Hi everyone.  I have recently been asked to do a few special request photos where the transaction will be handled privately between me and the customer and not through any microstock agency.  I have done this once before and since it was my first time doing it, I only charged a bit more than what the customer would have paid for an XL size image on IS.  It was nice getting all of the money rather than IS taking their rather large cut.  Now that I have had a couple of more requests I'm curious if I should be charging more. (or less?)  If anyone would be willing to share, what do you charge for special request stock photos where the transaction is being handled privately between you and the customer?  I know discussing money can be a bit taboo when it comes to this sort of thing but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.  Thanks in advance.

It would kind of depend on what their intention with the shot is.  If its something that's going to be displayed on a large product run, then you should definitely charge more than for something that's going to wind up as a small graphic on the company's internal intranet.

As for how much, I'm afraid that I won't be of much help, but price it like a commercial shoot--figure in your time for travel, set-up & tear-down, shooting, and editing.  I've made more off of commercial shoots than I have off of stock.

Yes, you bring up a good point.  I guess what I'm most interested in is work that would encompass a standard rather than EL type license.  Web usage, church bulletin, etc.

I've become very wary of doing special requests having done 2 recently which didn't get paid for, so from now on it's money up front and at the minimum cost of an IS Extended Licence. I've better things to do with my time than getting ripped off.

I would charge the same as I do for my non-stock work.  So much an hour/half-day/full day allowing in this for travel, expenses and editing time and whether you are providing hard-copy or digitial prints.

I don't really have a regular hourly/half day/full day rate that I charge since I am fairly new to the special request thing so this really wouldn't work for me just yet. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I get this type of stuff regularly, and charge $100 for high res (17MP) and $20 for small (< 2MP). Nobody has ever balked at the price, and one customer even paid me substantially more... <snip>

Excellent information Sharply!  Thank you.  Anyone else?

I've been paid between 100$ and 500$ for reasonably easy shots by people contacting me through the IS site mail.