Photography & events
Portrait Photography Pricing Calculator
Prices portrait sessions, where the model of session fee against products decides the structure.
Result
Overhead and margin are taken as shares of the selling price, which is why the cost is divided rather than multiplied. Adding 15% to cost does not produce a 15% margin. 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
The session fee against the cost of delivering it, with product sales considered separately. Two structures exist: a session fee covering the shoot with products sold afterwards, or an all-inclusive price with digital files included, and they produce very different businesses from the same work.
What moves the number
- Whether products are sold separately or included.
- Session length and deliverable count.
- Editing hours per session.
- Average product sale where that model is used.
Where this one goes wrong
A session fee that does not cover the full cost of delivering the session is a bet on product sales, and when the sale does not happen the session was performed at a loss, which is why the session fee should at minimum cover its own cost. Treat product revenue as upside rather than as the plan. The all-inclusive model is simpler and requires the price to carry everything, which clients increasingly prefer and which removes the sales conversation entirely.
Before you quote
- Make the session fee cover the session's own cost.
- Treat product sales as upside, not as the business case.
- Decide the structure deliberately rather than drifting.
Questions
About this calculator
Should the session fee cover the whole cost?
At minimum, yes. A session fee below its own cost is a bet on product sales, and when the sale does not happen the session was performed at a loss. Product revenue is better treated as upside than as the plan.
Session fee plus products, or all-inclusive?
Both work and they produce different businesses. All-inclusive is simpler, removes the sales conversation and is increasingly what clients prefer; session plus products can earn more per client and depends on being comfortable selling.
What drives portrait session cost?
Editing hours, which scale with the deliverable count, plus the session time itself and the communication around it. Capping the delivered count is the main lever, and it gives the client a curated set rather than a folder.
The formula
price = direct cost / (1 - overhead% - margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Labour cost ($). Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $60.
- Other direct costs ($). Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%). Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 15%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price to quote, 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 |
|---|---|
| Labour cost | $300 |
| Materials cost | $60 |
| Other direct costs | $0 |
| Overhead rate | 22% |
| Target net margin | 15% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price to quote main result | $571.43 |
| Direct cost | $360 |
| Overhead recovered | $125.71 |
| Net profit | $85.71 |
| Gross margin | 37.0% |
| Markup on direct cost | 58.7% |
Quote $571.43 to cover $360 of direct cost, recover $125.71 of overhead and leave $85.71 of net profit. That is a 58.7% markup on cost.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only labour cost, this is what happens to price to quote. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Labour cost ($) | Price to quote |
|---|---|
| $150 | $333.33 |
| $225 | $452.38 |
| $300 example above | $571.43 |
| $450 | $809.52 |
| $600 | $1,048 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour cost ($)
- Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $60.
- Other direct costs ($)
- Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%)
- Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 15%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price to quote | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Direct cost | A money figure. |
| Overhead recovered | A money figure. |
| Net profit | A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Markup on direct cost | 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.