How do you price for commercial shoots vs like student films? Obviously people who are doing student projects or just individual shoots cant afford a higher rate. But I’ve been getting a lot of bookings from big commercial companies for their products.
How do I charge appropriately? Or do I just charge the same rate? Don’t commercial shoots costs more? Or is it just the size of the production team?
Would love some advisory here! Let me know if you think my pricing is appropriate?
Set your pricing to the optimal rate you want and then extend discounts to students on a case by case basis.
This might cut you out of searches students make based on their budget. However, when students reach out to me, they’re often looking for a space they like and then begging for a friendly rate. I don’t think they’re mainly shopping by price.
I offer discounts during the weekdays (Mondays thru Fridays from 11am to 4pm) that is the price I have posted. It makes your listing pull up for every budget. It is accurate because it is the majority of the week. In addition I also have rooms that I charge by the person. Large commercial shoots always have a lot of people. They cause more mess. So charge more. This enables you to offer students or independent artist a discounted rate and have higher pricing for large shoots. I go through all of my pricing differences on the listing so that it is clear an no one feels tricked.
I often let clients know that my prices are estimates, I can decrease or may need to increase based on the production. And I often start with: What is your max budget? That can help.
We have had large commercial shoots in our home over the years, many years before joining Peerspace. Now that we use Peerspace, I still get those shoots, but also get quite a lot of students and start-up film makers/videographers, who ask for a discount. In my experience, I actually feel that the larger professional production companies are easier to work with. They do this for a living, are much more careful with the property, clean up and put everything back as it was, and don’t engage in endless haggling over a price. I’m willing to consider a discount for students or start-ups, but feel that there are more inherent risks and issues due to their inexperience, so typically accept these requests on a case-by-case basis.