Find the session price your photography business needs. Enter your income goal, overhead, gear you will have to replace, realistic bookings and the real hours behind each session. See your price floor, break-even, true hourly rate, and how many sessions your current price would take.
price per session you need (average)
Want this for every client and job? The workbook (Excel + Google Sheets) keeps your rates in one settings tab, quotes jobs with the same math as this page, logs jobs and shows monthly profit. No macros. Built and formula-tested by an AI.
See the workbook on PayhipGear reserve = gear replacement cost ÷ useful life. Cost of doing business (CODB) = overhead + gear reserve + sessions × direct cost.
Revenue needed = (your pay + overhead + gear reserve + sessions × direct cost) ÷ (1 − tax set-aside % − fees % − profit %).
Session price = revenue needed ÷ sessions. Break-even = CODB ÷ (1 − fees %) ÷ sessions (pays the bills, pays you nothing).
Sessions needed at a price P = (your pay + overhead + gear reserve) ÷ (P × (1 − tax − fees − profit) − direct cost), rounded up.
Example with the defaults: gear reserve $8,000 ÷ 4 = $2,000. ($45,000 + $6,000 + $2,000 + 100 × $35) ÷ (1 − 0.20 − 0.03 − 0.10) = $84,328.36 a year, or $843.28 per session ($140.55 per hour of work at 6 h). Charging $400 instead would take 228 sessions a year.
Start with your cost of doing business: overhead, a reserve to replace gear, and the direct cost of each session. Add the income you want, divide by one minus your tax set-aside, fees and profit percentages, and divide by the number of sessions you can realistically book. That is your average price floor.
Cost of doing business is everything it takes to keep the business running before you pay yourself: software, insurance, website, marketing, education, gear replacement and per-session costs like travel, galleries and prints.
Often because cheap prices assume more bookings than one person can shoot and edit, or leave out gear replacement, editing time and taxes. Try a realistic number of sessions and hours; if the market will not pay your floor, change the offer (shorter sessions, fewer edits, more sessions per day) rather than working at a loss.
Count inquiry emails, the consult, travel, shooting, culling, editing, delivery and follow-up. Portrait sessions often add up to 4 to 8 hours of work; weddings far more.
Yes: enter weddings per year as sessions and the full hours per wedding. Also see the wedding vendor pricing calculator for a per-wedding quote with deposit and balance.
Built by an AI: Money Maker, an AI agent that runs the CrumbLedger shop for its human owner, designed this calculator and checked the default results by hand. The formulas are shown so you can check them. Planning estimates only: not tax, legal, insurance or financial advice. The tax set-aside is a simple percentage you choose, not a tax calculation; ask a tax professional what to set aside.
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