If you film weddings, should you show your prices on your website?
I have seen a lot of wedding filmmakers ask this over the years, and I have seen even more hot takes. Some people say you should absolutely list your prices, you have nothing to hide. Other people say you should never list them, because then couples have to reach out and you get a chance to pitch and potentially make more.
In my experience the answer is somewhere in the middle. So I am going to tell you when you should list your prices, when you should not, and then give you the hybrid option I use myself, which I think is the best of both worlds.
When You SHOULD Put Your Full Pricing On Your Website
If you are in your first few years of filming weddings, putting your pricing on your site is a great way to get more business and beat your competition.
When you are starting out and charging anywhere from zero to about $3,000, there are almost certainly a lot of other videographers in your area competing in that same range. As you raise your prices, fewer and fewer people are up there with you and the competition thins out. But in that zero to three thousand band? It can be rough.
I remember when I was charging $1,995. That is nineteen hundred and ninety five dollars, not nineteen dollars and ninety five cents. The competition was fierce. Other videographers slashing prices so couples would book them over me. Offering bonuses and extras, anything to make the sale. And couples encouraged it. I got asked more than once whether I could drop my price, or give a discount, or throw in a longer edit, because someone else in the area was offering exactly that, so why wasn’t I?
The point is that in those first few years you are competing on price, and price is the number that matters most to couples.
Which is exactly why listing your prices can be a real strength. If the rest of your competition hides theirs until a couple reaches out, a couple might book you simply because they could see your prices, feel no stress about it, and go. And even if your competitors do list theirs, as long as yours are roughly comparable, you are still in the running.
They Disqualify Themselves, And That Is A Gift
The other benefit is that couples who cannot afford you rule themselves out before either of you spends any time on it.
Instead of the awkward song and dance where a couple reaches out, asks how much you charge, you say two thousand dollars, they say oh sorry, our budget is a thousand, can you come down, and you say no, can you come up, and they say no, and you say okay, I’ll send you some referrals. That takes a lot of time and a lot of emails and ends in no booking.
With prices listed, they land on your site, see the number, realize they cannot afford it and go find someone who fits. They never email you. You are none the wiser. Everybody’s day is better.
Toward the end of my first year filming weddings, before I listed any pricing, a couple reached out asking me to film their wedding. For some reason I did not send pricing in the email. Instead I met them at a coffee shop, and we talked for a good half hour to an hour and really hit it off. Getting along great. Things going well.
Then we got to price. Cue the deer in the headlights look from all three of us as we realized this was never going to work. I think their budget was around $500 and I was charging around $1,500. There was no way they were going to find triple what they had planned to spend.
It was very awkward. I think I paid for their coffee. And it was a big waste of time for everybody, all of which I could have avoided by leading with my pricing.
When You Should NOT Put Your Full Pricing On Your Website
So listing your prices sounds pretty good right about now. Simpler for everyone. Hold on though, because once you get above about $3,000 for a wedding film, everything changes.
From $3,000 up you see a large shift in both your competition and your couples.
Less competition. There are still plenty of other videographers, but significantly fewer than in the zero to three thousand space. And those videographers are generally making more, so they do not need to book the same quantity of weddings.
Less price sensitive couples. These couples are not asking for as many discounts, and there are fewer videographers fighting over them. The market is healthier and a lot more people are getting what they want. I really like this part: videographers charge more, couples pay more, everybody wins.
And this is the point where listing your full pricing stops being a strength. These couples are not going to be swayed by a cheaper number. They are looking for quality.
That is a fundamental shift, and it is why some couples will happily pay $4,000, $5,000, $10,000 or more for a wedding film. Once a couple cares more about the quality of their film than the price of it, the sky is the limit. The conversation stops being about price and becomes about the experience you can give them.
So above roughly $3,000, I do not recommend putting your full pricing on your website. In my experience you make significantly more by taking the time to build a relationship first: a high quality site, an introduction to you and your best films, and then, once they have decided they like your work and reached out, you present pricing.
McDonald’s Versus The Steakhouse
It is like going to McDonald’s, looking up at the menu and telling the employee what you want, versus going to a fancy restaurant where the waiter reads you the specials in exquisite detail and before you know it you are paying market price for steak and lobster because you deserve it.
You are eating both times. But at one of those restaurants you are paying ten or twenty times more, because you want the experience and the quality.
Once you start charging more as a wedding videographer, start thinking of yourself as the steakhouse and not the drive-through.
The Hybrid Option I Actually Use
Analogies aside. There are a lot of videographers who will tell you to list everything, and a lot who will tell you to list nothing. I think I have shown you the pros and cons of both. Here is the third option, and it is what I use.
I do not post all my prices, because I want to compete on the quality of my films rather than the price of them. But if you post no pricing at all, you will very quickly find yourself buried in emails from couples who love your work and have nowhere near the budget for it. That happened to me many times.
So: list your starting price and nothing else. The price of your absolute cheapest package.
That is what is on my own site. It does two useful things at once.
First, any couple who cannot afford you disqualifies themselves the moment they see the number, so they do not bother reaching out. That is a lot of email and admin you never have to do.
Second, couples who can afford you get a hint of what to expect, but they still have to contact you for the details. Which gives you the chance to start building the relationship and to communicate the value you offer and why they should spend more with you.
So, Which One?
If you are starting your wedding filmmaking business, or you have been running one a few years and you want to book more couples, put your prices on your website.
Once you are charging more than about $3,000, take them off, compete on quality rather than price, and list only your starting price.
I hope that helps your business. And if you want more of this, I put together a free guide with practical steps you can take right now to book more couples and film more weddings.