How to price photography sessions
Photographers get paid for the final gallery, but the work happens before and after the camera comes out. A fair price covers all of it, which is why this calculator asks for total time per session. Include your editing time in that number, along with client communication, travel, setup and delivery.
A useful habit is to time a few real sessions. If a family session takes ninety minutes of shooting, three hours of culling and editing and half an hour of emails, the real time is five hours, and that is the number to enter.
The calculator then spreads your monthly business costs across your sessions, adds the per-session costs such as prints, galleries and album proofs, and adds the share of your take-home goal each session must earn. The result is a price per session and an effective hourly rate you can compare with other work.
Once you have a base price, build packages around it. Decide how many edited images, how many hours of coverage and which delivery format each package includes, and price extras separately so scope creep never comes out of your own hours.
What to include in your costs
Photography has real overheads that are easy to forget. Count them.
- Gear: cameras, lenses, lighting, memory cards and batteries. Spread the replacement cost across the months you expect them to last
- Editing software subscriptions, cloud storage and gallery hosting
- Studio or location rental, and travel costs
- Insurance for equipment and liability
- Marketing, a website and portfolio hosting
- Prints, albums or digital delivery costs per session
- Education, props and backdrops
Enter per-session costs in the product field and monthly costs in their own fields. If you shoot in a rented studio only some weeks, average the rent over the year.
Average photography sessions prices (and why yours may differ)
Photography rates vary greatly with genre, market and experience. As a rough guide, a portrait or family mini session often costs $150 to $350, a full portrait session $250 to $600, a newborn session $300 to $800 or more, and a wedding package roughly $2,000 to $5,000 or more. Commercial and product shoots are often priced per day or per image with licensing.
Your price may sit above or below those ranges depending on your portfolio, your market and what is included, such as the number of edited images and print rights. Use the ranges as context only and make sure the price you choose is above your break-even.
When to raise your prices
Raise prices when your demand and your costs say you should.
- You are booked out for weeks or turning down work
- Your editing time per session is growing
- Your equipment or software costs have risen
- Your portfolio and reviews have improved
- Your effective hourly rate is below what you would accept elsewhere
Raise prices for new bookings first, and keep old quotes honoured for a stated period. A fee increase can also come from changing what is included, for example fewer images in the base package and a paid add-on for extra images.
Common pricing mistakes
Avoid these common pricing mistakes.
- Pricing on shoot time and ignoring editing, which is often the larger share.
- Unlimited editing rounds and unlimited images at one low price.
- Forgetting gear replacement and software subscriptions.
- Giving full-resolution files and print rights without charging for them.
- Skipping a deposit, so late cancellations cost you the slot.
- Underpricing because the session was fun. Fun is not a cost-covering strategy.
