Many people are hesitant to raise their rates because they’re worried that clients will drop them. In your case, what’s the worst case scenario if you raise your rates and the comedy club drops you? You’re out $120/month, or $1440/year. That’s hardly worth crying about. You could make that up by driving for Uber for 8 hours a month.

Figure out what you’d really need to make this gig worthwhile for you. You’re probably driving for an hour total, the show is 1.5 hours long, and then you’re editing for a few hours. It’s probably 5-6 hours work for you each time. Also factor in the cost of your camera, lenses, laptop, software, wear and tear on your car, gas, etc. What should your hourly rate be to feel good that you’re being fairly compensated for this work? Forget about what you’re charging them now, that’s irrelevant. If you were doing this work full-time, what would you need your annual income to be? Then parse that out to an hourly rate.

For instance, if you’d want to be making $80k annually if you were doing this full time, then 80000 / 52 weeks / 40 hours = $38.46/hour. If you’re putting 6 hours of work into each gig, that’s $230. Add a bit for wear and tear on your gear and car, and you could easily charge $250-$300. Or if you wanted to split it up, you could try to charge $200 for the gig, and then charge the comedians $20 per photo and hope that you’ll get a couple sales each time. If the upcoming larger shows at the new venue demand more hours of your time (both at the venue shooting and back home editing), then increase the fee according to the hourly rate you’re trying to hit.

Yes, if you approach them and say, “hey, I know I’ve been doing this for $60, but as of XYZ date I’m gonna have to charge $200 each time”, there’s going to be sticker shock. They’re going to complain that you’re tripling their rate. Just politely explain that you’re getting busier and need to start charging a realistic rate for your time. Tell them to try to find another professional photographer for that rate. They might try. And they might find a starving student or someone that’s willing to work for peanuts the way you did. And that’s fine. If that’s the price they need to pay and that’s the quality of work they’re looking for, then maybe they’re not the right client for you anymore.

I shoot comedy shows. Twice a month, I get $60 CAD to head across town to shoot a 1-1.5 hour long comedy show. 8 comedians, I deliver 10-15 edited photos of each to the host before 4PM the next day

You are blowing your brains out charging so little. You drive an hour, plus 1.5 hours of shooting, plus a couple hours of editing, plus your mileage, gas, insurance, power, software subscriptions, gear wear and tear, taxes, etc you are making like $8 an hour. That’s less than half of what someone working at Tim’s gets.

Here’s what I’d want to propose to him: - At the lower-level shows: - $70 - Larger shows - $100 for the shows at the new venue - The individual comedians would need to pay $10-15 for their photos on delivery

Still way too low to me. You can’t assume the comedians will purchase a thing so you need to get all your money up front. If a performer does buy something consider it gravy. For a larger venue and show I can’t see doing it for less than $250 for a 1.5 hour show, and even then that’s what I would consider inexpensive. Even at $100 per hour you should be able to make a little money, but still not much.

You should sit down and add up all your costs including the per shot costs of your new gear (cost of gear ÷ average shutter life + 25%) then add in how much you want to make over and above that per hour and include all of your travel, editing, and communication time.

I would tell the promoter that you have invested in upgrading your gear, which is what you will need for the larger venues.

My only thought is the joke that you hear about comedians. “You know the comedian is fundamentally an optimist because a) they find the funny in any situation, and b) they think they can make a living as a comedian.”

You need to triple those numbers You need to start accounting for all of your costs, not just you being there.

Take all of your costs and divide it by 24 based off your current work.

$8 for editing soft $26 for camera gear (based off a $2500 kit paid over 2 years, which is already under paying yourself. You should pay it off with “60 days” of rentals $2-8 depending on storage & power

• your transport cost.

So now your barely making any money.

I would recco starting at least $100 a gig now. Especially in these times.

More than needing to raise your rates, you need to shift your perspective. You have the attitude of an employee. You’re not an employee. You are an entrepreneur, albeit a solo one. You don’t have a boss that decides to give you a raise or not, you have a client. Notify them that your rates are increasing.

If they decline, then you can use the time you would normally spend working with this client to secure new customers with bigger budgets.

If he’s a client, you don’t ask him for a raise. That is backwards thinking.

You charge your rate. Period.

1. You’re already not charging enough. If you factor in how much time you’re actually spending, I’ll bet you’re not even making minimum wage, and that is not even taking into account the cost of your equipment that you have to have to get it done. You should be charging an equipment fee on top of that that is equivalent to what you’d pay a rental house if you had to rent the gear you’re using. Whether you split that out to a separate line item is up to you.

2. You cannot make a $500 client turn into a $5000 client. A $500 client will tolerate small incremental increases to account for things like inflation (which you should be revising your prices at least every year anyway), but if you want to make more money, go find a new client that pays what you charge.

3. Don’t spend money on gear that will not get you higher paying clients. We all love new gear, but if your existing gear works, that money is better spent on marketing to gain higher paying clients. Get a client that needs better gear? Start off renting it. This is why you charge that equipment fee. If you can’t rent the gear to get the job done and still make at least minimum wage, then you are not charging enough.

You’re probably making around minimum wage once you do all the calculations.

Going from $60 to $70 isn’t going to change anything unless this is 1933.

You inform them of a change in rate. Do you have a contract? In my long term contracts I state that at every X amount of time a rate change may apply. Usually every 3-6 months. Each contract states the possible % increase min and max. A contract lawyer can help you with the proper wording and legalities for your state.

Even with your new proposed rates you are very much selling yourself short.

I’d hire you

Don’t base it on the size of the show. Base your pay on the amount of work you need to do. You have to shoot, edit, and deliver the photos.

Since larger shows mean more work (more photos, picking, editing, etc.), then larger shows will require more pay.

As for that last part, don’t do that unless the comedians ask you for photos for their portfolio. It’s not extra work for you, so don’t try to nickel and dime your client.

When you breach the subject with the promoter, have a printout with your prices and the things included in the price. Don’t write paragraphs about it, just a small itemized list (the shoot, number of pics included, editing, and cleaning). Then let them know that, because of the current economic shift, you’ll have to increase your prices a little. Always bring up a change in pricing with the client before charging them differently. Even if the change is just $10, no one likes surprises like that.

Don’t make it complicated is my opinion. Go for $100 per gig, it’s a cool rate for Canada. For the comedians, well, I would prefer to play along nice with them because they might bring more work along in another way if they like their pictures and see that you are generous. For example, portrait session of themselves.

Lol 200-250.

So I’m a freelance Cinematographer and produce a pretty well-respected stand up show as a hobby with 3 of my friends.

Everything everyone said is right.

However.

If it’s a traditional comedy show, the comics are getting paid about $10-20 each. In my case we don’t even pay ourselves, the photographer is the only one we pay and he also gets $20.

Insane low price, I’d personally never even go near that price as a photographer, but we pay our comics $20 and charge $10 for tickets. We also buy the comics drinks. That puts our daily operating costs at around $200. So if we sold 20 tickets (average for this kinda show) we break even (again, the producers don’t get paid at all). If we’re lucky we sell 30 tickets.

So here’s the issue, right? Comedy is a disgustingly low-revenue art. If you love comedy, want to see these shows, enjoy helping, and can potentially turn those photos into more lucrative gigs, that’s kind of the best you’re likely to get. If you don’t/can’t, you’re basically going to have to move on to something that pays your rate.

Again, you SHOULD be charging like… $500 minimum for any kinda gig, just to even start the conversation, but comedy shows are unique in that there’s usually no money anywhere.

My suggestion is to make the gig as easy as possible for you: shoot jpeg. Have the producer just like, bring you and SD card every show he can take home and those are the photos. Driving an hour and a half is kinda nuts, my show commute is 45 there and 18 back, but yeah. Photographing a comedy show is basically just a way to get a free ticket and make some cool friends.

You’re charging way too little for your services. You have to factor in you getting prepared for the event, traveling to the event, setting up for the event, actually shooting the event, the equipment you’re using, and the time it takes for you to edit and deliver the final product. You are severely undervaluing yourself. If you are good at it I would say you should make no less than $250 for this. It’s probably a lot of work right?