Is licencing your least favourite topic to talk to clients about? I’m over here raising my hand too. After a decade and more of being a photographer, I’ve learned a trick or two when it comes to licencing your photos.
Let’s dive into some tips and tricks to help you manage your client’s licencing expectations. I’m going to lay out the tips quickly here for you, read on if you want to know more!
Tips on How to Licence Your Photos
- Use the term ‘usage’ over licencing.
- Talk about what happens to existing vs new image use.
- Editorial and advertorial licencing are different. Advertorial licencing costs more.
- Have a line item for licencing on your invoices.
- Search online for large brand media kits to see what they are charging for an advertorial.
- Include a licencing package for small businesses in the creative fee.
Now, let’s dive into each one of these a little more.
Use the Term Usage Rather Than Licencing
Some clients despise licencing which I totally get because it’s not my favourite thing either. If your client is especially sensitive to this topic, sometimes using the verbiage ‘usage’ over ‘licencing’ helps when discussing photography usage agreements. You can use this in your written communication and invoicing to clients.
Remind Clients Expired Usage Agreements Doesn’t Equal Existing Content Removal
Once a licencing agreement expires, your client doesn’t have to take down all content in which the images appeared. It only applied to new content. This can also be outlined in your photography usage agreements.
For clients new to this concept, reassure them that they don’t need to remove those old blog posts, social media posts or even discontinue selling an existing ebook. This can really put the client’s mind at ease.
The Difference Between an Editorial and an Advertorial Matters
When it comes to food photography, an editorial and an advertorial are different even though they might look similar in a magazine.
Shooting an image for an editorial piece might just involve you taking a photo of a recipe. The food will usually appear without a brand or product being placed in the shot. The focus isn’t on a particular product but maybe a seasonal recipe.
An advertorial on the other hand is marketing a product or brand and there will be product placement.
The brand is paying for the promotion.
With this type of imagery, you can charge more as the client is taking out an ad in return for sales.
Have a Separate Line Item for Licencing on Your Invoices For Large Clients & Agencies
Larger clients are used to licencing, including commercial work and agencies, like to see usage and licencing as a separate line item on invoices. This helps clients understand the creative and production costs separately from licencing.
If you have to make any adjustments, it’s better to change a usage line item than your creative fee as you’re doing the same amount of work regardless.
Find Magazine Advertising Stats & Rates in Their Media Kits
If your client wants to use an image you shot to feature in a magazine as an advertorial, it’s a high chance they are paying $10,000 to $50,000 (sometimes even more) to appear. If that’s the case, your licence fee should be charged accordingly. 10% of the advertising rate can be a good place to start.
To find out what the potential rates are and the circulation or audience size, try to Google ‘<magazine name> media kit <current year>’. This has worked for me numerous times.
If you can’t find current rates, use the specs for circulation and audience size to help you calculate.
Think About Including Basic Usage in Your Creative Fee For Small Businesses.
For small business clients, it can be really helpful to include some basic uses in your creative fee. Licencing is hard for small businesses to pay and rarely are small businesses making huge amounts of money off the images you take for them. Things like social media, website and email marketing can be easily included.
Hope you found this post on photography usage agreements, helpful for your next shoot! Let me know in the comments below.
Jenn
Always pulling into my inbox with the right advice right when I need it! I just gave away photos to a massive brand “royalty free in perpetuity” because I had no idea what to charge and they already pay me well for content development. I was too busy to research. Now I’m kinda kicking myself.
Rachel Korinek
Hey Jenn, thanks for sharing your experience. It definitely happens. I either talk to clients about why they don’t need this licencing, most don’t, OR if they are a big brand and insist on it, then they have to pay for it. I will also be sharing some advice as to what to say to smaller brands when they want this type of license but won’t pay for it. Potentially it might be something that you can change with the new year coming up. It’s a good time to change prices and practices in our business.
Reiko
Hi Rachel, This article is really helpful as I have just started my food photography business in Australia! It’s great to know that clients don’t have to take down their old posts. How about images on their website or menu after licence expired? What if client doesn’t want to extend their licence? Licence is 1 year in Perth ( not sure in the other cities) Restaurants don’t want to change images on Web and menu so often, right? Would love to know. Thank you.
Rachel Korinek
Hey Reiko! Congrats on starting your business. Always excited to chat with a fellow Aussie 馃檪 This stuff can be so murky and get into some legal territory, so you can’t take what I say as legal advice. My understanding is that any existing content can stay once a licence expires. So if a client created a webpage and used the image, the image can stay on that page. So if a restaurant had a menu item for 10 years they could possibly keep the image on that page. They wouldn’t however be able to use that image to print a menu card 10 years later (or once the licence expired) as it’s a ‘new use’. If clients signs an agree to a licence in a contract and they don’t want to extend then they legally can’t use the image. I don’t know that there are any laws or rules around licencing periods but it is of course possible that restaurants in a certain place will demand certain terms just because there is strength in numbers. I personally don’t tend to give smaller clients or restaurants a 1-year licence as it’s short unless it’s for a once-off project. I.e licensing for a one-time use in a magazine or ad campaign.
My biggest recommendation is to always talk individually to your client about what they need and work together to create something tailored. I hope this helps!
Michael
You mentioned that when you license an image, the client can use the images for whatever they need during that duration of time. But how does that work with social media and blogs? The images will remain there ‘forever’. So, how long do you charge them for? – Let’s use social media for example. A client of mine wants to use my images specifically for social media and post it on their feed and/or story. After they post it, they technically arent using the image anymore, so how is licensing applied to this?
Rachel Korinek
It’s a great question, Michael. I do cover this in this video if you have some time and want some more tips on licensing: https://twolovesstudio.com/blog/talk-to-clients-about-perpetual-licencing/. You can think of it as ‘content existing’ vs ‘re-distribution’. Anything we create will remain forever, in a way. Whether it’s digital or physical. The way it works, (and is my understanding), use and re-destruction are different.
If a blog post or social post is created within the licence term, then it’s not being ‘used’ once that term is up as the content was already created. It works just like a physical magazine. An image is used ‘once’ in the print run, even though you will find that magazine at a doctor’s office many, many years later. So a client doesn’t have to go and take down old content. Now, if they want to use the image from an old post in ‘new ways’ after the licence is up, then it would need a new licence.
In terms of your question of how long do I charge them for, if they just wanted ‘one social media’ post – that’s what you charge them for, even though it will remain on their feed ‘forever’. They ‘used’ the image once to create a post. What normally happens is you charge them for a period of time, so if they wanted to use the image for say 1 year on social media, they could post the image as many times as they liked in that year. So the licence would be more valuable than just a once off. I hope that helps!