Charge clients for data storage?

[Jeff Magidson]

I don't shoot video, so I don't have the storage requirements of the OP. I make it known to all my clients that I keep an archive of all the work I do just in case they lose their copy of the files. I then charge a reasonable retrieval and delivery fee if they call me down the road for the files. I consider it a professional service, just like the photography itself.

~ Jeff

[JoeKitchen]

Why on earth would you ever want to delete your images forever? 

Unless you own a portrait studio were you are shooting a few dozen people a day every day, I would not see this as being very prudent. 

[Ellis Vener]

Why on earth would you ever want to delete your images forever? 

Unless you own a portrait studio were you are shooting a few dozen people a day every day, I would not see this as being very prudent. 

Even then, it's a bad idea. Your image library is your legacy.

[pixjohn]

I shoot 20-50 captures per image just like I did polaroid with my 4x5. I need the images that create the final Image plus a few variants. why do I need the shots with  flare or the assistant halfway in the shot. I only need a small number of outtakes like differnt window exposure or ambient fill. I shoot 4-5 gigs a day, in the past 7 years of shooting medium format digital I have never needed to go back and recreate an image from the raw files. I keep my working photoshop file, the raw files I created the photoshop file from, a full tiff and the final image I send the clients. In the film days I shot 4 -8 sheets per shot and only kept 2-3 transparencies, a lot of times I never even ran all the film.

[jjj]

You don't.

Unless one day that is, that you decided you'd like to write about some of your adventures[/url] - and then you may wish you'd kept a few of those outtakes...
.. as they can be fun to look back-on and see too.

Not to mention that sometimes an image may only become important with the passing of time.
Some photos of a young and unknown Norma Jean, suddenly became quite valuable once the now Marilyn Monroe became a 20th century icon.

[tcphoto]

I chose not to charge Clients for storage because I fact those expenses in my creative fee and digital capture fee. External hard drives are more affordable and I would hate for a Client to think that I am try to squeeze every dollar out of them. As a matter of fact, I try to make myself more valuable to them so they think of me as a member of the team not a freelancer.

[louoates]

If you have images you are storing for clients, a good marketing idea would be to contact them often, assuring them that you have their images and can print them again. I bet lots of clients have forgotten they even had the images available and/or wouldn't know where to get them printed. Many times a contact person will have moved or been promoted and the new person has no idea who you are.

[jjj]

Don't mind someone thinking that I'm self employed and own the rights to my work or even thinking that I am trying to squeeze every dollar out of it.

However, I don't charge for storage because I often wouldn't know who to charge for that.
Because I can't quite figure out way anyone would want to pay me to store my own work, but I can see why I'd want to store it and keep it safe for years to come.

Some people work for companies where the work produced is of no use to anyone else and therefore cannot be sold on and on like your great architectural/travel work. So unless they want to use it again, it's just takes up space on one's hard drives.

[douglevy]

Charge them an admin fee for retreiving files from the archive.

[douglevy]

Interesting read - http://www.lincolnbarbour.com/blog/2011/03/10/digital-processing-fees/

[Chris_Brown]

Interesting read - http://www.lincolnbarbour.com/blog/2011/03/10/digital-processing-fees/

FTA:

Don’t charge by the hour. Charge by the unit.

This is elementary.

A faster computer, operated by a highly skilled retouched will work quickly, with more productivity, and need/use less time to achieve the desired result. It is less profitable to charge by the hour.

[aromer]

I've always advertised that I guarantee lifetime archival storage, one of my biggest selling points (as an art reproduction photographer)

I've built the initial cost of equipment into my main fees (thus giving me the money to upgrade equipment and maintain the storage (at this point ~100TB).
And charge for recovery and delivery when someone asks for old work (charging my post production hourly fee).

If the client happens to be a longtime or good one I have the option of waiving the delivery fee (which I do often and maintain excellent relations) but I don't mind since they have already paid for the equipment overhead in my original invoice.

My thought is that storage is getting cheaper faster than its being taken up by large files - and when you have options such as the Amazon deep storage systems its only getting cheaper and more reliable, so its a no brainer.

[Niels_Patrick]

Thanks for all the feedback.
I found an acceptable way to include datastorage / hardware investments  .... for the future.
On my invoice it says in one point:
"tecnical handling fee / project management / communication"
Client accept it so far - and I am covering hidden cost like exporting files, FTP Uploads, storage, picture research, telephone calls, briefings ....

I know this is not working for everybody. I just found it not transparent - even to myself if I would covered this cost included into my photographer fee. Technic has to come on top!

BR Niels

[pixjohn]

What happens if you have a loss of all data? Can the client then sue you for the cost of the shoot? Do you have insurance to cover the loss of data? These are the questions my attorney asked me when I spoke to him about this very subject years ago.

[MrImprovement]

I don't know if this works for your clients, but, if you can get a yearly fee out of them, it might work well , and in your favor.

Consider:

"For up to 100GB of digital storage, we charge a yearly backup fee of $X ; you will be billed yearly for this."  (for more, you either give them an expanded price list or a custom quote)

So consider that online services such as Microsoft OneDrive or Google charge about $10/month for 1TB or 1000GB of disk space, it works out to $120/year for 1000GB. 

Thus, for 100GB of space, your cost is $12 per year. 

I would guess you should easily be able to charge between $50 and $100 per year for this service - pointing out that (MS or Google) have super large networks and redundancy of all hardware.  MS OneDrive even claims to be HIPPAA (healthcare privacy level of security) compliant, I think.

So now every 12 months, your billing software will kick out a bill for them.  Over time, your storage costs may drop; but you can charge the same (everything else is going up but you are not charging them more). 

Hypothesis:

50 clients @ $50 each (after 1 year): $2500/year revenue.  Your cost to provide (which is integrated into your backup/workflow automatically) is $600.  Over time this could grow, as you add more clients, into a nice little dividend each month (since customers will pay you in advance for a year, based on the month they started with you).

[TwistedShadow]

The company I formerly worked for stored thousands of tapes and films at Underground Vaults and Storage. That is the storage company in the Hutchinson, Kansas salt mines.  It is the Armageddon storage facility.  If you've ever worked in the major motion picture or the financial services world, you'd know about it.  When they first started using UVS for storage, it was a small cost.  Over the years it grew until it became a real burden on the company as an expense not funded by the clients.  Every now and then we would meet to discuss how we could begin to recover the cost of storage from our clients.  That was an issue that was still unresolved when the company went out of business.

I've been down into the Hutchinson Kansas Salt mine and it's an experience for sure. This is where they store the original "Gone with the Wind" and "Star Wars" films. Now they don't allow folks into the vaults (film & document storage) but they have a display setup to that you can view to help get an understanding on the vault. This room does include actual costumes worn by actors like the Batman suit worn by George Clooney or the Uniform worn by Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan etc.

Anyhow, I would say this form of storage would require fees no doubt.

[Colorado David]

There is an underground museum for those who really want to go.  It is still a working salt mine and visitors and storage items travel the same elevator system used for mining operations.

[TwistedShadow]

There is an underground museum for those who really want to go.  It is still a working salt mine and visitors and storage items travel the same elevator system used for mining operations.

Yes sir, They have a small train as well as a electric golf cart w/ passenger cars trailers. These will drive you all over the mine going different directions. It's really cool to check out.

[Bo Dez]

Archiving is an important part of the overall service and I have been called on countless times to restore a clients lost files. Storage is a cost of doing business and something I bill to my clients, incorporating it in the digital section of my invoice.