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Quote: lol - coming up with a business reason for a price was the point of the thread
There`s this lot on the high street doing a sitting and a large print for £3.99.
I`d probably not bother trying to compete and just apply for a job 
http://www.pixifoto.co.uk/join-the-team
Time for the pub - but just quickly your starting point in pricing up needs to be a true assessment of all your costs. I have only ever charged twice for portraits now (and it was very exciting) but I am a marketing person working in the voluntary sector (in fact I run my own consultancy). As with any product you must make sure you are able to cover all your fixed and variable costs and this is where so many people come adrift.
For example in some of teh above comments you note your own time taken in the studio (say 2 hours) that is good and now doubt an accurate measure but if that is all you charge then who is going to pay for your electic and yor heating, your insurance for your equipment and the studio, wear and tear (depreciation on both gear and studio - which will need redecorating at some time). There are a whole host of other on costs that are really easy to overlook, if you advertise you must make sure you are able to cover thsi from your sales income too.
All these elements will combine (some non variable costs will have to be apportioned) to give you some idea of your break even point. Once you have this then your in business (literally) and you can start to look at your 'margin' in other words what you thing the market will stand in order to purchase your service or product (both I think in your case Ade).
Looking at the scenario you set my guess is that all your on costs to get from flash to bang will be somewhere in the region of £15 per unit roughly (difficult because I don't know if you are in a half decent studio, driving 500 miles round trip to peorples homes or working from under the arches).
So £15 is your stating point - its your cost of getting the product to market if you like.
Now the dark art comes in and this is where you need to go to the pub and have a few beers. The reason? you need to do some marketing to find out what people are prepared to pay for your stuff. Remember that with photography once you establish some sort of kudos there is in theory no limit to what can be charged. Annie Liebowitz for example woudl not be too worried about what Vantage charge - she will have her fees well and truly pinned down for commissions and it won't reflect their prices for sure!!
For the time being however you will have to sound out the market and find out what people are paying and will pay and what they like. So asking on this site as you have done is neat/ish but it is a somewhat specialist market I have to say. So the pub is better for this sort of stuff - take a few of your poprtraits with you and somehwere between second and third pint time ask a few regulars what they would pay.
Take some space somewhere to promote yourself (exhibition - something like a mother and baby show, womens world exhibition, whatever best reflect the market you wish to crack) but don't simple use this as an opportunity to sell also use it to test the market. If people are not buying ask them why ask them what they woudl pay etc etc.
Anyway I have to go to the pub now so will continue this later.
Good luck.
Quote: So asking on this site as you have done
Just to reiterate again...
I've posed a question for others to think about - it's not about "me" or my business, it's a HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION to challenge people to think about how they'd price a product.
you've brought up LOTS of interesting points there Ketch, but forgot to put a price on it.
Quote: Take some space somewhere to promote yourself (exhibition - something like a mother and baby show, womens world exhibition, whatever best reflect the market you wish to crack) but don't simple use this as an opportunity to sell also use it to test the market. If people are not buying ask them why ask them what they woudl pay etc etc
That`s what I would do if I was setting up, get a stall on a town market one day a week, just to promote, and close to Starbuck`s or what ever over coffee shop is popular, there popular with mother and baby groups
And as I said 50/60 quid for the sitting and a framed print, any extra ordered at the time offer a decent discount, and maybe a discount voucher for a future sitting valid for say 12/18 months. Any future orders charged at full price, no discount to entice maximum initial sale.
Quote: I`d probably not bother trying to compete and just apply for a job
The last time I saw Pixiephoto advertising for photographers, I think it was something like £12,000/year - they did state that applications need not be from experienced people.
On Ade's question, I'd say double the price of the frame and then add on three times the cost of a 12x16, with your sitting fee to cover petrol and expenses - basically your time is worth nothing at that rate but in todays 'ten a penny' market you either compete in the over-subscribed 'photo in the home market' or swim to the top and offer a Value Added perceived quality product - you'll work less but for more money.
Don't forget never to try and 'compete' with the likes of Venture - you cannot offer what they call their experience plus their 'affordable payment' deals. Offer your own packages, experiences but never mention Venture unless the customer does and even then do not put them down.
Quote: The last time I saw Pixiephoto advertising for photographers, I think it was something like £12,000/year - they did state that applications need not be from experienced people
The might even supply you with your very own little red van to drive around in
Its not something I would want to do, but i guess its a good way of gaining hard selling experience.
very good point - never put Venture down, your customer may have used them before and really like the shots, if you start sounding off about them you're not going to get off on the right foot 
A few years back me and a couple of well known ex-EPZ Leeds members were going to open a gallery in the City next to the the best restuarant in the Victorian Quarter - can't remember the name of the eatery but anyone who was anyone in Leeds went there.
Asa marketing excercise we stopped shoppers outside of the venue and a very well known high end fashion shop. Armed with a selection of very good prints by the likes of Cornish, Man Ray, Adams, Bailey, Newton, etc and our question was 'How much would you be willing to pay for this". Average for the day was £50. Most common answer to 'where do you buy your 'wall art from?' was Ikea.
We never did open the gallery.
Hi Ade
Well I never put a price on it because I think it's impossible to do so - I would need loads more info before I could really give my definitive figure. But if you look at average mark ups for various types of business that might help (first though we assume a base unit cost of £15). Right wet sales in a pub (which I hope you have managed to contribute to tonight) are around 100% mark up but can be down to 50% these days with the Weatherspoons type model. Service industry on the other hand can be quite varied but solicitors for example can be working at anything between 500% (more even) and 100% in a small provincial practice. A small garage with say two mechanics will probably be struggling to make much more than around 20% and a small hardware store without mail order probably around -10% to maybe 10%.
So the question is where do you want to pitch (is it as high as possible or do you want to buy business first and then push up prices) and what will the market stand? No point in asking for say £100 per portrait and having everyone rolling around the aisles because they think your having a 'giraffe', conversely why ask for just £35 if you can get double that.
But it also looks like you want to try and include discounts in the equation (please don't anyone devalue their work so readily in real life) - I think once you go down this route it is almost impossible to recover the situation but maybe you can make a case for bulk purchase. So in that case start high - so my guess would be closer to £100 per unit but discounting immediately for two and more - but keep the price structure simple and easy to understand. So maybe £95 and then each subsequent framed print at £35 and then £25 after five units.
Think also about value adding - hugely important and easy to forget. Indeed this can give you your USP too (the thing that makes your product unique and stand out from all the others). More than just a swanky logo and more than your signature on each print. Off the top of my head this could be something to do with some sort of deed of provenance proving the image to be an original - limiting it to one of five prints - some sort of discrete embossing or perhaps even a seal on the image. Whatever it is it needs to be something that the recipient feels is just that little bit different and special (this way you can start to justify a much higher price than the competition even if your images are not nearl as good as theirs - as if).
Also think about discounting subsequent comissions rather than the one you have underway - this is a much better bet and will often win more business - but remember the Hoover vac debacle so don't make the offfer too wonderful and bank on people not taking it up - if its worth it they will.
Right that's me exausted - as I said I have had only two portrait commissions in my life so in many ways what teh hell do I know. But I have spent all my life in marketing, sales and business development - I can promise everything is directly transfereable from one business to another but I suspect much of it is.
Cheers
Quote: But it also looks like you want to try and include discounts in the equation
that was someone else's assumption but good answer.
I'll have a look through DWF to find some more tips to share, thing is with DWF, it is a site just for wedding and portrait pros, so the info there is relatively current and relevant, BUT (and it's a big but) very American 
Hence me trying to get discussions about pricing and things going on here - get an english perspective,.
With the repeat sales thing - I'm offering that with baby shoot, get 4 shoots over their first year for £XXXX and get a book at the end. That kinda thing - all from DWF.
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