Can Outsourcing Your Post Production Save You Money?
Plug in your numbers for a surprising answer
I know there are a lot of photographers who pay attention to what's happening in the world of post production outsourcing, but are on the fence as to whether it's the right approach for their situation. After all, if you do the post production, retouching, album and slideshow design yourself, you don't have to write a check to pay for the work, so you're saving money - right? Unfortunately it's not that simple.
Just because you don't "write a check" doesn't mean there isn't a cost associated with doing the work yourself. And that cost can be quite substantial. In fact, not only are you doing the work at a competitively unsustainable hourly rate, but spending time in front of your computer prohibits you from doing other things - like shooting another portrait session or wedding.
Enter the concept of "Opportunity Cost." Wikipedia defines Opportunity Cost as
" ... the next-best choice available to someone who has picked between several mutually exclusive choices."
Let's put that in terms that make sense to photographers.
You shoot an event or session that creates post production work. You decide that instead of paying someone $10, $15, or even $20 per hour to do it for you, you will do it yourself. So how do you quantify, in dollars, the opportunity cost of your decision? Let's take a look.
If you bill your time at $100 per hour, you could be out shooting another wedding, but instead, you spend time in front of the computer doing post production work. Let's say it takes you 8 hours to process an entire wedding start to finish. So it costs you $800 to do the work. This is a real cost because instead of doing the work you could be shooting another event at $100 per hour.
What if it only cost you $400 for someone to do the work for you and they can do it as good as or better than you can do it yourself? Then the Opportunity Cost of your decision is at least $400 ($800-$400). I say at least, because we haven't explored any other options.
Hmmmmm interesting ... ;)
Conclusion
If you're still convinced that outsourcing your post production is a losing proposition, I challenge you to try our Savings Estimator and see if Silverback can save you money. Just plug in seven numbers and you'll have your answer.