This customer ordered three 10×15 prints, three 8×12 prints, and four 4×6 prints. Under the old model, this would have cost them $250, which likely accounts for why no one ever made such an order under the old model. Under the new model, all of those prints can be had for $38.95.

If the customer actually placed this order under the old model for the prohibitive price of $250, I would have received $184.59. Under the new model where it priced at $38.95, I receive only $1.47. However, at the time of purchase, this customer also added a donation of $75.00, of which I receive $69.00.

While $70.47 ($1.47 from the prints, plus the $69.00 donation) is a bit under half of $184.59, the latter profit would never have existed at all because the order would never have been placed. So in this example my potential profits aren’t $70.47 versus $184.59, but $70.47 versus nothing.

The customer who likely never would have bought this set of prints for $250 did so for less than half that, at $113.95 (item prices plus donation), resulting in me actually making some money, and them actually receiving a whopping ten prints. (Technically, then, I’m getting paid not just in the donation, but in the knowledge that someone wanted prints of ten of my photographs.)

Not every customer will donate at that high a level, of course. That’s neither the point, nor the expectation. This first order under the new model just provides a nice comparative glimpse of things.