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Today I delivered some DVDs that I dubbed/produced for a customer. I have set my pricing a little under that of Walgreen's, Walmart and a local competitor. I was surprised when my customer thought my bill was too high. I guess everyone struggles with this but how can you balance that line between satisfying the people that always want something for nothing and not devaluing your talents/times?

Just for my own piece of mind. What would some of you charge for the following?

3 VHS tapes [2 being almost 2 hours and 1 about an hour] to DVD
Combining 2 DVDs to one, then providing 2 copies
One DVD to DVD

Total was 6 DVDs. I print on the DVD surface with a nice label.

Amuse me and answer if you would charge $0 - $25, $25- $50, $50 - $75 or >$75

Hi Mike
They are the same here in the UK but converting my price to $ i would charge $138 lot of work involved,hope you got paid!!

Mike, what methods did you employ to combine the 2 DVDs to 1?

Did you tell the customer what the charge would be in advance of the work?

Craig:

They had my price sheet. I had to feed the 2 DVDs into my Cassie then combine them. I then created a DVD menu and burned a new Master. I was told that they wanted copies of DVDs, then they hand me 3 VHS tapes. I actually only had 2 DVD to DVD copies which go very quickly in my duplicator. My charge was $64.

Thanks Charles for saying you would have charged over 2x that. I had to put in a lot of time, especially since the only way to dub the VHS tapes is to feed them in real time.

Hi Mike,

I definitely would have charged over $75 for everything. I didn't figure out everything but the number Charles came up with sounds close to something I might charge for all of those services. I'm guessing you used a standalone DVD burner for the Tape-to-DVD transfer, your Cassie and a DVD player for creating the 2 to 1 DVD combination, and the duplicator for the DVD to DVD copy.

Just because they had your price sheet doesn't mean they understood it or took the time and responsibility to calculate the price on their own. Did you hand them the bill in advance of providing your services (an estimate), or after you had done the work?

I tried the "combining" route with a complicated formula for arriving at a price. I found that I could make more money flipping burgers and required too much "hands on" time. Actually the definition of "editing" is combining two or more tapes or parts of two or more tapes onto one.(old school) I would charge a whole lot more for editing than dubbing tapes. I only dub to a standalone DVD recorder unless editing is required. When I let them know what my editing charge will be, they agree that fast forwarding thru the unwanted portion will be just fine.

Now my pricing is: $15 for one tape to 1 DVD whether it be 15 minutes or 6 hours long. I use a new Ultrasound Tape recorder/player and new Ultrasound DVD recorder for the transfer. These two units MSRP $3000+ ea., give outstanding results. (I didn't have to pay that much) The DVD recorder has the option of 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr, 4 hr, 6 hr, or 8 hr compression. It also has a 30 min setting that does not play back on anything but the Ultrasound recorder. If a really short ultrasound baby recording or something 4 or 5 minutes long is included in a group of tapes I will make a free copy of the very short tape. (happy customer!)

Pricing your customer: 3 VHS tapes to DVD X $15 = $45. 6 DVD copies X $10 = $60 Total $105. DVDs printed on the disc with fairly simple label and packaged in jewel case or clamshell case. (customer's option) If the tape is their wedding tape I use a more elaborate full disc wedding theme label at no extra charge. This has worked for me. I never get a complaint about price except once in while that I don't charge enough. I check the length of the VHS tape before starting the dub. While the dub is taking place, I can go about doing whatever. No interference with my editing suite.

I really wish videographers would charge what they are really worth, instead of constantly trying to undercut the competition. This kind of practice just drives the price down. You dont see too many photogs doing their stuff for almost free. the bottom line here is... i know its not that hard to do, its really not production, but really.... these customers dont want to be bothered doing it themselves.... soooo charge them !

ok.. so heres what I would do.. and I dont do too many transfers, as i am too busy with actual production work. I would charge at least $50 per tape (not including the copies) for monitoring the situation as they are downloading from vcr to computer. I want to be there if my machine starts to chew up their tape, in order to stop play and salvage whats left. Then theres the rendering. Of course you can talk them into some titling... add $25 for that... and then when all is said and done, add $15 per dvd, case included. If they dont want that... then.. bye,bye. Time=money my friend.