“Everyone tells you to charge more. No one tells you what happens when you actually do.”
Photographers love success stories. The ones where raising your rates brings dream clients, bigger sales, and overnight growth. But what about the other side? The side no one talks about online. The side where you raise your prices and the inquiries slow to a halt, your confidence cracks, and you wonder if you just broke your business.
In this episode, I share what really happened when I raised my rates before I was ready. You’ll hear the emotional rollercoaster that followed, the pressure of industry expectations, and the mindset spiral that so many photographers silently go through.
More importantly, we’ll talk about why pricing is personal, why your math will never look like anyone else’s, and how to build a definition of success that actually fits your life, energy, and goals.
What’s in this episode:
[01:40] The shame and pressure photographers feel around pricing
[02:20] Photographer emotional math and why it wrecks confidence
[03:30] Why pricing is not one size fits all
[04:40] Understanding the real cost of your life and business
[06:20] How your definition of success evolves over time
[07:25] What it really means when inquiries slow after raising rates
[08:00] The four reminders you need before changing your prices
You’re allowed to define success in a way that fits your life, your energy, and the clients you want to serve. Your pricing doesn’t have to match anyone else’s to be valid.
SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Did this episode create clarity and inspiration around pricing for your business? Check out this episode The Profitable Photographer : Pricing for Profit in Your Photography Business with Jamie Devlin that shares how another photographer started their career!
Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello my friend. So let’s have an honest chat about money, because if there is one thing photographers don’t talk about enough, it’s about what happens when you actually raise your rates. Now everyone loves to talk about the success stories. I doubled my prices and suddenly I have my dream clients knocking down the door.
But what about the other side? The side, no one puts on Instagram. The side where you raised your rates because everyone told you to. You flip your pricing sheet live on your website, [00:01:00] and instead of hearing the sweet ping of inquiries, you hear crickets. I’ve been there. I remember being told point blank by a quote unquote expert, that if I didn’t raise my rates and start doing in-person sales, my business wasn’t real.
I was told, if you don’t value yourself enough to charge more, no one else will value you either. And honestly, it made me feel ashamed, like I’d been playing small, like maybe everyone was laughing at me behind my back because my pricing wasn’t professional enough. And so I did it. I raised my rates, not a tiny bump, but a big bold leap.
I changed my packages. I redid my website. I told myself, this is it. This is the moment I finally grow up and run a real business. And guess what? I hated it. It didn’t feel like [00:02:00] me at all. It didn’t feel aligned with how I wanted to work. And worse, the inquiries just started to trickle for months. I just refreshed my inbox, like a teenager waiting for a text back, but nothing silence.
And when an inquiry finally did come in, I would send over my shiny new pricing sheet and then never hear from them again.
And that was my first taste of what I like to call photographer emotional math. You know what I mean? One inquiry plus zero bookings equals I’m a failure forever. Two likes on a post equals my work is irrelevant. One ghosted client equals I should just shut it all down. Our brains are dramatic little accountants, and they’re not good at actual math, but in that moment it didn’t feel like emotional math.
It felt like truth. It felt like proof that I ruined my business by doing exactly what I’d been told to do, even though it went against what my gut [00:03:00] instinct was telling me to raise just a little bit. Find my sweet spot. And that stings and that sting that comes with feeling like you broke your business is brutal because raising your rates isn’t just about money.
It’s about identity. It’s about saying, I believe my time, my work, my art is worth more. So when the inquiries dry up, it feels really personal. Like the world just voted and the verdict is not worth it. And here is where I want to pause a little bit, because if you’ve been here, I want you to know you’re not alone.
You’re not the only person who has tried to raise their rates, hated it, and panicked. You’re not the only one who tried in-person sales because everyone swore was the only way only to walk out of the appointment drained, sweaty. And thinking, I don’t even wanna sell socks at Walmart.
Why am I trying to sell Wall art [00:04:00] packages like among QVC? And the truth is, pricing is not a one size fits all. My math is not your math. Your math is not your neighbor’s math. And thank God for that because if we were all running this exact same numbers, this industry would be a nightmare. So let’s break it down.
A luxury photographer in New York is going to have a completely different expenses than a newborn photographer in a rural town. The cost of living the studio rent, the insurance taxes, all of that is gonna be different. Also add in what we actually want to pay ourselves. And it gets even more personal because maybe I want my business to pay for a full-time income.
Well, someone else just wants to cover vacations and hockey gear for their kids, and neither is wrong, but if we’re charging the same, just because we’re told that’s what real photographers do, one of us is gonna burn out fast. And here’s the [00:05:00] kicker. Even if you could find the luxury clients in any market, and yes, you probably can, you have to ask yourself, do I want to serve them?
Do I want the pressure of a $10,000 newborn package? Do I want the type of client who expects a boutique experience from top to bottom? Or do I want to serve everyday families who just want honest photos on their wall without it feeling like a mortgage payment? And that’s the part no one tells you.
Raising your rates is not just about charging your worth, it’s about defining what kind of a business you actually want to run and what kind of life you wanna live. And that brings me to the bigger truth. You need to define your own definition of a success. For some people, success is six figures and a booked out calendar.
For others, success is shooting two nights a week and having the rest of the time free for their kids Success might look like a boutique IPS model with framed art and heirloom [00:06:00] albums, or it might also look like an all-inclusive digital package that just keeps things simple. There’s no prize for running your business exactly the way someone else said you should.
There’s only burnout if it doesn’t fit you. When I raised my rates because someone told me to, I skipped the most important question. What does success actually look like for me, if I’d asked myself that, I would’ve realized that success for me isn’t hustling harder to meet someone else’s definition of legit.
It isn’t playing a pricing game that makes me dread inquiries instead of celebrating them. Success for me is sustainable. It’s aligned. It’s feeling proud of how I show up for my clients and still have energy left for myself. And you know what? That version of success changes. It should. The definition of success I had when I first started is not the one I have now.
[00:07:00] In the beginning, success was just someone booking me. Anyone, honestly, later success was being able to pay for a family vacation with my photography, and then it became building an education business to help other photographers grow, and who knows what it’ll look like in five years. That’s the beauty of it.
Success is allowed to evolve as you do. So here’s what I want to take away from this long rant about money, pricing, and crickets in your inbox. Number one, if you have raised your rates and inquiries dried up, it doesn’t mean you failed. It means you gathered data. You’re testing and you can adjust. Number two, if you tried a model that made you miserable, it doesn’t mean you’re not professional.
It just means that model isn’t for you, and that’s wisdom, not failure. And number three, you don’t have to prove your worth with a price tag. Your worth is how you show up, [00:08:00] how you care, and the images you create. Number four, your definition of success is the only one that matters, not mine. Not that expert on Instagram, not the person in your local Facebook group, yours.
So the next time you’re tempted to raise your rates just because someone told you to pause. Ask yourself, does this feel aligned with my life, my market, my clients, my energy? And if the answer is no, then friend, you don’t need their permission to do it differently because at the end of the day, the math only has to make sense to you.
The model has to feel good for you. The business only has to work for you. And when you build from that place, not from pressure, not from shame, and not from chasing someone else’s definition of success, that’s when you actually win. Not [00:09:00] because you charge more, not because you landed luxury clients but because you built something honest, aligned, and sustainable.
And that my friend, is success worth fighting for. Thank you so much for sharing this time with me today. I am sending you so much of my light and love. I’ll see you next time.
