Do you include a disc of images with your packages?

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QOTD from Shanna: "To Photogs: Do you include a disc of images with your packages, or sell it separately? I want to change my packages and would love to know what you do!

Right now I charge $150 for a 1 hour session with up to 5 family members, with a disc of images and a 8x10 print.

and I'm tired of giving away the farm ;)"

Melanie: My session fee is completely separate from everything. I also have a min. order requirement. I have print and digital collections, and even though they were a pain figuring out, I've sold a collection at every ordering session since coming up with them.

Cate: digital images mean never selling anything else again to them... so I have learned (after a year of giving digital images every time) to make them more expensive and make people OPT in to them. If you want digital, youll pay more! I would keep your existing fee, tkae out the CD of images, leave the 8x10 and charge an extra $5/image on digital.

Stephanie: I have a session fee of $150 and sell digital collections as well as prints. Most of my clients want the digitals, but I've priced them at my happy place so I am happy to sell them. I include a print credit with the digital collections and 90% of my clients add an album or large wall portait, which exceeds the print credit and increases my sale. I also have a lower COGS on digitals, so it's a win win for me.

Fiona: There's some good advice on setting your price on Lovegrove's site, photonut xx

Shelby: he only digital images my clients receive are low res images for FB when they make print purchases, and only of images they purchase. I get some negative feedback about it but my files are mine. I get more print purchases because of my policy.

Fiona: Remember, it costs more to be a photographer than most newcomers realise! Lots of hidden costs to factor in. Your price has to reflect that...

Shanna-Kaye: I'm loving all the advice!!] :) I decided (yesterday) to change my packages and include some digital files in my middle package, and the digital files in the last (and highest priced) package. Thanks for the help!!

Kellie: SEPERATE! The newbies are the ones who seem to INCLUDE it... but why? You lose out so much when you give the disc away, especially so cheap

Justina: This awesome feedback. I make the disk I give at a flat fee only print up to a certain size since they can also use that to share on Facebook but was really deliberating over how much to charge per image for a high resolution file!

Angel: We have a sitting fee from which 50% is a print credit. We charge $30 an image for high res images. If we do disks, those range in price from $100 for a smaller session to $500 for a wedding/quince. However, for a wedding/quince, the "sitting fee" starts at $1600. For smaller sessions we do $40/30 minutes.

Cortney: I do not include any disk with regular sessions... mine are an additional $50 on top of the session fee. My weddings are a different story... I do include a CD, but I have jacked up my prices to compensate for that. (I honestly think I should go a little higher than where I'm at now - $1200)

Stephanie: Shelby... Your low resol CD for fb... What size do you do?!? Can you print 4x6 with it?!?

Kelli: For those that only include images on a disc to be printed up to a certain size, what do you tell your clients when they ask why?

I have my sitting fee and disc priced separately. But everyone just wants
The disc. I am doing all new packages for digital files this month because no one prints. They just want the disc and I am not selling anything extra. Also frustrating because many of them never print their photos till months later and why did I just spend all that time editing for them to just sit on a cd?!

Kelli: Also, for those who have several different digital file packages, how do you separate them? If you don't mind sharing :)

Sarah: When I first started out I made the mistake of including the CD for free, mostly because I wasn't wanting the hassle of dealing with prints at the time, and when I started it was more of a hobby than a business. Things took off though and 2 years later I'm busier than I know what to do with and had started to offer print services. I stopped giving the CD for free and started charging for it, unless they ordered a minimum dollar amount in prints, then it was free. People started ordering more prints when they realized they'd get the CD for free.

Jayna: My session fee is separate and is only for my time. I have a minimum print order but I offer collections and a la cart items. I offer a web-only disc as well as a print disc. My two largest collections do include the print disc, but I offer the discs a la cart as well.

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