Photography & events
Photography Margin Calculator
Works margin across the business, where product and service margins differ.
Result
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against the price you charge. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not a 50% one. Pricing off the wrong one is the most common way a job that looked profitable turns out not to have been. Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Revenue less direct cost as a percentage of revenue, calculated separately for session fees and for products. The two behave differently: a session fee's cost is the photographer's time, while a product's cost is the supplier invoice plus the time to design and fulfil it, and blending them conceals which part of the business is working.
What moves the number
- Session fee margin after total hours.
- Product margin after supplier cost and fulfilment time.
- Mix between session-only and product-inclusive sales.
- Discounting, which comes straight off margin.
Where this one goes wrong
Separate the session and the product margins, because a business with a healthy product margin and a session fee that does not cover the shooting and editing is subsidising its own core work, and the reverse is also common. Knowing which is which determines what to change. Discounting is the other item, since a discount comes entirely off margin and a modest one on a thin margin removes most of it.
Before you quote
- Calculate session and product margins separately.
- Include total hours in the session cost.
- Model what a discount does to margin, not to revenue.
Questions
About this calculator
Why separate session and product margin?
Because they behave differently and blending them conceals which part works. A business with a strong product margin and a session fee that does not cover the shooting is subsidising its core work, and the reverse happens too.
What does a discount cost?
Margin rather than revenue, since the cost of delivering the work does not fall. A modest discount on a thin margin removes most of it, which is why knowing the margin before offering one matters more than the headline reduction.
What should the session cost include?
All the hours: preparation, travel, shooting, culling, editing, communication and delivery. A session margin calculated on shoot hours alone looks healthy and describes a different business from the one actually being run.
The formula
margin = (price - cost) / price; markup = (price - cost) / cost
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How to use this calculator
- Price charged ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $1,400.
- Direct cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $530.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross margin, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Price charged | $1,400 |
| Direct cost | $530 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross margin main result | 62.1% |
| Gross profit | $870 |
| Same thing as a markup | 164% |
That job earns $870 of gross profit, a 62.1% margin. The same job described as a markup is 164%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only price charged, this is what happens to gross margin. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Price charged ($) | Gross margin |
|---|---|
| $700 | 24.3% |
| $1,050 | 49.5% |
| $1,400 example above | 62.1% |
| $2,100 | 74.8% |
| $2,800 | 81.1% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Price charged ($)
- A money amount, starting at $1,400.
- Direct cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $530.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross margin | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Same thing as a markup | A percentage. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.