I am starting a new portrait photography business on the east coast and was wondering if anyone had suggestions as to what i should set my prices at? Any advice would be great!

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Wal-Mart charges $7.99 for a sitting and the 8x10" photograph. This fellow charges $600 for a 4x5" portrait: http://www.thedaglab.com/daguerreotype_portraits.html It depends on what your costs are, how much detail to attention you provide, what income do you want to make, what is your competition charging, what are people in your area willing to pay, etc. There are many factors. Impossible to give you a definitive answer.

Compare prices to other pros in your area... you don't want to be too much higher or lower from what they are charging. I'm in Colorado, and I charge: 8 wallets - $25 4x6 - $10 5x7 - $20 8x10 - $40 11x14 - $70 16x20 - $160 20x30 - $250

Charge what your area will bear, look around see what others are charging. Taking pretty pictures is fine, do you have any business experience? The 'east coast' is about a thousand miles long. I'm not positive, but what you can charge in Miami may be a lot different from what you can charge in Rockland, Maine.

Consider your time spent shooting as well as editing. Consider your overhead including your liability insurance and all your equipment. You should have a business plan written up that shows you what you need to bring in and how much work you need to do to bring it in. Your prices will reflect that.

Congratulations! The best way to calculate your pricing is by calculating your costs first: *What items do you give your clients in a given package - how much does it cost you to do so? *Shipping *Mileage to/from shoot *Assistant/editor fees *Editing time (if you're not outsourcing) Next, calculate your "overhead" (cost of staying in business) - I summarize these in the following way, as a percentage of every gross dollar earned (gross = what they write the check for; net = what you get to keep personally): *35% goes into a tax account (April 15 taxes and resellers taxes) *15-20% goes towards paying for the shoot (see above) *10% goes towards charitable giving *18% goes towards my business costs (supplies, equipment, website, marketing, etc.) *18% goes towards my personal salary (my personal net). If you really want to see what you make per hour, divide this number by hours worked for that job. It's a real wake up call. :) Lastly, consider: How much do you want to bring home per hour shooting? Based off this info you can calculate your costs and actually make a profit! Best of luck!