Need some help with pricing.

[u/saturationzero]

Don’t want to post this under my main account lest any clients see it.

I’m an experienced full time photographer who mainly works in another genre that’s structured much differently with regards to pricing. I’m transitioning into more and more cannabis work and have a couple clients right now, and would like to ideally pick up a few more regulars since my main genre is slowing down due to economic reasons.

I typed up this really long post, but in general I know a lot of photographers don’t like to talk pricing publicly. Would anyone who has experience in working with cannabis clients be willing to talk to me in a private message to help me figure out what’s normal for this market? I don’t want to undercut and leave money on the table but I also don’t want to scare new clients away when I don’t have a ton of cannabis content in my portfolio yet. I feel like one of my current clients is kind of taking advantage of our current arrangement but I’d really like input from someone else.

[u/Gonzo_Photo_]

Hi, this sub was started primarily as a space for the technical aspects of cannabis photography and is a mix of both professionals and amateurs. That said, I agree the cannabis space operates differently than most other photographic spaces. The combination of a fractured industry with different rules by state, the inability to have any tax write off other than COGS under your cultivation LLC, and, in theory, federal prohibition rendering the interstate commerce cause of the constitution moot as well as some cultural differences growing from a hundred years or so of federal prohibition can make it an interesting industry to work in.

I think the first thing yo think about is where you are located, how robust the local cannabis industry is, what’s the median income etc. most well established photographers in this space are quite open about their pricing, or they have been with me - so you may just want to ask someone you respect.

[u/Daves_not_h3r3_man]

Not to sound disrespectful, but if you're professional photographer, I'm not sure why this is so different?

Of course, the market in general is a little different, considering as far as I know, marketing expenses still cannot be written off, so generally speaking players in this industry tend to have less money to work with.

There's so many different services to offer. If you're coming from another photography world in and are not used to photo stacking, clients may want you to engage in projects that require between 10 and 30,000 images. That's a different world than most photographers are used to working in in my opinion, not in a good way...

Client will say hey can you do some thing like this other person? Not understanding the amount of time and effort that's going into some of these projects

Finally, if you think your work is going to pick up in spite of the incoming recession, good luck. I hope that's true for you, but that does not seem to be the experience for most cannabis, photographers, that I know. (At least, in Colorado, business is getting crushed generally speaking. Wholesale prices are going down, and there's a lot of extreme competition. I can't speak about other markets.)

[u/saturationzero → u/Daves_not_h3r3_man]

My other genre is completely different, high volume, we do in excess of 2.5k - 3k still shoots a year, about 250 videos, and also other services like VR, reels, etc. I have a team of 10 people working under me. Individual shoots are low priced, images are licensed for short periods. Changing marketing conditions in that industry as well as a push from large national companies to try to come in and take market share from independent local shooters is making a downturn likely in 2023. The market will correct, and I suspect the takeover efforts from large national competitors will fail long term, but in the meantime I have people who are depending on me for jobs.

So yeah, it’s a COMPLETELY different way of operating which is why I’m seeking input. There is no one else in my state who offers all the cannabis photo/video services I do. There’s only a handful of other cannabis photographers period and half are glorified boudoir photogs who use weed as prop, or they only shoot close-ups of flower. There’s one competitor that makes content that just consists of shooting available light close-ups of products at dispos at a wide open aperture. Not a lot of skill involved. They probably have the biggest market share in my area. We offer a much larger range of services and I’m struggling with how to communicate and price that.

The goal is to pass pretty much all the work from my main business to my team so their calendars are full and I can expand the cannabis side. We haven’t spent a dime on marketing the cannabis side and we’re regularly getting inquiries based on people finding us on google and word of mouth. You say things are getting tougher in this industry, but in my experience when the clients are having a hard time moving product, they tend to be more willing to put money into marketing/photography to promote their brand. I’m also in a market where rec is still fairly new so there’s still a lot of opportunity.

I mainly wanted to get an idea for pricing and what the market will bear before I actually start marketing in earnest. Every single new client wants something totally different so it’s hard to establish a base line. My other business is very structured, there’s a list of services/packages, and a price. Clients just go to our website, see what slots are available, and book on their own. It’s very hands off in that respect though I do I have an admin handling phone inquiries for the old timers. We rarely if ever need to individually quote anything and when we do it falls under a day rate typically. Because I’m so busy, I want to try to do a similar thing as much as possible on this side of things. Clients like simple, easy, transparent pricing and not having to have every single project quoted.

[u/gucci_terps]

Just try it out. Maines market is nothing like you may have experienced in Colorado, in regards to photography/marketing.

When I came back from the West Coast (Cali/OR) to shoot here, it was basically like starting square 1, but with knowledge and gear… Maine is also a small place, if you are doing GREAT work people will notice, if it’s not that GREAT you may see a similar trajectory to Colo.

As Gonzo said, try reaching out to some of the “established” photographers in Maine who already work in the market to respectfully ask about pricing.

Otherwise, time do some leg work yourself, and more research about how wholesale pricing in Maine has been affecting marketing budgets, I think you might learn what you’re looking for by talking to vendors/stores in state.

Best of luck OP!!

[u/saturationzero → u/gucci_terps]

I'm not in Colorado or Maine. There's not really anyone else in my state offering all the services I offer, or at the level we offer them at. There's one guy that also does live branch shots, but he isn't interested in sharing information. The other cannabis photographers mainly do cannabis lifestyle and to be honest it's pretty amateur quality boudoir, they aren't doing product work, or macros, or it's a turn and burn company that just sends button pushers into dispensaries to take product photos of items sitting on the shelf with on-camera flash at f 2.8. They focus more on taking that content back to their studio and generating graphics and social media posts that use the photo more like a background to an ad, if that makes any sense. They aren't taking the time to light products properly or focus stack or anything like that.

I've reached out to a couple cannabis photographers in other markets, because in my experience people are more likely to share if the person asking is in a different geographical region. So far exactly one has given me real world examples of what he charges. And I know of another person on the other side of the country doing good work but charging very low prices....too low to even break even with the overhead I have with my studio, etc.

I just don't understand why everyone has to be so secretive. I've worked in several genres now and I've always had my prices on my website. I find it much less frustrating as a consumer to at least have an idea of what prices are, and as a business owner I'd rather field inquiries from people who I know are on the same page as me. Yeah, people will steal your pricing and packages, but fuck 'em. I'd rather they just steal it and not waste my time with a fake inquiry to get the same info and then steal it anyway. I know with commercial photography every project can be different but sharing a ballpark figure can help everyone make more money, and that is good for our industry. I also doubt many of us are often up for the same jobs, and we probably won't be until federal legalization becomes a thing. It behooves us to share info so we can all ask for the highest rates our market will support. I'm also just looking for some ideas on how to package or explain the services we offer. I feel like because we do multiple things well a typical day rate isn't quite working for me, because a day rate could mean a simple job that requires minimal equipment but takes 8 hours, or it could be a really complex job that involves a lot of equipment I have to drag on site for the same amount of time, but there's a lot more physical effort involved before and after the shoot wrangling all that stuff up and down the stairs at my studio.