How to Charge for travel
It is easy to think of the plane ticket and the hotel when estimating your travel expenses, but there are a few more factors you should be taking into consideration.
At first glance, you may be tempted to add up a few required purchases and give that total as an estimate to your clients for travel rates. This is the mistake I made when I first started traveling for work. Here’s what happened, and what I learned:
ARE YOU READY TO INVEST IN YOURSELF, AND PUSH YOUR BUSINESS ON TO THE NEXT LEVEL? I OFFER ONE-ON-ONE MENTOR SESSIONS + BUSINESS COACHING FOR PHOTOGRAPHER’S OF ALL LEVELS! IF YOU’RE READY TO INVEST IN YOURSELF, LET’S GET IN TOUCH!
I had a client ask for travel rates for her destination wedding. So, I quickly looked up a round trip ticket, and a hotel for the date of her event, and returned to her with the total. I quickly learned that I had grossly misjudged the amount it was costing me to fly out for her wedding.
Right off the bat, some things I hadn’t accounted for were taxes and additional fees for the hotel stay. They don’t show up until you actually book the room, and I hadn’t taken that into consideration at all. That wasn’t too big of a deal, but it was still money out of my own paycheck to be there.
The next thing I should have quoted for, but didn’t was a rental car. I had initially planned to have my client pick me up and take me to and from the locations, but because of where she was staying, where the airport was, where I was staying, and where we would be shooting…It was going to be a lot easier for everyone If I got a rental car. Since I hadn’t quoted them for a rental car, I felt obligated to foot the bill myself.
Then there’s the food. At home you have groceries, places you are familiar with, etc. Food when you are traveling ADDS UP. Aiport food is pricey, and you are often limited to what is near by your hotel or at your hotel for meals while you’re there.
By the end of the trip I had paid for expensive food, hidden fees + taxes on the hotel rate, my rental car, gas, a parking fee for the hotel lot, and parking fees for shoot locations! And even if you’re accounting for all those direct costs, what about your time spent traveling as well?
After that first year of traveling, I changed the way I quoted travel rates.
I switched from a reimbursement system to a flat rate minimum that I can raise and adjust as needed.
Having a flat rate to begin with is absolutely the best way I have found. You decide what the minimum amount is that it costs you and that it’s worth to you to travel for a job, and go from there.
PRO TIP: Have 100% of the minimum travel fees due up front (along with the deposit) so you have the funds to book your travel reservations right away.
Here are 7 things your flat rate for travel needs to account for:
1) Your plane ticket:
Your minimum travel rate should be based on the cost of plane tickets to popular locations relatively near your home base. AND/OR based on the cost of locations you get (or anticipate getting) a large amount of inquiries for. I.e. For me, I base my minimum flat rate off of a Southern California Plane Ticket, since it’s relatively inexpensive to fly from Salt Lake to California, and it’s a place I commonly get asked to travel to. ** Also think about how much you’ll need to bring along on the plane, with your gear and personal items. If you require a large amount of gear, you may need to consider the cost of checked luggage as well.
2) Hotel Stay
For Shoots, I generally account for round trip flight + one night in a hotel. For Wedding days I always plan on 2 nights hotel stay. I always arrange to arrive the day before the wedding and leave the day after. That way, if your flight is delayed, or there are any complications, you have a whole night to get to where you need to be, and you don’t risk being M.I.A at the ceremony! I stay in a hotel the night of the weddings, as events tend to end later in the evening and also zap all my energy! Plus, if their event runs long, you don’t want to be stressed trying to make it on a red-eye flight home.
3) Transportation once you get there (i.e. ubers, rental car).
Getting to the state is not all the traveling you’ll be doing. You are going to need to get to and from the event location and the airport at the very least. Uber’s add up, and so do rental cars. I generally use Turo when I’m traveling, and plan on the cost for 3 days of rental + a tank of gas.
4) Your meals while you are away from home
Eating out for every meal can be costly, especially if it’s in an airport, or your options are limited to room service and what’s near your hotel.
5) Your time traveling
When you are traveling you are basically on the clock all hours. You are not home, you can’t get your house clean or spend time with your family or friends, or run errands. You are away and you are at work. So even though the client’s rate may only be for 10 hours of shooting time, your travel fee should take the 72 hours of “on-the-clock” travel time into the equation.
6) Do you need an assistant?
If you generally work with an assistant, second shooter, or if you simply prefer not to travel alone, consider including the cost of that second person coming along too!
7) Opportunity cost
if you book a wedding out of state that takes up Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.. you may be turning down other work because you are out of town. You could have shot 2 local weddings in the time you are committing to the one out of state wedding. Even if you choose not to shoot wedding days back to back, you could have scheduled a shoot or two plus a wedding day if you were shooting locally. Whatever you charge for travel should also make up for that, so you aren’t frustrated when you turn down work because you will be traveling.
What about more expensive locations?
My rates brochure and my contract both state that the flat rate is based on *Minimum* Travel expenses, so when I get an inquiry for a location with a more expensive flight, hotel, etc. I Just give my potential clients a heads up that their travel cost will be Approximately x amount more.
Keep in your contract (and make your clients aware) that the rate may go up at any time — i.e. if they reach out to you and you check the plane ticket rates and quote them according to that, but they take a week or two to get back to you, the rates may have increased. Or, if they change dates or plans once you’ve booked your travel itinerary, that cost could also be very expensive to change flight and hotel reservations, and you want to be protected if that happens!
PRO TIP: Be sure to use words like “estimated”, and “approximately”, and “will likely be”… So you clients get an accurate idea of what the costs will be, but also understand that travel expenses can vary day to day and once you actually start booking things, the cost could potentially go up. As soon as you say concrete words like “it will be” or “the cost is”… You box yourself into sticking to that rate even if it ends up being more expensive, because your client wasn’t expecting a change, so you’ll either have to have an uncomfortable convo asking for more money, or eat the cost yourself.
Overall, traveling for work is something that takes a lot of time, money and effort. Even though traveling seems glamorous, and it is admittedly exciting to shoot new locations and new venues and increase your market reach — make sure that traveling is worth it for you and your business. If you are shooting weddings as a hobby, then eating costs and not caring about lost time may be what works for you—but if you are trying to run a business and have a career shooting weddings, then absorbing time and travel costs can be extremely damaging to your profits and success!