Hi there. I am about six months into my photography business. I am in the niche market of creating virtual tours and 360 photos for local shops and businesses. My target audience is any place that is visually appealing such as restaurants, museums, and art stores.

Lessons learned / takeaways from this skill-share lesson:

- Publicly price based on the services provided, not by the hour

- Set your price just above average of your competitors in order to emphasize value

- The overall sequence of events: Quote your work, agree on a price, receive a down-payment that is 50% of final cost, produce product, deliver draft to client, receive final payment, deliver final product to client.

Challenges / questions to focus on after this lesson:

- I am the only person in my city that provides this type of photography service. It is difficult to set pricing because of a lack of competition. My homework is to find similar businesses throughout the country that are in a similar size market (50K people) and average the pricing. I could also average the local cost of professional photography in the area. My 360 photo should be in the top third of the market price because each 360 photo requires 6 stitched together fish-eye photos. I currently quote at $20 per photo that is in a virtual tour. I have only sold two tours in six months. The first was $100 for ten photos and the second was $380 for 19 photos. Making the sale is difficult because most businesses do not "need" my product, but it would be nice to have.

- I need to become more efficient and educated on quoting work and entering into a contract. I would like to provide virtual tours for larger businesses and franchises. Unfortunately the process is long and vigorous to make it to the point of a sale. However the stakes could be huge in the construction market that requires 50+ 360 photos.

- My business and product is virtual and viewed online. I am finding that web design and editing is a critical point in my sale, which some businesses need in order to utilize my service. They need a web developer to embed the virtual tour onto their web page. I am like an artist that must also be paid to frame a photo and be an interior designer in the online world. I am finding that some clients are hesitant to hire me for 360 photos because they must also hire me to edit their website. Often times they want the 360 tour, but do not want to pay for the required web design, so they back out. The web design is often tedious and time consuming so I have to rate my work accordingly.

- The virtual tour is hosted on my own pay as you go server. The cost that I incur is about thirty cents per tour per month or about $5 per year. I have determined that this cost is negligible and a very small portion of my operating costs. I don't know if it is worth my effort to charge per month for this hosting service. I like the idea of building a passive income. How would I setup reoccurring billing and avoid large processing fees? Any recommendations? I further discuss an idea in my possible changes section. My equipment and software for getting started cost me about $3000. I will not need to make any upgrades to equipment unless it breaks. I would like to eventually upgrade my equipment to increase the quality of my product.

My current pricing:

Starter Package ($15 per month)

10 (360) hotspot virtual tour
iframe embed code for your website
Google Maps and Street View listing update

Basic Package ($200)

10 (360) hotspot virtual tour
iframe embed code for your website
Google Maps and Street View listing update
Download link for JPEG photos

Premium Package ($200+)

Client determines the number of (360) hotspots for virtual tour
iframe embed code for your website
Google Maps and Street View listing update
Download link for JPEG photos

Web Editing ($40 per hour)

Create and embed 360 Videos
Embed the Virtual tour into your website
Experience with editing Wix, Weebly, and HTML/CSS.

Possible changes:

- Remove per hour rate for web design -- change to a price per web-page edited and per YouTube video created and embedded onto the web page. I create a mini-tour video for each 360 photo so that a viewer can see each room of an art gallery as it appears on an individual web page

- Consider a subscription based model that will require a monthly fee in addition to an up front cost. I am tentative to do this because my clients are used to up front fees for most photography. My virtual tours are hosted online and require continual upkeep. I feel like I should offer the client more value if they must pay a fee, but I suppose the virtual tour should be enough to warrant the monthly subscription. What other value added things could I offer? I am considering each client paying $60 per year or $10 per month to maintain the virtual tour.

Links to what I do:

https://shea08.github.io/street

https://www.facebook.com/360ben/

Thanks for reading and providing any feedback or advice.

Ben Shea

360 Photographer

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