Almost everyone contacting the studio asks a standard first question… “How much are your 8×10’s?” but every now and then, someone comes into our studio and asks the next question (and an excellent question it is, we might add) which is the topic of this post. For us, it’s one of the easiest answers we can give yet we understand not everyone knows what goes into creating one 8×10 portrait art. We ensure every effort is spent making sure every product that leaves our studio is not only of the highest quality – but unique. Our clients expect that from us and we enjoy providing them with an art piece they can’t get at any retail portrait studio.
Every studio has different rates, some higher (as much as $150 or more per 8×10) and some are less. It all depends on how that studio has evaluated their time and costs to produce that work of art. However, our most popular products are not gift prints (8×10 and smaller) but instead most of our clients desire something a step above. This is where we include our art/elite wall prints (canvas wraps, metal murals, etc) and albums…then adding gift prints for extended family. The 8×10 seems to be the benchmark for pricing in our industry and what clients use to compare across studios.
Today we are giving you a rare look inside how we go about assigning a price to our products, using our basic session and 8×10 as an example. Below is a list of our time spent to create our shortest session and finished art print:
– Time with the lead up front (either phone or e-mail). Likely around 15 minutes
– In person consultation, usually about 30-60 minutes
– Setup for the session, can be anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 depending on if we’re doing studio or on-location
– Session takes 90 minutes
– Loading of images to the computer, back-up images – 15 minutes
– Color correcting and Culling images – 30 minutes
– Prepping for the viewing (loading images to the projector, marking favorites, prepping music, setting the lighting and temp or the room, making popcorn/cookies, etc) – 30 minutes
– Conduct in person viewing/sales session – 60-90 minutes
– Processing the one 8×10 image and sending off to print – 30-45 minutes
– Delivery/Shipping – 15 minutes
Total time spent – 5.75-8hrs
That’s a significant amount of time and it’s well spent creating your art…you would be lucky to get a fifth of that time at a retail studio. As previously stated, we make every effort to give you the best and most unique products possible.
In reviewing our time spent, we have not even factored in the cost of the lab print, the wear/tear on our equipment, packaging, insurance, continuing education, overhead on our studio space, etc. In addition, our studio includes two full PPA (Professional Photographers of America) listed photographers creating your art. Each client we serve means time spent away from our families. Having said that we absolutely love creating art for our clients, it’s a passion every member of our team shares but we couldn’t do this without our education, experience and equipment.
We hope you enjoyed this sneak peak inside our studio and a little piece of mind that we aren’t just throwing a dart at the dartboard to determine our pricing. Every item on our price menu has been deliberated by the team. We don’t take pricing lightly and, while we need to do a certain amount to stay in business, we always side on providing the lowest price we can for the high value of product we produce. We are capturing moments in time, milestones of a beautiful life. How much is that worth to you? We know to us at dsmPhotoCompany, it is priceless. Of course if you are here as someone who has never experienced our studio and the dedication we put in for you then we urge you to setup your own personal consultation and we would be happy to answer any additional questions.
Thank you for taking the time to post this! Very well said. 🙂