How to Negotiate Prices With Photographers

You’ve got a photography project coming up– maybe for event coverage, headshots, workplace lifestyle photos, or editorial style portraits of someone in your leadership team– and you’re collecting quotes from vendors. You’ve picked your favorite photographer, and now you’re considering negotiating their price.

I’ve found there are three main reasons to ask for a lower rate from a creative vendor:

You have a limited budget and no room to raise it.

It just plain feels good to save money and get a good deal.

You don’t value the vendor’s work as much as you think you do. (more on this one later.)

Whatever your reason, if you’re going to ask for a lower rate from your creative vendor, here are some tips from a photographer on how to do it:

Be nice about it. To a creative, an ask for a lower rate can feel like an accusation that we charge too much, and that can put us on the defensive. And a relationship started this way will be immediately soured. Here’s some insider info I probably shouldn’t share but I will: sometimes we give discounts when we don’t want to, and when we do, we only put half our ass into the project. The work might not come out as well or on time if we know we’re not getting our full rate from it. 

But when we feel good about giving a client a lower rate than we usually charge, our whole ass stays in the project. To achieve this, be nice with your ask for a discount. As the old saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Phrases like, “that’s really expensive,” or “why are you charging so much” is vinegar. Honey looks more like acknowledging and appreciating the creative’s work. Find a way to show them that you value them and their work and that you want to work with them on mutually beneficial terms, not just your terms.

Tell them your budget. If your budget is 10-15% less than the quote, ask if there’s a way to bring down the scope of the work to match that budget. It’s easier to ask for a price reduction if you’re flexible on changing the scope to match. For us, that can sometimes mean sending the photos through a file transfer system instead of hosting them online for several months and multiple downloads. Be willing to take on part of the job yourself in exchange for a price reduction. If you’re asking them for more than a 10-15% discount without reducing the service at all, go back to asking yourself why you’re asking for a discount and see below.

Don’t try tempting us with the promise of more work. If you say something like, “this will be a long term relationship if it works out,” we actually hear “if you do this for cheap you’ll keep doing it for cheap for us and continue to be undervalued by us for months or years to come.” Instead, ask if your creative has any subscription plans they’ve already built to save clients money in your situation. Even if they don’t, they’ve received your message in a kinder way: you want an ongoing relationship with them at a price you can afford and that is still worth it for them. Now you’re in a better position to negotiate terms good for both you and your vendor.

Come to terms with the fact that you don’t value their work if you’re asking for a discount. 

It’s okay, this is normal. You’re not a bad person. It’s a learned behavior you’ve gotten from years of being given limited budgets, working with part-time or amateur creatives who drop their rates, and pressure from leadership to find ways to get better quality for less.

My water heater just crapped out on me last week and when the plumber was telling me the cost of a replacement I could feel myself bristling. It’s a learned behavior, especially with home repair: we’re taught that contractors are sometimes out to screw us. That hot water is a right and anyone standing in our way of that by charging us money for it is the enemy. 

But to the contractor, my bristling was showing him that I didn’t value hot water as much as I clearly did by using it every day as an essential. It showed him that I didn’t value his training and expertise to install it, even though installing a water heater was something I couldn’t do myself and he was about to make that happen quickly and easily for me so I could have a hot shower within a matter of hours.

Yes, there are contractors, vendors, and even creatives out to screw us. I once had my furnace stop working and an HVAC contractor told me it needed to be replaced with a very specific $10k system. And another contractor replaced a $30 fuse and it was working again. But for every terrifying story of any vendor overcharging, there are dozens of times you hired someone for a fair price that you both agreed upon and was an equitable transaction.

Most creatives work hard to calculate their expenses and cost of living to craft pricing that is fair for them and competitive for their clients. When was the last time your photographer showed up to photograph your event in a Lamborghini? Most of us drive sensible, used Nissans.

Money is just part of the vendor client relationship. It’s not the only part. Focus on the many other aspects of the relationship: are they timely? Responsive? Helpful? Understanding? Skilled? Reward them for this by honoring the pricing for their services, or respectfully working with them to find a price that works for both of you.