they may not be! It also assumes that their costs and earning requirements are the same as yours. Again, that could easily be wrong. By all means, use other people鈥檚 pricing as an insight into the market. Don鈥檛 use it as an excuse not to do any of your own research, though.

To run a profitable business, you need to know that you are charging enough. You also need to be aware of the market around you so that you can adjust your prices to reflect how you are positioning yourself in the marketplace. You shouldn鈥檛 be cheapest if you are aiming at high-end clients. Similarly, if you offer a budget service, you shouldn鈥檛 be the most expensive around. So, you should have a price list for your own benefit at least. But, should you put it on display?

Just because other photographers choose to publish their prices on their websites doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that you need to do so as well. Creating a brand is about differentiating yourself from others. So, don鈥檛 be afraid to be different. Choose whether or not to publish a price list based on what you think is best for your business and on the evidence you gather from trialing it. Let鈥檚 have a look at some of the pros and cons of having your price list publicly available.

If you are happy with a business model that is deliberately competing on price, then you will probably want to show this off. It is important for businesses to highlight what is different about them. So, if you are trying to be the cheapest, then you will quite likely want your numbers to be front and center.

It could end up being cheaper for you to show your prices because you may then spend less time interacting with queries. Writing emails to respond to lots of inquiries can take time and cost your business money. Cutting out unnecessary communication can help to streamline the process.

Customers might be able to decide more quickly if you are a suitable supplier for them. Once they know what the costs are, people can decide if they can afford you. Having your price list on display can be a way of making it quicker and easier for them to make the decision to buy.

Some people feel it is more transparent to show prices. Customers might feel more secure thinking that everyone is charged the same because the figures are on display. Some may have had a bad experience of bespoke pricing where they felt they were over-charged. Setting everything out clearly can help some customers to connect more readily as they don鈥檛 feel like they have to work hard to get what they want, and everyone can come and buy on the same footing. Not having prices can suggest a degree of exclusivity that some may find snobbish or they just don鈥檛 relate to.

When you have fluctuating costs from your suppliers, you may find it necessary to have relatively fluid prices yourself. If you don鈥檛 show them, then you have less maintenance to do on your website and any other marketing materials as you won鈥檛 need to update everything if your prices need to change.

If you offer a wide range of services, then your price list may start to get rather long and complicated. The last thing you want to do is put people off by making it hard for them to understand what they are getting or making it difficult to find each item they need. This can work fine if you are selling physical items, but for a service-based business (as most photographers are), it isn鈥檛 necessarily the best approach. You could choose a halfway house of showing some indicative pricing, perhaps. But if there are too many permutations, it may be best to draw up bespoke estimates and quotations.

If your business model is aimed at people with bigger budgets to spend, then you may not want to put price lists on your site. Clients who spend more often have particular needs or wants that you tailor to them. In some high-end retail contexts, there is the saying that if you have to ask how much it costs, then you can鈥檛 afford it. Hiding your pricing may hint at a more bespoke, high-end service, provided that the rest of your branding points in that direction too.

One danger of having price lists up on your site is that people can make a quick comparison with another business and assume that you are offering the same thing. If one photographer says they do a day of wedding photography for $2,000 and another says they do a day for $4,000 then you might think as a customer that you can just go for the cheaper one as they are doing the same thing for the money. That may not be the case at all. There may in fact be a huge difference between what you would get from the two suppliers.

Not going straight in with the price means that you have an opportunity to explain to the client all the value they will be getting from you. Once someone understands the real value of your services, you can find that some are quite happy to pay the premium.

As a commercial photographer, I have often found that people don鈥檛 actually know exactly what they want when they first come looking. The process of interacting with me helps them to define their brief and get a more suitable result.

Encouraging contact from potential customers enables you to start building a relationship with them. If they simply come to your website, take a look at the price list, and then leave, it gives you no feedback at all. It doesn鈥檛 allow you to build a relationship with them that could persuade them to work with you. People are more likely to be contacting you because they like your work and how you come across, rather than due to the cost.

Keeping your price list hidden stops others from doing quick and simple research to find out about their competitors. Like it or not, your competition will be doing research on your business. They will want to know what you are offering and how much you charge for it. The question is, how easy do you want to make it for them? Do the benefits of displaying costs outweigh any potential negatives?

There is no one size fits all for this kind of thing. Selling prints of landscapes might lend itself to a simple price list based on size and print medium. Product photography could vary from pack shots to advertising images, simple low-level retouching to complex Photoshop work and so on. Bespoke pricing is often more effective, where the service can be fine-tuned to suit the client鈥檚 needs and budget.

So, should you have a price list on your website? Whichever way you decide, make sure that there is a good reason for it. If it doesn鈥檛 seem to be working, try something different and compare results. I don't post prices on my commercial photography website, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't either. It is your business and your brand, so do what works for you.