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« on: March 25, 2009, 14:23 »
Recently on another thread people started talking about RPI's and there were some interesting misunderstandings that I wanted to point out. RPI is just simply your Return Per Image. The RPI is the gross money earned over a given period of time divided by the number of images you have available for sale. If you have 50 images and you made $500 over the month then that would make your RPI for that month $10, it is that simple. It use to be based off the life of the image, 5-7 years. Then it started being followed by the year, then the quarter and now it's down to monthly RPI. I would like to add that the shorter the time span the less accurate the data on your annual return because some months are much better than others so I think it is best to stick to the yearly average to base your annual income.
This number is used to help you identify what your gross income is and what you can afford to spend per image to make the profit you are looking for. It is not after all your costs and expenses are included as one person said, it is before those deductions. If you deduct all your overhead and production costs then that is your companies net income, don't forget your salary in there.
RPI is used less and less in the industry because it doesn't offer you the best feedback for what product is really making you the most money. It really is a blanket overall number that actually falls over time as your collection of images gets larger and older. What is being followed closer is Return Per Shoot. This approach helps you see more clearly if your concept and effort for a particular shoot are paying off or weather they are not. As well as Sell Through Rate. That is how many of your images actual sell in their salable life time.