I'm crunching some numbers (ugh) and I'm wondering... for those of you who accept credit cards, what percentage of your clients opt to pay for their packages/albums with a credit card? (I'm not talking about online reprints, which are almost always with credit cards).

I have accepted credit cards over the past year and I found that about 50% paid with credit card while the other 50% preferred to pay with a check. Is that about what you all are finding?

If you didn't accept credit cards for packages/albums, do you think you'd lose any bookings because of that? I would like to think that brides book me for my talent and not for my convenient payment options, and so if I take away the credit card option I'd like to think that I wouldn't lose any bookings, but I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

~kristen taylor

Funny, I've been doing this as well and the percentages were interesting to me.

It's almost 70/30 for me (70% Checks - 30% CC) since I renamed my business to my name (that happened in June on 2006).

But before that, when I was called TurningLeaf Photography - it was about 80% CC for weddings and only around 20% CC for portrait clients.

Not sure what there is to learn from it, I have my thoughts but it's not that big of a deal really. We need to make it as easy as possible for clients to buy our services and products. I would not completely take away the option of CC payments, some people use that for their wedding budget and then apply the miles to their honeymoon flights.

I didn't accept credit cards my first year and it was never a problem. But I was really cheap too.

Since Pictage started P3, probably 50% of my clients pay that way. It doesn't seem to be a big deal to them - but when I point out that they can get mileage, they really like the idea. I LOVE it and I am so glad that Pictage offers that option. I hate asking people for money and P3 totally solves that problem for me.

for my session fees it's mainly checks (but again I'm fairly cheap to book) but for orders it's about 95% CC

I think CC may not take away bookings, but may take away from upgrading packages with your weddings. People tend to put bigger ticket items on credit cards. What they may not have the available cash for using a check they will put on credit and pay for later.

I've found that once I began offering CC my orders went up. People feel they can spend more when they put it on credit.

Pictages P3 all the way! Since I started offering it ALL of my wedding clients have used it! Just makes it a ton easier especially when they book over the phone:)
I definitely don't think I would lose business though if I didn't offer it...It just makes everything so much easier!!

Ohh, I thought P3 was just available for pictage prints/products/orders and such. Didn't realize clients could use it to pay for your session/wedding creative/coverage fees.

I haven't looked at the specific numbers, but I know virtually all of our wedding clients pay for their package with credit card. I am pretty sure that more than half of our portrait people pay with credit cards. I think credit cards often encourage people to spend more than they originally planned. Of course, we have several portrait clients that pay with a combination of cash, check and credit card. It makes it harder for their husbands to see how much they spent