No matter what type of photography you specialize in, your price list is one of the most vital and visible aspects of your business. Yet for many photographers, it’s also a source of confusion and frustration. The questions are seemingly endless: Am I priced too high or too low? Should I do packages or a la carte? Is my pricing getting me business or costing me business?

Questions like these prompted Memphis, Tennessee-based photographer and educator Rachael Boer, Cr.Photog., to develop an educational session, “High-Profit Pricing: How to Charge More and Get Clients to Happily Pay,” which she will offer as a pre-con class at Imaging USA next January. She’s observed many photographers question their pricing strategies, constantly re-evaluate and yet never really feel sure, she says. “If I can get somebody out of that kind of stuck state and into a place where they finally feel confident that their price list makes sense, is strategic, understandable, and built around their goals,” she says, “it can give them a lot of confidence that they can then project into other areas of their business.”

Boer offers these pricing tips for photographers:

Keep it simple. A common pitfall for photographers is to offer too many options, which can lead clients to decision paralysis. Boer remembers making that mistake herself when she first started her portrait and wedding photography business. “I was trying to offer everything my lab offered,” she says. “I thought I had to offer everything to my clients, and I was completely overwhelming them with choices.”

Now she recommends an uncomplicated approach. Your price list “needs to be simple enough that you could explain it to a third grader in under three minutes,” she says. “If it’s more complex than that, you’re doing your clients a disservice.” She also suggests presenting only two options at a time. “I might ask a client, ‘Do you want to do something for the wall, or do [you want] an album?’ Once they choose [an] option, they decide between two sizes. I’m just helping them walk down that path of decision-making two options at a time. Anytime I can do that, I can eliminate a lot of the stress and confusion for them.”

Don’t limit your profits. Another common mistake photographers make is structuring a price list in a way that tends to restrict sales. For example, package pricing can help clients decide what products they want to purchase but then they feel limited by those packages. Boer found that, “Once people reached the top collection, nobody was adding anything else,” she says. “I had effectively capped my sales. I realized I needed to open it up to allow clients to spend whatever they wanted to spend, and sometimes they would really surprise me.”

Learn about psychological pricing. Psychological pricing is a strategic approach that appeals to a client’s perceptions and emotions. One common psychological pricing strategy is price anchoring: presenting the highest-priced option first to make the lower-priced options seem more appealing.

Another tactic is known as prestige pricing, setting a high price to convey exclusivity or high quality, according to Boer. “Imagine you’re buying shampoo, and one bottle is $7, and another is $26,” Boer explains. “Which one do you assume is the better shampoo? You assume the expensive one is going to be better quality.” Photography clients typically are not professional photographers themselves and therefore don’t have the knowledge around the medium to determine a superior photograph. So, they rely on other cues to determine what implies quality, including price. How photographers price themselves in the market therefore plays a major role in how valuable clients view their brand.

Master your mindset. Mindset can make or break any pricing strategy. “If you don’t believe in the value of what you’re selling, you’re going to have a really hard time getting clients to believe in that value,” Boer says. Many photographers struggle with self-doubt and negative thoughts that can undermine their sales. Breaking through those blocks can affect how a photographer approaches the sales process, and ultimately, their income.

“I want you to really, genuinely believe that you’re giving clients something of tremendous value, something that is more special and customized than any other purchase they’re going to make this year, and it’s going to build in value over time,” she says. “Twenty years from now, it’s going to be even more valuable to them than it is today.”

Remember pricing is more than number-crunching. While pricing strategy starts with knowing your costs and setting income goals, it doesn’t end with the spreadsheet. Boer suggests approaching pricing from a client-focused perspective. What is the experience like when they open the price list? Are they guided through the sales session in a way that feels authentic and natural?

“Your prices aren’t just numbers,” she says. “They are a reflection of your brand, your value, and the experience you can deliver to your clients. So, when you price with strategy and confidence, you’re going to attract the right clients, and you’re going to be able to build that sustainable, profitable business that you want.”  

Janet Howard is a photographer, author, and coach based in Atlanta.