If your not sure what type of pricing to give in order to get new customers? Well here I explain why its not a good idea by being the cheapest in the industry. I explain why and how to charge more!
The Price Difference Between Those Who Knows How To Market & Those Who Don’t!
When I was in the photo booth business I noticed there was two different type of photo booth owners. The people who didn’t know how to market focused on being the cheapest in order to get there business and the people who did know how to market there business was able to charge hire and still get plenty of business.
The problem with trying to be the cheapest.
The problem with trying to be the cheapest is that there is always someone else out there who is willing to do it cheaper than you. So let’s say you decide to rent your photo booth for $200 for 2 hours, so what are you going to do when someone else comes along does theirs for $175? Well, the problem with is everyone starts to lower there price more and more and the price in the industry gets lower and lower and lower and everyone loses. (Well only those who does there marketing this way)
Providing Cheap Prices will make You Burnt Out!
Another problem with provided cheap prices is over time you become burnt out. Think about it, most people who decide to get into the business already work a full-time job during the week so having to work on the weekends is not easy! So if you have to work on the weekend you might as well make it worth it, if not trust me you will become burnt out and won’t become motivated to go out and grind and try to grow your business.
And Trust me I’ve seen some people out there charge some crazy prices as low as $75 an hour which is crazy. Especially considering you have to use gas to drive to the location and if you own a couple of photo booth’s then you have to hire people to work the other events. So basically your working for very little and you’re having to work on your day off plus your dealing with all of the stress of making sure everything goes right.
Customers Don’t Mind Paying More For A Better Booth & Service
Trust me when I say customers don’t mind paying more for a better booth and service because I’ve literally had customers call me and tell me that. I remember I had one guy that called me and he told “I don’t mind paying more but I just want to make sure you will be coming to the event dressed professional correct? Because the last Corporate event we had we hired another company and the guy working the photo booth showed dressed kinda sluggish and he did not look professional at all, in fact, it was embarrassing because we had some of customers at the event.”
And to be honest I don’t blame the guy asking me that question because If I owned a company and I threw apart and invited some of my customers I would want the works to look professional also. But the problem is there are a lot of people out there who give out cheap prices and there burnt so they don’t care about putting in the extra effort to look professional.
Cheap Photo Booth
Another group of photo booth owners out there buy the cheapest looking photo booth they can find on the market. And man I have seen some crazy looking photo booth’s out there. Some photo booth looks literally like 3 wooden boxes stacked on top of each other. I can’t speak for everyone but I would be embarrassed showing up to an event with this type of photo booths.
But hey I get it when you first decide to get into the business money is tight, but you have to be smart and be patient. Its better to wait and save your money to buy a better-looking photo booth than to be cheap and not be patient and go out there and buy an ugly booth just because you weren’t patient and didn’t want to wait to save your money.
Another thing to keep in mind if you end buying these big ugly bulky booths they also weight a ton! Trust me these things are a pain in the ass to move plus you have to hire another person to help you move it and install/remove them at events. Because you have to hire another person that you will lose out on money in the long run. So you might as well be patient and buy a light pretty looking booth so you don’t have to hire another person and you start building a good reputation from the beginning.
What Prices Should I Charge?
Well its kinda hard for me to give you numbers you should use because every city and state is different. Let’s say you live in a city where there is not too much competition. Well if that’s the case then you should charge a lot because there are not too many people you have to compete with which means you can get away with more on pricing because there is not enough product to meet the demand.
But let’s say you live a bigger city with more competition like I did, well just look at the competition that charges the most. Look for a company in your area that has a good looking photo booth and a professional website and see how much they charging which will give you a good idea what to charge.
Me personally I was able to charge $550 for 4 hours and I would upsell them additional add items, like a memory book or sometimes even a bounce house. ( also owned a bounce house company at the time)
For those of you out there who are like wait that’s it? I’m able to charge more than that! Well if that’s true then great! That is awesome but there are a ton of people who charge way less, so this is article is for people who either just decided to get into the industry and they haven’t even decided what their prices are or don’t know what prices to give.
Well, I hope this article helps you and please let me know in the comment section below about pricing in the industry and type of experience you had charging customers dealing with the competition when it comes to pricing.
