To price a photography print, start with a floor: add up what the lab charges, the mat, backing and sleeve or the mailer, and the minutes you spend ordering, inspecting, matting, signing and packing, and work out the lowest price that leaves the margin you want after fees. Then set the price you actually charge above it, by size, and check that the prints you expect to sell pay for the year's camera, travel and software. In the example below, an 8-by-10 print matted to 11 by 14 costs $10.83, has a floor of $25 and sells for $40, which leaves $26.77; at that, the year's $6,000 of gear, travel and software takes 225 prints. Below is what a print costs, floors and prices by size, the year's costs, editions, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost a print: the lab print, mat, backing and sleeve or mailer, and your minutes.
- Floor = cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees); never sell below it.
- Price by size above the floor; the margin grows with size because the minutes don't.
- Check the year: your gear, travel and software ÷ what a print leaves = prints you need to sell.
- If you number an edition, keep to it.
- Count prints at every fair; a sold-out size is a lost sale.
- TaroStack keeps prints and mats counted, at home and at the fair. More below.
What a print costs
Ponderosa Light Photography, a made-up landscape photographer in Flagstaff, Arizona, I use in these examples, orders prints from a professional lab and sells them at art fairs and online:
| A print | Lab print | Mat, backing, sleeve or mailer | Minutes, at $20 an hour | Cost before fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10, matted to 11 × 14 | $3.50 | $4.00 | 10, $3.33 | $10.83 |
| 11 × 14, matted to 16 × 20 | $9.00 | $7.00 | 12, $4.00 | $20.00 |
| 16 × 20, flat in a rigid mailer | $22.00 | $6.00 | 15, $5.00 | $33.00 |
| 20 × 30, rolled in a tube | $38.00 | $4.00 | 15, $5.00 | $47.00 |
The minutes cover ordering, checking each print for flaws when it arrives, matting and bagging it, signing, and packing it for a fair or the post. A print that arrives with a flaw goes back to the lab or in the bin, so a few are worth allowing for. How to cost the mailer and tube properly is in packaging cost per unit.
Floors and prices by size
| A print | Cost before fees | Floor, 50% margin after 6% fees | Price | Left after fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10, matted | $10.83 | $25 | $40 | $26.77 |
| 11 × 14, matted | $20.00 | $50 | $75 | $50.50 |
| 16 × 20 | $33.00 | $75 | $150 | $108.00 |
| 20 × 30 | $47.00 | $110 | $275 | $211.50 |
Each floor is the cost divided by (1 − 0.50 − 0.06), rounded up to $5. The price above it is the photographer's choice, set by what the work sells for in their market, and the floor is what stops a discount going too far. Because the minutes hardly change with size, the margin grows with it: the 20-by-30 leaves eight times what the 8-by-10 does. But fewer people buy a $275 print, so the small sizes carry the volume at a fair. How cost-plus pricing works is in cost plus pricing example.
The year's costs
A print's cost doesn't include the camera, lenses, the drive to the canyon at dawn, editing software or the website. The photographer spends about $6,000 a year on those, and they're paid from what the prints leave:
| If every print sold were | Left a print | Prints to pay $6,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10, matted, at $40 | $26.77 | 225 |
| 11 × 14, matted, at $75 | $50.50 | 119 |
| 16 × 20 at $150 | $108.00 | 56 |
| 20 × 30 at $275 | $211.50 | 29 |
A real year is a mix, and the number to watch is whether the prints you can sell cover the year before you pay yourself anything beyond the $20 an hour already in the cost. How to put your own time and costs into a price is in how to price handmade items.
Editions
An open edition can be printed as long as people buy it. A limited edition is numbered, 1 of 50, and some photographers raise its price as it sells, so the numbers have to be kept: once 50 are sold, there's no 51st in another size or paper. Keep a record of every numbered print sold, to whom and when, and sign and number them the same way each time. Some photographers keep the smallest sizes open and number the large ones.
Get the calculator
Download the photography print pricing calculator. Type what the lab charges, the mat, backing and sleeve, the mailer or tube, the minutes a print takes, your hourly rate, selling fees, the margin you want for a floor, the price you charge, and the year's gear, travel and software. It works out the cost of a print, the floor, what your price leaves, and how many prints pay the year. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Forty images in four sizes, mats in three colors, prints at home, in the van and at a fair two states away, a gallery holding some on consignment, and an online shop selling the same images. A sheet can't say how many 11-by-14 matted prints of the canyon are left, what went out with the van, or which images and sizes earn their place in the bins.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps prints and mats counted, at home and at the fair.
Prints and supplies in stock. Each image in each size is an item, and so are the mats, backing boards and sleeves, counted on a phone and kept at what you paid. A matted print is a recipe of its print, mat, backing and sleeve, so an evening of matting takes them off stock and gives the cost of each.
The fair as a site. Stock taken to a fair is a transfer to the market stall, counted there on a phone with no signal, and brought back by transfer, so home and fair stock both stay right. Gallery and shop orders are sales orders that show whether the prints are in the bins while you're still typing.
And what each image earns. The reorder list works in days of cover so the mats you use most don't run out the week before a big fair, and margins are reported by product and by customer.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Canyon 11 × 14 matted, how many left? | Count the bins | Stock by item, counted on a phone |
| What went to the fair, what came back | Two lists | Transfers to and from the stall |
| Mats before the big fair | Found short | The reorder list, in days |
| Which images and sizes pay? | A feeling | Margins by product |
Recipes, counting and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month; up to three sites, home, the van and the fair stall, are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.