How’s Your Pricing for Senior Photography Sessions?

Intro by Skip Cohen

It’s that time of year, and for any of you involved with high school seniors, now’s the time to be recruiting for your senior rep/ambassador program. But recruiting and building a stable senior business is only part of the challenge.

Besides developing your skillset and product/services line, being a great artist and somebody students love to work with won’t mean a thing if you’re philanthropy and not making money. This is a business, and biz without adequate revenue is just a hobby!

Sarah Petty is ALWAYS sharing great content on her Joy of Marketing blog. As I was looking through her archives, I found the short post below, just recently shared.

I love her recommendation for 3-tiered pricing. It’s what I’ve suggested for years on the wedding side of the business. There’s a psychology associated with 3-tier pricing. The consumer will always strive to spend more to get the best package. So, while theoretically, they might only be able to afford the low point, their emotional drive/desire to have the best will push them to a higher level. Plus, just like the typical wedding coverage – the cost is directly related to the time the photographer is spending with the client and at the event.

We’ve all pretty much got the same goal each year – make it better than the previous one. So, as 2020 approaches – are you being fair to yourself with the pricing for your senior sessions?

By Sarah Petty

The big difference between your normal family sessions and high school senior portraits is the amount of time you spend with them.

I remember when I first started doing high school senior photography,

I charged them the same as I did kid/family portrait sessions.

I didn’t have any limits on my sessions and they would just keep going and going and going without any plans to invest in anything because their parents are the ones making the investment.

The high school seniors are the ones saying “yes, yes yes this is so fun let’s do this!”

So I realized I have to charge for the time I’m spending doing high school senior photography sessions.

Now I have 3 tiers of sessions so that I’m making sure they have a minimum investment with each because it’s not financially feasible to spend 4 hours with them and not get an order that’s consistent with that amount of time.