The Great Photography Pricing Debate

"I’ve read of quite a few of your attempts to “excuse” what is PLAINLY unethical business practice. There is not one professional photographer in all of Australia who can survive by working for $50/hr. Your repeated claims of convenient ignorance (“we don’t pretend to be experts of every industry”, blah blah blah), only make things worse for you. 

Either:
- you have not researched the industry correctly (which is terribly unprofessional),
- or you DO in fact know that only the lower middle band or photography services begin at approx. $90/hr (which is terribly deceptive).

Now yes, there are many AMATEURS and STUDENTS that will happily charge $50/hr – these however have never ever worked full time in the industry and have their expenses covered by other means.
If you are attempting to attract quotes from these people in your “quotes from $50/hr” then you are robbing your clients of consistent, professional quality. If you want to pursue this course, then you must be transparent and declare, “photography quotes from AMATEURS or STUDENTS from $50/hr”, because there is not one single professional full time photographer who draws his whole living from photography who can survive in Australia on $50/hr. 

... our photography rates merely BEGIN at $150/hr, and video production from $220/hr. And don’t pretend we’re over charging, as this has to cover our enormous expenses that include basic small business costs (off the top of my head):

Tax,
Loan repayments + interest,
Insurances, 
Licenses,
Memberships,
Marketing,
Overhead and bills,
Expendables,
Fuel and travel,
Equipment purchases, maintenance/servicing, upgrades, etc."


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