I just started up my own photography business and I was wondering what I should with how pricing works. I thought of doing pets, families, babies, and senior pictures. I have some experience with a camera when I took my aunt's camera which was a Canon 70D and took pictures of my cousin's wedding.
I'll be getting the Canon Rebel T6 with 18-55mm and 75-300mm. I am based in Champaign, Illinois which is a little over 2 hours south of Chicago, just under 2 hours west of Indianapolis, and 2 hours and 45 minutes east of St. Louis.
These are the pictures I took of my cousin's wedding if it'll help with the pricing.
Answer
This was supposed to be a comment, but it got wild, anyone is free to edit, delete and write.
As I read the comments you have your aunt's Canon 70D, nothing more, and you want to be a professional photographer. This gonna be long, unless you are Faust and you have a Mefisto's contract on the desk.
If you can borrow the 70D for a longer time, do so and shoot anything interesting. Look for the today's pro results in the field(s) of your interest and try to find out how they did it. Experiment with the camera modes, push it to the limits. (Shallow focus, deep focus, long time, short time...).
Choose your brand. There is no equation how to determine The Perfect Brand ™. Every brand has top products line, reasonable quality line and low-cost line; and the quality is close enough among the top brands. Set the budget and try cameras from different brands. Try how they fit to your hands, how are the controls friendly to you, etc. Do not stick to recommendation that states "[Brand] is the best you can get..." I wanted a Nikon for years. I tried several bodies (my friends had bought). Then I tried a Canon. I have bought a Canon 700D because it fits to my hands and my way of handling. You may be Nikon guy, who knows?
The choice of lenses goes with the aim of your work. Probably, you will learn this during your practice. You can start with the set 15-55 and 75-300 lenses; they are not crap but they are not the best either. For you, they are cheap and I suppose you are not about to actually need the pro lenses yet. Buy camera set that suits you the most and UV filters to every lens you have*, then look for flash units, filters, better lenses,...
Regrading the prices. It is too fast right now I think. I would take "the job" when I am confident I will do it without regret. Especially for weddings and other it-happens-only-once jobs, two cameras are minimum gear to have - when one breaks, you have spare one.
Once you are confident and want to shoot for a living the pricing is quite easy. You must be in profit in total. Set your hourly wage - count shooting and postprocessing (For start you can align it with minimum wage). Add the software license (count the license hour cost and multiply it by the postprocessing time). Your gear wont pay itself, so set the date you want to get your investment back. Add the appropriate part of the cost to the final price. And finally, add the additional costs, like the fuel, car insurance, food, etc.
Now, make these calculations for your cousin's wedding like they were regular customers. Start the business when you would pay that money for your wedding album. You can start with shooting for several good friends of yours for free; but be super cautious not to screw it up and use this to advertise yourself. Add the best learning photos (probably from the last year only) to your webpage and add new ones regularly - you have to show that you are worth the money you demand, right?
Stay focused. And good luck.
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