Determining what to charge for your services is obviously very important.  Too high, and it’s possible not many people will buy from you.  Too low, and it’s possible you won’t make much money.  So how do you decide how you should be pricing your content and cam shows?

First and foremost I’d like to say that nobody can decide your prices except for YOU.  Ultimately, you are the one doing the work, and you are the one reaping 30-65% (typically) of the income.  If you are comfortable with your rates, don’t change them.  I’d recommend regularly evaluating your prices, though.  As always, my opinion is just based on my experience and what I’ve observed other girls doing.  Feel free to leave your opinion in the Comments section below.

I’m going to assume that most of the camgirls who actually read these articles are career camgirls, full-time camgirls, or very serious part-time girls, who want to produce quality content and be compensated appropriately.  I’m gong to assume you are not the type of camgirl who has random people in the backgrounds of her videos, or a baby crying in the next room while you film (this is why we edit!), or food and laundry all over your floor in your photos.  We’ve established you take camming seriously enough to try to create the best content you can, right?

Okay. Good.

Obviously there are a number of things camgirls can sell.  You can sell custom content, your panties, live cam time, photos, videos… and so on.  We’ve covered how to sell panties in the last article, so I’ll leave that out this time.  Let’s start with custom content, shall we?

Custom Content Prices

Determine your base rate.

 What is the absolute minimum you’d ever charge for the easiest video?  Imagine someone has asked you to film a ripoff clip – you don’t even have to be on camera, you just have to do a little talking off-screen.  Sounds pretty easy, right?  Keep in mind you still have to edit this, watermark it, and upload it.  How long will that take you?  (Editing, watermarking, and uploading a ten minute video generally takes between one to two hours.)  What do you think that amount of time is worth?  I’d recommend choosing $2-$3 per minute as your base rate.  Don’t worry if that sounds low, we only go up from here.

Consider extras

What about if the buyer wants nudity?
What if it’s a video that needs prep time (such as blowing up balloons for a balloon fetish video)?
Or clean up time (like after a food crush video)?  Will you charge more for an HD file?  (I don’t, but some do).
Do you charge more for faster turnaround time?  If the buyer wants the video by tonight, is there an extra cost for that?
Maybe you’re fairly new to filming so you’re offering customs at a discounted rate while you build up your expertise?
If you’re more experienced with filming and editing, and you’re fairly confident in your abilities, you might want to up your price.
Does the video have a good resale value for clip sites, or are you pretty sure nobody will ever buy this video except this one person? (Don’t be too quick to judge, guys might surprise you).
Does the buyer want the video personalized using his/her name?  (This does affect resale value).
Sometimes the buyer might want an exclusive video – just for his/her eyes only, not for resale.  How much extra will you charge to make up for the loss of income you would have made by selling the video on clip sites?

My base rate is $3, plus $1 because I film at 1080p HD (not all girls have a good camera and good lighting, remember) plus $1 because I’m pretty good at filming and editing.  That brings my rate to $5/minute.  This is what I charge for vanilla videos like booty shaking, striptease, masturbation, etc.  These videos are fairly easy and have a wide appeal.  For fetish / femdom videos, I add an additional $2/minute because of the lessened resale value of fetish and femdom videos.  Don’t get me wrong, they do sell of course, but the target audience is smaller.  Make sense?

These are just guidelines to how I set my rates, of course.  Fishnet Housepet also bases her rates on the level of explicitness/nudity and the amount of prep time and clean up required.  You could even take your popularity into consideration – if you have ten custom video requests (and payments, of course) every week, maybe it’s time to bump your rates a little… or not, if you’re happy with the traffic you’re getting at your current rates.

Video Prices

Whether you’ve just filmed a video on your own or you’ve filmed a custom video for someone, you’ll want to be able to sell it on clip sites!  You’ve done all of that work, you might as well make passive income from it now, right?  In general, the standard rate for videos on clip sites is $1 per minute.  Of course you can decide if this is acceptable for you, but this is usually how it’s done.  Some girls will do $1/minute plus $0.99.

For me, I start with $1/minute plus $0.99.  I also round up or down too, so, a 6:15 video will be $6.99, whereas a 6:45 video will be $7.99.  This is what I’ll charge if I’m being paid directly (either through Payoneer, Paxum or Amazon or whatever).
When I sell the same videos on Kinkbomb (my current favourite site), I raise the rate by one dollar.  My payout percentage on Kinkbomb is higher than all of my other sites, so it’s my preferred clip site.
On ClipVia, ExtraLunchMoney, and any other clip site I’m on, I have a lower payout percentage, so I raise my video prices by $2.
So, a 6:15 video would be $6.99 if you bought it from me directly, $7.99 if you bought it on Kinkbomb, and $8.99 if you bought it on basically any other clip site.

Photos Prices

Let me start this section by saying I hate doing fansigns.  I hate them with a passion.  You can’t resell them at all.  You have to write on your body or make a pretty (or somewhat pretty) piece of paper with someone’s name on it (prep time!), and take some photos.  Edit, too, I’d imagine.  I charge $1 per photo.  That might be excessive and I do realize that.  I just have little to no patience for spending time on something that has absolutely no resale value.  Nobody else is going to buy photos of me holding a sign that says “HellenRoxx loves ItsCountV” or pictures of me with “I <3 KMsLoveSlave” written on my body, right?  Right.

Okay, now that my rant about fansigns and pricing them is out of the way, what should you charge for photos?  For custom photosets, I charge $0.50 per photo.  If it’s a fetish photoset (like my On The Floor set, where I’m supposed to act like I’m passed out), I charge $0.75 per photo.  I take HD photos with decent lighting.  

Always remember to keep your equipment in mind when setting your rates.

As for resale value of photos, mine are almost always set at $1 per 3 photos in the set.  I have absolutely no reason for picking this amount, I just thought it seemed fair.  I don’t alter the rates at all on sites, though.  If I have a 20 picture photoset, it’s $7 on every site.

Cam Show Prices

Cam shows, to me, should be done similarly to custom content.  The buyer is likely telling you what to wear / do / etc, correct?  In most cases, anyway.  Start with your base rate, then.  My issue with cam shows is that they’re personalized – you talk, they talk, you respond, and so on – and they typically have practically no resale value (due to the fact that you are interacting with the person watching the private show).  But, once you’re done a cam show, you’re done – no editing, watermarking, uploading, promoting, etc.  You just get to walk away.

For me, I’d probably set my cam show rates the same as my vanilla custom videos.  

$3 base rate + $1 for quality (HD and decent lighting) +$1 for having some clue what I’m doing = $5/minute.

Double if I have to watch the other person jerk off because I just don’t enjoy that!  Remember to keep your own preferences in mind when you set your rates.  If there are things you’d do “for the right price”, determine that price and stick to it.

Why Undercutting Hurts You

Now, you might be reading this thinking “Ha! This girl charges so much for her videos; I bet if I charged $30 for all 300 of my clips, I’d make way more money!” Sure, you might… and you’d also have next to zero repeat customers.  Bundle deals are great once in a while, if you need fast cash, or if you want to promote certain material (such as “any five foot fetish videos for $25”).  Once someone has bought all of your content, though, they obviously won’t be sticking around.  They already have all of your content!  Do you really have time to film another 300 videos so that you can make another $30 from this person?  Not likely.  

Placing value on your content encourages others to value your content.

If someone just bought 100 videos for $10, there’s a higher chance of your clips being shared.  (Not to say that higher priced clips aren’t put on tube sites, but if someone pays $10 for one video they might be less likely to send it to their friend compared to the video they bought for $0.10.)  You also need to remember that clip sites / cam sites take a percentage of your income, and there are payout fees and sometimes bank fees to consider.  (I have to pay $130 per month just for two clip sites to pay me on pay day, and that’s just payout and bank fees – it DOESN’T include the percentage of my earnings that they take off the top.)

If you sell 300 videos for $30, let’s say… five people take you up on this offer?  Ten?  So you’ve made $300 off of selling 300 videos.  Woohoo!  Now take off your site fees – most clip sites pay out 60% so let’s say you get 60% of $300.  You now have $180.  Well, that’s okay, $180 is better than nothing!  But you sold 300 videos, right?  How long did it take you to film, edit, watermark, and upload all 300 of those videos?  If they’re each about ten minutes long, and a ten minute video takes somewhere between one to two hours to film and edit… you’re making almost nothing for your work.  This is fine I suppose if you’re just in this industry for quick cash and don’t plan on being around for long.

If you intend on creating quality content, cultivating repeat customers, and having some staying power in this industry, you need to value your time and your work.  

Know its worth.  It’s much easier to lower your prices if they were too high and you didn’t have any buyers, compared to raising your rates.  At the end of the day, you have to be happy with your rates and your income, so you need to be the one deciding what is acceptable for you.

As always, leave your response /opinion below.

Update:

Wanted to add – you do not ever have to charge any more or any less than you are comfortable with charging. It’s YOUR work, so you get to decide. Hell I did a short little nude video for a bit over $1k a while ago, because that’s what I wanted to charge for it. The above article is a general guideline, but I really want to stress that you need to be happy with your own rates.