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It costs money to run a business - having and maintaining a website, advertising, affiliations with professional organizations, business phone, office space, taxes, etc. Photographers don't pocket everything you pay them. Three events per month for a wedding photog means you're working almost every weekend.
I run many websites, they don't cost that much.
Advertising, now there is a good point, I wonder how much that is.
Fair point about taxes, after uncle sam has his way, lets adjust that 108K down to 80K net.
Do many photographers work out of a full fledged office? Admittedly I know almost nothing about this subject (I take pictures but I am not a pro photographer) but I am truly interested in the math of it all.
Also, it costs money to attend bridal fairs and give out printed info/disks.
Even two weddings a month is a lot! And with all the extra post-processing people expect these days, the amount of time each wedding takes has gone up a lot...
Still, photography has some of the most lucrative margins in the wedding industry - if you can get the gigs! Florists have to deal with low profit margins and a lot of planners are struggling with all the info available on the internet (and day-of isn't that profitable).
So photographers have it pretty good, relatively speaking! But you definitely have to work hard to earn that money...
Most photographers don't shoot weddings every month. Unless the climate is right, most regions in this country have wedding "seasons". For example, in Boston that is usually April - October. Some people will supplement that with other photographic work, some people are too tired to be able to handle both.
Self-employment tax + federal income tax is where most stuff is taken out! I'd say these taxes together are closer to 33% rather than 25% of all profit after operating expenses. Even if they had no expenses from your $3000 wedding they will only see $2000.
Business insurance - most professional photogs have to insure their equipment (which easily amounts to over $20,000 of professional equipment) and hold a business liability policy of at least $1M. My business insurance is more expensive than my bf's car insurance
Office space rental, upkeep, utilities - I can't afford to have a studio or office, but it is a dream =)
Attending workshops and business conferences - the national WPPI conference along easily eats up a pretty thousand.
Health insurance
Advertising costs - some websites charge hundreds of dollars a month to advertise.
Backup! External hard drives and discs so that no work is ever lost.
Website and blog costs - A couple hundred dollars a year, but it's not the biggest expense.
Professional services - Fees for lawyers, CPAs, graphic designers
Prints and sample albums.
Business cards, gifts for good clients, marketing materials, supplies, etc.
Assistants - if they are second shooters, they are usually paid several hundred dollars per wedding.
Gas mileage if they waive travel for a certain radius.
Equipment repair.
Adding more memory cards, the little electronics add up too.
I made a lot more money as a management consultant than as a photographer. I just love photography more.
As a professional wedding photographer, let me explain a little bit of the details.
First - You say that "Equipment costs can be written off at tax time so I don't count those expenditures...."
Well, I'm not sure how a write off at tax time magically makes us earn more money. The write off ONLY means we don't have to pay additional taxes on that amount of income, but it is still spent. Most photographers take advantage of these 'write offs' by purchasing new camera bodies (at least) or multiple new lenses every single year. Upwards of $20,000 is very possible, I spent well over that last year on new gear. Idealy we'll only spend around 10k on our gear matainence and upgrades every year.
Now, if we manage to book 3 weddings every single month you are probably assuming we work 36 days (360 hours) a year and make 100k+, right? A wedding rarely takes less than 2 weeks to edit, dedicating a minimum of 4 hours a day to it. Downloading the cards, touchups, editing, resizing, recropping and preparing 800+ images for web AND print and then accepting orders, creating prints, designing albums and ordering them, shipping and presentation of final product, and FINALLY keeping up with the bookkeeping and records while trying to keep an up to date web presence and emailing and meeting with other potential clients!
Now, having a professional website, blogsite, or other web presence can easily cost thousands per year. If you expect us to somehow shoot 3 weddings a month and still have time to code and update our own website, you must think we're non-human, we have to sleep too and sometimes we get a break to eat. So, we purchase templates, webhosting, and design services.
Advertising is the single most exhausting and expensive part of our business. We have an image to keep up. Most wedding fairs cost over $5000 and we can't do only one. Most bridal magazines and online ads cost around $500 a quarter, and we can't have just one!
Not to mention studio/office rentals. A couple thousand a month, plus utilities.
What about the product our clients receive in that $3k wedding package? Most will get some prints and an album, that costs us money too! We don't get amazing deals on your amazing albums. If you think Walmart's pricing is what we actually pay on our prints, you are also wrong. We pay a premium for your professional prints, and if we print them ourselves we have to purchase and maintain the equipment and well as continual purchase of the ink and paper!
So if your final thought is we work about 360 hours in a year and make 100k you'll be shocked to realize we are the hardest working vendor at your wedding, physically and mentally, we work around 10 hours a day/7 days a week (about 10x as many hours as you assume we do, 3640 hours) and if we're so lucky to book 36 weddings a year (more like 10-20 for the average wedding photographer) we're only making around the average salary for the US. And we still have to cover our personal expenses with that as well as pay federal/state income tax on it.
So basically, we work really hard and don't really get paid that much, but we do it because we LOVE IT!
You don't pay a wedding photographer for their hours at doing your wedding but rather the art they produce.. -Ian
OP- I'm glad you asked this question! I really enjoyed reading the answers. I had never put much thought into exactly how much work photographers really do. It's interesting! I definitely appreciate my photographer 20x more now :)
i love photographers. its truely an wonderful art. i appreciate their work, dedication, long hours, stamina and patience. i would be willing to pay $10,000 for a great one!
@keniko Thank you for the excellent breakdown, that was super informative. :)
I have one comment:
Whoever is charging you thousands per year for your website is screwing you. Royally. That should be a one time expense for hosting/template unless your site is crazy popular and you have skyhigh bandwidth usage. If you've hired a designer that is charging you for "customizing" a template, fire them.
@ianvillaceran So basically a couple is paying for the captured memories and sentiments attached to them?
@ejoyb- Uh... yeah. Photographs are captured memories. We attach sentiments to them because they are memories or trigger memories. Why have photographs that mean nothing? Save yourself the $3k+.
if you consider the costs to hire second shooters/assistants, general business costs, costs of equipment, costs of products (albums/dvds etc) and the actual time to shoot & edit, photographers & cinematographers have a fairly small net profit. they are probably the hardest working vendor during and after the wedding. i would gladly pay top dollar for an awesome photo+video team.
@ejoyb I promise I am not sitting here clicking "reload" waiting for a response. Hehe, I honestly just happened to do it 6 minutes after your post!
Nice photography website templates and hosting can cost a couple hundred a year, you're right. I was also including on my estimate my 'print lab' I used last year (whom I have stopped using!!!) that cost me $100 a month to host a proofing site with that my clients could order directly from. Not only did it cost me $100 a month JUST to use their "gallery" but they also charged 50% more than typical labs charge on their prints AND a huge commission on every order that was placed. So thats a couple thousand a year. BUT...
I'm also an extremely creative individual (photographers should be, right?) and I really have a hard time settling with one style for more than a few months. I like new, fresh stuff, so I'm always purchasing new templates to try or different services that might help my business.
And in response to your quetion directed at ianvillaceran, you don't know what you're missing out on if you don't have a pro photographer. When I got married (before I go into the business) I thought I would cut down on the cost and hire a few friends to do our pictures. When we got the pictures back I was happy they caught the moments but they were seriously lacking. I though recently, "hey! I can fix them! I'm so incredibly amazing at photoshop now I can do anything!" but I couldn't. I couldn't fix them. We don't have ANY amazing pictures from our wedding. I wish I had hired someone who could have captured how extremely nervous and happy I was that day, or how beautiful I felt. I also wished I had more pictures of my husband, I always wondered if he was nervous before the wedding, or what his face looked like as I walked down the isle. But I don't have those memories on film, only fading in my mind.:(
Oh I 100% plan on have a pro photographer, don't get me wrong. :) I'm actually having a husband/wife duo of pro photogs.
WRT to my response to ianvillaceran, I was trying to verbalize something more concrete than "art" since what is called art is very subjective and its value can vary from person to person.
@keniko: I had a pro photographer at my wedding, and not a cheap one either. But you know what, I still wonder if he was nervous before the wedding and what his face looked like as I walked down the aisle because my pro missed out on some photos like that. :(
Does anyone know if WeddingbeePro had a feature talking about the costs associated with the photography business? I loved the series on running a floral design business, and I'm sure it would be interesting to read all the behind-the-scenes details from one of the photographers.
I'm thinking of starting a photography biz here, but only targeting the newly engaged, as in engagement shots only, no wedding. I'm a ameteur photographer and I've taken a few college level photography classes in the past, my mentor was a National Geographic photographer. I already have a professional camera and thought it could be a nice natural progression after seeing all the crazy prices people are charging here.
The going rate in my little town is insane and the pictures aren't even THAT good. For instance, an old established photographer is asking for an extra $300 for any location outsie of his little 2-block area and that's not including the distance per mile charge. The largest photo studio in town doesn't even refinish his work unless you pay for an enlargement and he takes nice backgrounds, but doesn't pay attention to the faces. In 10 years, my children will look at their mother's face not the pretty bokeh!
But it's only an idea for now because it'll be a LOT of work. Even if you out source your film developement, it takes awhile to sort through, crop and re-finish. If I actually charge decent money, I'll have to buy photoshop (I lost my older copy) and maybe even get a Mac because it handles images so much better.
This is not including the website and maintenance, and if I want them to be able to view the pictures to choose what they want, that's a special service and costs an additional monthly.
I haven't even covered the business fees and costs to start a business (super high here).
It's a lot of work ... and for now, I'm happy to pay someone else to do it.
A photographer in Texas who is well known does 48 weddings a year at approximately $4500 a wedding. She brings in over 200K a year she said.
In fact, the photographers I've met said wedding photographers tend to make LESS money than people who specialize in families, babies, newborns, kids, etc, b/c of ALL the work and extra money that goes into albums and other wedding do-dads.
According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 the average professional photographer earned $26,170.
That's not such a rosy picture on how much we earn per year.
I've been a full-time wedding photog for about five years now.. I also occasionally teach business courses to photographers, so I spend hours and hours researching and thinking about how much photographers charge vs. how much they make.. The best and most efficient photographers take home about 50% of what they make, meaning that if you buy a $3000 package, they will make about $1500. Most photographers under $4000/package are not nearly that efficient and are making more like 30% of what they bring in, so more like $1000 per wedding. Most photographers can only handle ~30 weddings per year. There are centainly exceptions to everything, but this is the general reality of the industry.
Remember that as a self employed person we pay about 40% in taxes (thankfully deductions help us out a lot, but it's still a much higher tax percentage than the average person with a regular corporate job), and due to the high cost of albums, equipment, and insurance, our overhead is incredibly high, amounting to about 25-30% for most photographers, MUCH more at the lower price brackets (in fact pretty much every photographer under $1500 is losing money with every wedding they shoot).
To give you a real life example, last year I shot 30 weddings at about $4500 each, plus about $30k in additional print and album sales and other various forms of income, resulting in a gross studio revenue of $168k. After deductions (and remember that deductions are money that went back into the business as overhead, not money that went into my pocket to pay food, bills, etc.) my taxable salary was about $90k. After taxes I made about $60k. And in my area I'm considered relatively "high end."
Hope that helps a bit :)
Additionally you need to remember that you are not just paying for their time on the day of the wedding, but for the time they spend before the wedding planning/meeting, all the time spent editing and putting together your album, etc. The printing and presentation costs can also cost quite a bit.
What an awesome topic! I am glad to know more about this industry and everything it entails. Way more complex than the layman thinks!
My photographer works out of his home. He even brought an assistant and drove 3 hours to our venue. I think we got a steal! Under $2k for 1000 pics and a flush mount album and this included some engagement shots! Plus we loved the outcome!
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Being a budget conscious bride, I am _always_ thinking about money.
So I was just thinking about how much photographers make per event...lets say ~$3,000. At $3,000 per event, you'd only need to book 3 events per month to make more than $100,000/yr.
Equipment costs can be written off at tax time so I don't count those expenditures....
So I'm trying to figure out where the hole in my calculations are. What are the unknowns that are missing from this equation? Is it hard to get that many bookings in 1 year?
How much is the assistant normally paid?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions. I'm trying to pass the time until my STD's arrive. :D