Stock Photography Price Guide
There are Dragons
There are two fire breathing dragons that are impacting the photo markets and influencing the way you will need to compete for your stock photo sales. The huge stock agencies Corbis and Getty, in their battle with each other are changing the photo markets for the rest of us. The research for this version of fotoQuote indicates that there are mixed benefits coming from their actions. The Chinese written ideogram for crisis is made up of two characters: one means danger and one means opportunity. FotoQuote helps you take advantage of the opportunities that are being created. New markets are developing and they are starting to use more still photography. Specifically in television, film and video. FotoQuote Pro helps you price in these markets by giving you dozens of hi-tech categories.
Market Changes
The biggest change we noticed in our research is in the way clients are using photos. There are much smaller targeted printings of brochures and other print media. It's more likely that combinations of uses are needed to advertise or publish in several media at the same time. This combination of uses needs to be affordable and accessible to your clients. The lazy way of calculating a price for these combination uses is to just raise the old single use price slightly and give the client unlimited use of the image. Some agencies and photographers that we researched seem to be doing this at times.
A Better Way - Rights Packages
FotoQuote Pro gives you an alternative. Many of our categories now include much smaller press runs than in the past to allow you to mix and match different usages into a more effective rights package for your buyer. You are also more likely to find the unique uses in this version. Many of the uses that clients are requesting for their "Guerilla Marketing" style of ad campaigns are now included.
Pricing stock photography is just a matter of clicking a few buttons to come up with an average price and a calculated price range, then doing a bit of research that helps you prepare for the negotiation that will help you decide on a price within that price range.
The fotoQuote Stock Coach
The fotoQuote main screen displays average prices for all categories. The concept of an average price is misleading; there are no set prices for photography. Every stock sale is a negotiation and the price will fall within a range. We calculate a likely range for you and display it on the main screen below the average price window.
The fotoQuote Coach is where you will find the information that will help you decide what price to ask for your image. Click the Coach button for the help you will need when licensing your images.
You will be taken automatically to the usage tips for your current category. After you have read the usage tips, you can read several other coach topics that guide you through your sale. Phone Scripts has examples of what to say during your negotiation and Documentation reminds you of the paperwork to include with your submission. (The RightsWriter™ is a feature of fotoQuote that will help you build your license agreement.) Sections of the Coach also include information on exclusivity, how to price if you have one of several images on a cover or in an ad, tips on royalties for multimedia projects and how to estimate prices that you don't find in fotoQuote.