How To: Determine Your Pricing As A Stylist
(Photography for banner + all images below by: Jabari Jacobs, Styled by Limonata Creative, Authors: Limonata Creative + Liz Watt)
Advocating for yourself in your career and fighting to be paid what your work is worth is never easy, no matter what kind of job you have. But in the world of freelance, especially if you’re an aspiring photo, prop or food stylist, it’s a special kind of challenge. There are so few resources out there to help newcomers and seasoned professionals alike understand how to price their services – and don’t even get me started on the painfully outdated and oppressive “industry standards” for stylists.
In a nutshell, there still is no exact science for pricing your work (major *womp, womp*); it will be an ever-evolving aspect of your business as a freelance creative. That said, there are several important things to consider when defining your pricing as a stylist that I wish I knew when I was first starting…
4 Factors To Consider When Figuring Out Your Pricing
There are many factors that go into determining how much you should charge clients for your services; but if you break your pricing down into its composite parts, it becomes more manageable for you to figure out. Have you ever heard that saying “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” ? Yea, it’s a weird metaphor, but it does have a point. The only way to tackle a large undertaking is by taking it one step (or bite) at a time.
Here are 4 main factors you need to consider when determining your pricing as a prop, food or set stylist:
1) YOUR EXPERIENCE
If you’re brand new to styling (or anything, really), you should not be charging an incredibly high rate. Instead, your prices should grow along with your professional experiences. The more experienced you become, the higher you should price your services. Think about when you’re scheduling an appointment at the hair salon: if you choose to have your hair cut by an apprentice or a stylist who is newer, your haircut will be less expensive. But if you have the owner of the salon with 20 years of experience, you’ll be paying a pretty penny. The same goes with prop styling. The more experience you gain, the better you become, the more you should charge.
2) RATE STRUCTURE
How are similar professionals in your line of work billing for their time? Are they billing hourly? By project? Do they charge monthly retainers?? This is something you will only learn by researching and asking people within that industry.
Some blogs and podcasts can be insightful in learning tidbits about this (check out this podcast interview I did for Nache Snow’s Studio 78 Podcast in 2018 about this exact topic). In many freelance communities, most notably the photography community, there are also a lot of online resources and forums (such as on Facebook or Weekend’ Creative’s Photographer Weekend Club) where professionals can connect to a local group of peers to talk shop or ask questions. In the case of prop, food, or fashion styling however, we shockingly don’t have many / any sources to turn to (UGH!).
To shed some light on how we charge though, generally, stylists bill for their time the same way most photographers and videographers do: In half-day (typically 2-5 hrs) or full-day (5-10 hrs) increments, plus overtime at time and a half (or sometimes double), should we work beyond the contracted scope.
3) THE CLIENT
Is the company or person interested in hiring you: An individual just starting their business? A small local business a few years in? A renowned company with national or international reach? An editorial publication?
The answer to the above question will help determine what you could potentially quote and/or charge. Prior to the initial meeting with your new client, do your own research beforehand to find out how established they are, what they’re doing, whether they’re funded, etc. Then in the actual meeting, be inquisitive! Don’t be afraid to ask questions about their company. In most cases, they’ll be happy to elaborate and will be excited you’re taking an interest in learning more about them.
Typically, if it’s a young business, start-up, or editorial publication, they may have smaller budgets, but this is NOT always the case!!! Hence why your own research is super important.
After you have an initial meeting, you can then decide whether to charge on the lower or higher end of your rate spectrum to be part of that opportunity (see ‘Pro Tip: Rate Standards & Spectrums’ below for some examples of this).
In addition, don’t forget to:
- think about what other professional ‘perks’ you might be be exposing yourself to besides financial gain with new clients. Perks to consider might be: exposure, relationship building, portfolio building, etc. Sometimes a project might have a smaller budget, but might be worth your time if there’s another ‘perk’ involved.
- remember that the more established or renowned a business or company is, the bigger their budgets should be, and the higher your rate should be. If you see a large company trying to wheel and deal you, yep, that’s a blazing RED FLAG. Think carefully before accepting their offer.
4) PROJECT SCOPE
How many final deliverables / images does your client need? Where will those final deliverables be placed (ie. their own website, social media, branded collateral, a publication, a national advertising campaign, etc)? What does their vision entail? How much of a time commitment and/or labor will be required from you to complete that vision? Does their project require specific items that will be difficult for you to source or create? What is the projected turnaround time? What is their target budget?
I make sure to ask my client all of the above questions at every initial meeting and record their answers on an intake form I created for myself. This is the most effective way I have found to get to the meat of the project so I can produce an accurate quote and/or advise the client on whether we’re a good fit for one another. General rule of thumb: the smaller, easier the job and/or project reach, the smaller the quote. The larger, more complicated the job and/or project reach, the larger the quote.
LABOR VS. EXPENSES
The rate you land on should be time or labor based only and should NEVER include project expenses. Expenses (ie. cost of project materials or prop rentals) should always be separate and estimated accurately by you, communicated to & approved by your clients prior to beginning a project. Don’t let your client's project expenses cut into your own rate / income!
RATE STANDARDS
& SPECTRUMS
As a rule of thumb, below are some rate spectrums I’ve personally encountered in the industry for various clients and projects in the past 5 years.
NOTE: The rates below are NOT set in stone! Every project and stylist is different which may require different rates based upon your location, your expertise/experience, the project itself, inflation, and whether you are represented or not. If you have questions, my advice to you is to always reach out to another stylist or industry professional in your area to get a second opinion and more accurate advice before quoting anything you’re unsure of!
Editorial Publications: generally $300-$700/ 10-hr day (in most cases, publications will tell you what they want to pay you -- and normally, it’s approx. ½ of what you’d get from commercial clients)
Local, Small Business (aka not a national brand or company): $500-$1K/ 10-hr day
National Commercial Company / Advertising Campaigns: $750-$1K+/ 10-hr day (Note: do not discount your rate for social media work! Social media IS advertising that brings these large, commercial clients thousands if not millions in sales revenue).
Publications such as Cookbooks: $500-$1K/day (because it usually takes days or even weeks to create imagery for books, be prepared to negotiate lower rates with these clients as you’ll be working for longer stints than a typical shoot. This is not all cases though!)
NO DEETS, NO QUOTE!
Ask the client for their specific shot list, art direction packet or moodboard, desired color palette and any example images before you even get started. This information is GOLD. These materials inform you just how challenging or easy the photoshoot may be, which, in turn, should allow you to more accurately estimate how much time it’ll take you to make their vision come to life. It also helps guarantee that their vision is crystal clear to you from the very beginning.
If they don’t have the above materials:
- You honestly can’t provide a quote. How on earth will you know what is expected of you after all??
- Insist that they need to provide you with those items so that you can give them an accurate estimate.
- If the client insists they’re unable to provide the above materials, you can offer to organize those items for them, but communicate that doing this will increase your pre-production time as you’ll need more time to properly understand the project scope in order to produce the shot list / moodboard / example images for them.
Line Items To Include In A Styling Quote
When you submit your quote, make sure to break down your charges into line items so that your client can understand exactly why your quote is the way it is. Transparency is KEY to eliminating any confusion, protecting yourself, and keeping both you and your client happy. For instance here’s a quick breakdown of what I always list in a quote to a client:
Pre-Production Time (ie. meetings/phone calls with the client, project research, art direction/mood board creation, shot list creation, prop shopping/sourcing, prop & surface creation, etc)
Set Time (ie. the amount of time the client expects you to be on location styling their photoshoot)
Post-Production Time (ie. time needed to return/clean/organize any props)
Assistant Expenses / Labor
Prop Expenses / Rentals
Surface Expenses / Rentals
Milage or Travel Time (for local projects, 30min-1 hour+ away. Milage should be calculated as $.59/mile per IRS 2022 standards)
Travel Time & Expenses (for out-of-town projects 2+ hours away, such as lodging, meals, transportation, etc. NOTE: pricing for your time on travel days are generally 50% off your regular day rates).
On-Set Meal Expenses For Myself + My Assistant
When should you start charging for your styling services?
Once you find people are reaching out to you and wanting your work (which, depending on the quality of your work, could happen very quickly), you need to START CHARGING. Every second you spend perfecting your craft is a second of knowledge your clients should repay you for. Also remember that the rates you choose at the beginning of your career are not set in stone! I’ve increased my ½ day and full-day rates by $50-100 every year since I started 5 years ago.
Should you ever work for free?
The short answer: NOPE.
Look, I get it, we’ve all gotta start somewhere! Of course when I was just starting to build my portfolio, a lot of the images I created were made in collaboration with photographers or small businesses with little to no budget. This allowed me to gain experience and create work with the intention of attracting paying clients within a matter of months. While this method is great for jumping in and getting a taste for industry, this exchange is very unsustainable for obvious reasons. We can’t survive off of pixels alone!
How working for free
(or pennies)
hurts you, hurts me
When you undervalue your services, quote extremely low rates to potential clients, or when you give away products or services for free, you’re not only undervaluing yourself, you’re undervaluing the entire industry and the professionals who work in it.
Example: I once knew a talented food photographer whose reputation was viewed poorly in their photog community because they charged super low rates. While this photographer was very experienced and their work was GREAT, I’d often hear complaints from their colleagues (whose skills and expertise were equivalent) that they’d struggle securing clients who’d ask them for quotes because they simply couldn’t compete with this food photographer’s ‘bottom of the barrel rates’.
Low-balling your rates when you have experience and talent teaches prospective clients the following:
1. Your absurdly low rate is the industry standard; so anyone charging higher, more accurate rates that are actually aligned with market prices are a ‘rip off’.
2. Because you’re so cheap, you’ll likely also be willing to cut them more deals or discounts on other things (ie. such as project expenses). I actually saw this happen more than once with the photographer I mentioned because they would often ask ME to also cut corners in my own estimates so that they could continue giving their client unrealistically low rates (to which I would respond - “NO WAY, JOSE!”).
3. That you’re desperate. This puts the client in a position to take further advantage of you. So instead of working LESS for MORE, you will be working MORE for LESS. A fast track for burn out (and/or bankruptcy) if I ever saw one!
Collabs: They still have expenses
Does all this ranting about charging your worth mean that I never did a test or collaborative project ever again once I started billing my clients? Nope! I test with new photographers and create “passion projects'' all the time! It’s still a great way to create fun work and explore new techniques that a client might not be interested in (yet ;) ). The difference is that these relationships are strictly talent exchanges with industry professionals, NOT businesses or brands who should pay you for your expertise.
That said, you should still treat your collaborations like client projects, even though they’re not. Make a budget / expense list for you and your team, run it by them so you can evenly split any costs needed to make that collaboration fair & successful. Not only does this alleviate the risk of having any teammate (AKA YOU) take on the burden of expenses completely on their own, it’s also great practice for when you’re doing the real thing!
Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask questions
Still unsure what to charge? I know it’s scary - but push yourself to contact an experienced stylist, photographer or industry professional who has worked with stylists for advice. Tell them of your situation and see if they can point you in the right direction. In my experience, most industry folks can relate to how difficult it is to price yourself accurately and will typically be happy to help. Don’t forget that we also know that the more informed you are, the better all of us in the industry are for it! Still scratching your head? Feel free to shoot me a line should you run into any dead ends and still need a word of advice!
