Wedding Photography
Pricing Calculator

How the calculator works

Most photography pricing tools ask you for a day rate and tell you to multiply it. That’s not how a sustainable business works. This calculator builds your price from the ground up — starting with what you actually need to earn, adding your real annual costs, and dividing by the number of weddings you want to shoot.

The floor price it gives you is the minimum you can charge while covering your costs and hitting your income target. The recommended price adds a 20% buffer to account for slow months, unexpected expenses and the reality that not every enquiry converts to a booking.

Why most photographers are undercharging

The most common pricing mistake is basing your rate on what other photographers in your area charge, rather than on what you actually need to earn. It feels safe — you’re not out of step with the market — but if everyone is doing the same thing, and most photographers are undercharging, then the market rate is anchored below where it should be.

The second mistake is pricing based on shoot time alone. Eight hours on the day doesn’t mean eight hours of work. A typical wedding represents 35 to 55 hours of total time once you account for editing, culling, client communication, travel, contract management, backup and delivery. Price by shoot time and your effective hourly rate can drop well below minimum wage.

What the calculator counts — and why

The annual costs section asks for five categories. Each one matters.

• Equipment depreciation. Camera bodies have finite shutter lives. Lenses and cards wear out. If you’re not setting aside money for replacement, you’re spending from your future self’s account.

• Software subscriptions. Lightroom or Capture One, Photoshop, your gallery platform, your CRM, accounting software, website hosting. Add these up for a year and divide by your bookings count. It adds up faster than you think.

• Insurance. Public liability, equipment insurance, professional indemnity. If you’re operating without these, you’re operating at personal risk. This is a genuine business cost that needs to be in your pricing.

• Marketing and platform fees. Whether that’s a directory listing, a Phindr subscription, Google ads or a website redesign — every pound you spend attracting clients needs to come back through your pricing.

• Other costs. Travel, cloud storage, hard drives, memory cards, professional development, accountancy fees. Catch-all is intentional here.

When to raise your prices

The clearest signal that it’s time to raise your prices is demand exceeding capacity. If you’re turning down enquiries because you’re fully booked, your prices are too low. The market is telling you that couples want your work badly enough to compete for it. Your job is to reflect that in what you charge.

Beyond that, review your pricing annually. Your costs change. Your experience deepens. Your portfolio gets stronger. Prices that made sense when you were starting out rarely make sense five years in.

Getting leads from couples who already value your work

One structural challenge of pricing correctly is that you need to attract couples who are willing to pay your actual rate. That’s harder when discovery is driven by Google, where couples often start with price as the primary filter.

On Phindr, couples browse portfolios before they ever see pricing. By the time they match with you and reach out, they’ve already decided they love your work. That’s a fundamentally different conversation than fielding an enquiry from someone who found you because you ranked first in a search for “affordable wedding photographer”.

Couples who chose you for your work are more willing to meet your price. Which means pricing correctly becomes considerably easier when your discovery channel is portfolio-first.