New Freelancer - What to Charge?

[IainGlasgow]

I am new to freelance photography, looking at doing commercial photography for local SME businesses for their promo material and trying to determine what I should charge.

Should I charge based on the number of photos or on a time basis? I don't really agree with charging for time, I think its much better to base pricing on the value you give to the customer. However I've done some online research on rates and pricing and come up with a sliding scale starting at say £10 per image for the first 15 or so images and reducing the per image cost for larger quantities. Any ideas is that too much or too little?

Also what is the convention for copyright ownership of commissioned photography?

[the-baron]

Try to get some Idea of what they want exactly, how many shots, how they want it presented. Then establish how long it will take you.
You need to set yourself a daily rate according to your circumstances.

[SharpClause]

Here's a useful guide to what to charge - as the disclaimer says at the bottom these aren't rates that are set in stone but are considered fair. You may already have seen this site of course :-) Cost of images depends on circulation / size of business - ten images for a small business starting out and with limited advertising circulation will be somewhat cheaper than for a company with adverts in the national media and outlets round the country.

As far as copyright goes the general feeling is that you really shouldn't let go of your copyright at all. Selling a licence to use it (thereby giving you ownership for future and further use) will be cheaper than selling the copyright outright (in which case you can't use it again, ever). Even if the work is commissioned and the work would be used frequently you would still expect to retain copyright, and licence the use for each time a photograph is used.

There's a lot of activity at the moment in challenging organisations who want to have full, worldwide, unlimited use of pics in any medium whatsoever and whenever, as cheaply as they can, and the less photographers ask for in terms of payment / copyright means that the overall value of photographers' work goes down. I think that as photographers we need to stick to our guns and not sell ourselves short or give images away (unless for charity or in a mutually agreed quid pro quo arrangement).

[Hardygrafique]

sharpclause is on the mark.....you need to believe in yourself...and the first step is what value you attach to that belief...good luck!!!