You may have noticed that not many professional wedding photographers put their pricing on their website. Why is that? We have a few reasons to share with you, but consider this: the goal of every photographer is to start a conversation with a potential client. The name of the game is customer service and answering the customer’s questions is what it is all about. While pricing is an important question, it shouldn’t be the only reason you choose your wedding photographer.

It is about starting a discussion.

As photographers, we want to build a relationship with our clients. If we get to know you as a friend, it will make the wedding day run smooth and we’ll all have more fun. Many photographers will omit pricing completely from their website, or maybe just put a “starting price” in the hopes of having a conversation with the potential client, and discourage those who simply shop based on price.

Some photographers, like us at Shotwell Productions, are different. We publish our full pricing and packages on our site to encourage transparency and to not waste any potential client’s time if we are simply out of their budget.

It is about falling in love.

Couples get married after falling in love. Photographers want couples to fall in love with their work. From just looking at the website, it’s hard to convey the true value that a wedding photographer can bring to the table. When the pricing is left off the website, a potential client has nothing else to judge value on except for the photographer’s sample images. This helps to get the client fall in love with their work, and then get them on the phone to better demonstrate value and after all that, talk about pricing. It’s a common sales tactic used in many industries… Only after the photographer has made their presentation, do they come out with the pricing.

Don’t think of this as shady, or “salesmanly”. This is how deals get done every day in America! At Shotwell Productions, we choose to publish all of our pricing upfront. This allows the client to not only fall in love with our work but also determine if we’re within their price range. Then when we do have a phone conversation, we can spend more time getting to know our clients and answering their questions, because we don’t have a sales pitch to make.

It is about transparency.

When photographers don’t put their prices up on their website, its because they want to have a conversation, get to know you a bit, and demonstrate their value. This is a good thing! However, it can lead to instances where you spend an hour chatting with a photographer that you love, who is perfect for you, and then you realize they are way out of your budget. This can lead to heartbreak, or perhaps pushing beyond your budget to hire them, and feeling buyer’s remorse.

At Shotwell Productions, we put prices on our site for the sake of transparency. We love having conversations with our potential clients, getting to know them, and making sure we are a good fit for each other in terms of style and approach. However, we NEVER want to come across as the pushy salesman type. Instead, we prefer to be upfront with everything, answer all of your questions, and then let you make your decision. We even tell our clients to go shop around and come back to us because you love us, we fit your style, and our personalities are a match! While this could be considered a very “unsalesman” thing to do, it allows us to work with just the right clients every time. And that’s why we love what we do, and it shows!

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