How to price wedding photography.

A wedding day of coverage turns into many more hours of work. Add the consultation, timeline planning, travel, shooting, backing up, culling, editing, gallery setup, client emails and delivery. Use your last few weddings to find your real number.

• Your time at the hourly income you want, across every step from first inquiry to final delivery.
• A second shooter or assistant, paid for the day and any editing they do.
• Gear: cameras, lenses, flashes and batteries wear out, and backup gear is a cost of every wedding.
• Software, storage and gallery hosting, which you pay every month.
• Insurance, taxes, card and platform fees, and the slow season.

• Package by coverage: a set number of hours, a gallery size or delivery type, and any prints or an album.
• Tiered packages: a smaller, a middle and a bigger package, with the middle one as the one you want to sell.
• Hourly: used for elopements, short events and add-on hours beyond a package.
• A la carte: engagement sessions, albums, prints, a second shooter and rush delivery priced separately.
• Collections by season: a weekday or off-season package that lets you fill dates you might not sell.

• Hours of coverage and the number of locations, including a getting-ready location and a long gap between ceremony and reception.
• Second shooter and guest count: bigger events need more people to cover well.
• Date: a peak Saturday holds a date you can sell once.
• Travel and lodging, with distance bands for far venues.
• Deliverables and speed: number of edited images, albums, prints, or a quick-turn gallery or sneak peek.

Take a retainer at signing, because that date is no longer available to anyone else. Many photographers make the retainer non-refundable and schedule the balance before the wedding. Put coverage, copyright, delivery timeline and cancellation terms in a contract. The booking deposit calculator shows the split.

Raise prices every season for new bookings. If you are booked months in advance or rarely hear that you are too expensive, your price is probably low. Keep signed couples at their signed price.

• Worked example in the calculator: enter [Coverage hours] plus [Prep, travel, editing and admin hours] and [Your hourly income], add [Second shooter, gear wear and storage], then choose [Profit margin]. The result is your package price.
• Build the three tiers from the same method with different hours and deliverables, so each tier pays its own way.

Show your packages with what each includes and a starting price. Couples who cannot afford you leave, and couples who can arrive ready to book. Quote custom coverage after a short call.

• A storefront page with your galleries, packages and a booking link.
• Customers request a date from your packages and pay a deposit online.
• Card payments add a service fee for the customer on top of your price.