I've seen these posts in Facebook groups multiple times a day for years now, and the question doesn't get any easier to answer. Affordable simply doesn't mean the same thing to every family. For some families, affordable means $50, and for others it's anything under $1,000.
How you set your budget is your business and your business alone, but I can help to break down some of the factors to consider. Here's what average sessions look like and what that means for the cost involved:
Family session
Emailing/scheduling/communication tasks: 15 minutes
Prep time/commute: 30 minutes
Shoot time: 30 minutes
Editing time: 2 hours
Uploading/communication tasks: 15 minutes
Total time: 3.5 hours
Newborn session
Emailing/scheduling/communication tasks: 15 minutes
Prep time/cleaning: 30 minutes
Shoot time: 2 hours
Laundry/cleanup: 1 hour
Editing time: 3 hours
Uploading/communication tasks: 15 minutes
Total time: 7 hours
What about the costs involved? There are a lot of hidden costs in this industry, and we don't need to count up each one, but as a general rule you can assume that a photographer's equipment costs around $4,000 and needs to be replaced every few years. Ongoing monthly costs like website hosting, insurance, and photo gallery websites end up costing around $100. Specialty items like new props and seasonal backdrops vary wildly, but we can throw that in there with all of the other miscellaneous stuff like training, taxes, childcare, studio rent, permits, and maintenance. Those numbers are potentially very very high. Does any of this really matter, as a customer? Nah, not really. It's genuinely not your problem, but if you're here then you might care about what goes into the costs.
So, how does a photographer set their price? Most of the time we look at things like what the market price is for that service, and balance that out with what we can afford to charge. That might sound like it's worded in a funny way, but for many of us it truly is how little we can afford to ask for. Taxes alone take out a massive percentage of our income, so we have to assume we are losing about 50-60% to those and to the other expenses I mentioned. Many of us are also working 15-20 hours of "unpaid" time every week to handle social media, planning, training, and misc tasks. Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint. It's just a necessary part of the job that has to get factored in to our income.
The bottom line is that all this math adds up to minimum wage x hours needed + all of those extra expenses divided up among all sessions. I'm all about pricing transparency, and I think customers should know that we respect you and want a zero confusion zone. Your budget is still your business, that hasn't changed a bit. I'm hoping you might have some new insight into all of the factors your photographer is considering when they are setting their price. That doesn't change your budget price, of course, but it helps you know what reasonable looks like in this industry :)
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