Pricing Without Apologising

Dana Whitfield · 21 July 2026

The number is the number. Saying it out loud without softening it is most of the battle.

Count the Real Hours

The shooting day is the visible part and it is not the expensive part. Culling, editing, correspondence, travel, the pre-meeting, the album proofing and the second round of album proofing are where the week goes.

Divide the fee by the true hours before deciding it sounds like a lot. It generally does not, after that.

Fewer Packages

Three options is plenty and two is often better. Long menus invite people to build the cheapest possible combination and then ask for the expensive bits as favours.

Whatever the structure, make the coverage hours explicit. Almost every dispute about money is actually a dispute about when you were going home.

The Discount Question

Somebody will ask. Have an answer that is a sentence long and does not involve justifying the price, because justifying it invites negotiation of it.

If you want to be flexible, be flexible on what is included rather than on the number. Discounting the number teaches the next enquiry that the number is soft.