We’ve all been there, people turning us down because our prices are too high and we are afraid of losing their business so we race to the bottom of the barrel. We tend to get desperate especially when we need income but the reality is we need to hold our value high. Our gear isn’t cheap and our craft came at a high cost which was time. Many beginners make this mistake and it hurts the industry by doing everything supercheap which cuts out the competition until it’s too late. What I mean by too late is they are doing so much work for dirt cheap that they don’t have anymore time and are finding themselves working for peanuts. What should cost at least $50 an hour is now $5 an hour.
For example I’ve heard of guys doing weddings for $500 working a full day with a fully edited video. That means it’s at least ten hours of filming for the day and when you calculate editing it all depends on their experience. If they are still beginners we are talking about possibly between 40-50 hours editing one video. Let’s be generous and say everything totaled to 30 hours to shoot and edit. They are walking away with $16 an hour, you might as well have a regular job if that’s the case because at least you won’t have to spend money on expensive equipment.
When you raise your rates you will filter out all the cheap clients who aren’t serious and then you begin to attract the higher paying clients. Now let’s say you have two clients a month but charge $3,000 and it takes about 30 hours to shoot and edit, you will be looking at $100 an hour. Not bad right? Making more money and working less compared to working for scraps. The stress will begin to build up if you do it for cheap and by then you have already made a name for yourself as the cheapest artist. Who will want to work with you now if you decide to raise your rates?
I understand in the beginning you are more affordable but once your quality improves then you should start raising your rates. This is a craft that takes lots of skill that doesn’t come quickly and needs to be respected. Value yourself by raising your prices and you will see how people will look at you differently. Your quality will show and they will begin to understand.