Free tool for photographers
Find the minimum you need to charge per session to hit your income goal. Enter what you want to take home, how many sessions you'll shoot, your hours, your cost of doing business, per-session costs, and your tax set-aside. You'll get a minimum price, your break-even, your effective hourly rate, and where every dollar of the price goes. Free and private: everything runs in your browser.
Minimum price per session
$2,475.00
40 sessions at this average price bring in $99,000.00 a year, enough to take home $60,000 after a 25% tax set-aside.
| Cost of doing business $11,000/yr ÷ 40 sessions | $275.00 |
|---|---|
| Per-session costs Prints, travel, second shooter | $200.00 |
| Break-even price Covers costs, $0 pay | $475.00 |
| Tax set-aside 25% of pre-tax profit | $500.00 |
| Your take-home pay $60,000 ÷ 40 sessions | $1,500.00 |
| Minimum price per session | $2,475.00 |
Each session takes 15 hours, so you take home $100.00 per hour worked (each session hour bills $165.00). Planning estimate only, not tax advice.
How it works
Most underpricing comes from leaving something out: the gear you'll need to replace, the software you pay for every month, the tax bill, or the 10 hours of editing behind a 4-hour shoot. This calculator starts from the income you want to take home and works back to the price that pays for all of it.
To take home $60,000 with a 25% tax set-aside, you need $80,000 of pre-tax profit. Add $11,000 of yearly overhead and $200 of per-session costs across 40 sessions ($8,000), and the year has to bring in $99,000. Divided by 40 sessions, that's a minimum of $2,475 per session. Your break-even is $475. At 15 hours per session (4 shooting, 8 editing, 3 admin), that's 600 hours a year, or $100 an hour in take-home pay.
Want to compare packages and track whether your bookings actually hit that price? The Photographer Business System includes a Pricing & Package Calculator that compares 3 packages and checks your current average package price against what you need.
Take it with you
This calculator is a one-off. The Photographer Business System keeps the same math in Excel and connects it to the rest of your business.
For photographers
Its Pricing & Package Calculator uses the same inputs as this page (overhead, salary, tax set-aside, sessions, hours, and per-session costs) and compares 3 packages side by side. It sits alongside an inquiry CRM, bookings with balance tracking, gallery delivery deadlines, income and expenses, and a goal planner. Works in Microsoft Excel. $34, pay once.
Get the Photographer Business System: $34 See what's insideFAQ
Add up what the year has to cover: your cost of doing business (gear, software, insurance, and other overhead), the per-session costs for every session you'll shoot, and the pre-tax profit you need to take home your income goal. Divide that total by the number of sessions you expect to book. The result is the minimum average price per session.
It's the yearly cost of running your business whether or not you shoot: camera and lens replacement, computers, editing and gallery software, your website, insurance, marketing, education, accounting, phone and internet, and studio rent if you have it. It doesn't include costs that come with each session, like prints, travel, or a second shooter. This calculator spreads CODB evenly across your sessions.
The price comes from your costs, income goal, and number of sessions. Hours tell you what that price pays you per hour. If a session takes 15 hours from first email to delivery, the effective hourly rate shows whether your pricing and workload actually add up. Faster culling and templates raise your hourly rate without changing the price.
Enter the share of profit you set aside for income and self-employment tax. Your income goal is treated as take-home pay, so it's grossed up: a $60,000 goal with a 25% set-aside needs $80,000 of pre-tax profit. The right percentage depends on your situation, so check it with a tax professional. This is a planning estimate, not tax advice.
Try the levers one at a time: book more sessions, lower your cost of doing business, raise per-session value with higher packages or print sales, or cut hours per session. You can also lower the income goal for a season while you build demand. Seeing the gap clearly is the point; it's better to know than to guess.
