Author
After studying civil engineering and having a passion for photography, he found himself focusing his spare time photographing architecture and interiors.
With over ten years of experience in the photography sphere, he finds the aesthetically engaging in contemporary architecture, paying particular attention to the smallest details & form.
Photography Pricing Calculator
August 24, 2022
Let’s talk about how to price for architecture photography and the power of cost sharing. Architecture photographers keep pricing close to their chest so this is something you won’t find easily so lets dive into how to charge for architectural photography. Cost sharing is what gives you the edge over your competitor with the ability to bring the overall cost down for your client at the same time while bringing your total project revenue up.
I’ll explain how, let’s say instead of scaring your client with a $ 4000-day rate and $400 an image, you could charge a much more appealing fee of a $1000-$1500 day rate and $50-$100 An image, let’s say, it is a standard 8-12 shot day of a commercial space, which is a reasonable amount of final images for the day.
Check out below my super easy cost sharing calculator that can be used for any type of photography that has multiple licensees it’s particularly great for commercial, architecture and real estate photography.
Photography Cost Sharing Calculator
The “Creative Fee“ represents your skill and time required to complete the project, including tasks such as Shoot timing scheduling, Client meetings, Site visits, Site preperation etc. The “Creative Fee“ will also include a standard set of licensing terms such as (Website, Social Media, Print, Awards etc).
0
Enter only the number of ADDITIONAL Parties excluding the original client (e.g Original client + builder + landscape = 2x additional parties)
Insert the percentage (%) of the creative fee for each additional license. Common practice is 25-50% of the creative fee
Additional Party Licensing Fee (per party)
The “Post Production Fee“ is the rate you charge to proces the final images, or offset the outsourcing cost at a “pre image rate“. We all spend a load of time editing our images to make them perfect for final delivery, often this can be hours, sometime more then the shoot itself so be sure to charge for this.
10
Total Quote /per Party
Total party SAVING with cost sharing
Extra Income Earned
Total Project Revenue:$
Cost Sharing Calculation Explained
Let’s use a 10-shot example. We have a $1,500-dollars day rate and $100 per image for editing giving us a $2500 total for those 10 shots.
$2500 might be a lot of money for some firms to license 10 photos. Here’s where cost sharing comes into play. We can present that architect with the option of cost sharing by getting other parties who may have a need or want for the images involved in the project.
For example; the architect reaches out to the landscape architect or lighting designer and they would love the photos.
So we add them to our total invoice as a licensee/additional party. The way that I do it is I add 25-50% of my day rate.
So in this case, at a $1500 day rate + 25% per party, would add $375 to the invoice for that landscape architect license. That brings us to a total of $2875 for the same 10 shot job.
We’re not doing any more work (unless more attention needs to be spent on specific details). We’ve just added another party to the invoice. As a result, having two parties means we can divide that invoice by two and charge each party, $1438. This has just saved the architect over $1000 which will get them super excited and hopefully they email everybody else involved that may have interest in the photos to further drive their photography investment cost down.
Cost Sharing example #2 (4 parities involved)
And now we have 4 people cost sharing. So our total comes up to $3625. We’ve started with that $1500 day rate. We’ve added $375 for the landscape architect, $375 for the lighting designer and $375 for the kitchen designer. But now we’re dividing by 4 parties, now that bring the total cost per party to $906 (a massive $1500+ saving per party). This is much more manageable and enticing, even for smaller firms, to be able to absorb an $906 cost of photography.
The real beauty of cost sharing is that now you are bringing in other parties who may not have the budget for the high end photography that you offer and may have been using a lower calibre/cost photographer in the past you are increasing your client base as well as the overall extra income per job.
November 1, 2022 at 5:12 am
Really useful calculator, thanks! Breaks everything down exactly as I wanted.
November 3, 2022 at 9:11 pm
Hi. Do you sell this calculator or help others to make a similar one but with other currencies or languages? Would love to have this one to explain things to customers
December 16, 2022 at 1:55 pm
How does cost sharing work with this calculator once the shoots already happened and the first client has relayed you to another vendor interested in the photos?
September 15, 2023 at 2:20 pm
What do you do when you have other parties wanting to join after the job was completed and the payment was received by the primary client? I heard about using credit system for this – what is your thoughts on how to best handle this?
7 Comments
Great calculator! Wish I had that back when I was shooting arch.
Up til now cost sharing has been a simple task of splitting a flat fee 2-3 ways but I like your approach. (I don’t see the author’s name anywhere on the page)
Cost sharing has been such a boost to my work and saved a couple jobs that were on the fence. The one downside is chasing down invoices from secondary clients you may not have the same rapport with as the primary client.
BTW through cost sharing an architect shared another potential client on a commercial building and that’s the Property Manager who often like to have images of their portfolio properties.