Photography & events
Wedding Photography Pricing Calculator
Prices wedding photography, where deliverable capacity limits the year.
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
Annual costs and target income divided by the weddings realistically deliverable in a year, giving a package price. The deliverable count is low because each wedding carries many editing hours, and the season concentrates them, which means the realistic number is far below the number of Saturdays.
What moves the number
- Weddings deliverable per year, after editing hours.
- Season length and how bookings cluster.
- Total hours per wedding including editing and communication.
- Second shooter and assistant costs.
Where this one goes wrong
Booking more weddings than can be edited in the season produces a backlog that pushes delivery into months and damages exactly the word-of-mouth the business depends on, which makes deliverable capacity a hard limit rather than a target. Price so the deliverable number is enough. Outsourcing editing is the structural answer where volume is the goal, and it has a real cost that belongs in the price rather than being absorbed.
Before you quote
- Set the price so the deliverable number supports the business.
- Treat deliverable capacity as a hard booking limit.
- Price outsourced editing in rather than absorbing it.
Questions
About this calculator
How many weddings can one photographer shoot a year?
Fewer than the number of Saturdays, because each one carries many editing hours and the season concentrates them. Booking beyond that capacity produces a backlog that damages the word-of-mouth the business runs on.
Should editing be outsourced?
It is the structural answer where volume is the goal, since editing is the binding constraint. It has a real cost that belongs in the price rather than being absorbed, and it requires finding an editor whose work matches yours.
How should a wedding package be priced?
From annual costs and target income divided by the weddings realistically deliverable, which produces a higher figure than photographers expect. Pricing lower means needing more weddings than the editing capacity allows.
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.