Product Photography Pricing Guide (Updated 2022)
Product photography is a key part of the marketing strategy of any company selling online and through catalogs, so you have to be able to plan very well how you will spend your photography budget to get the most out of it. In this article, we explore the different options there are to create product photos and the costs associated with each.
Basically, there are 2 options you have to product product photography: take product photos yourself (in-house product photography) or hire someone else to do product photography for you (outsource product photography). These 2 options are further divided as follows:
1. In-house Product Photography:
a) casual in-house team
b) dedicated in-hour team
2. Outsourced Product Photography
a) freelancer
b) photography company
c) influencers
Let's explore how much each of these options costs and what are their pros and cons. You can click on an item above, if you want to jump straight to a specific option.
1. In-House Product Photography
In-house product photography is a product photography production set-up where a someone from your company is in charge of creating all the ecommerce photography.
a. Casual In-house Product Photography Team - for the purposes of this article we classify a team as casual, when the member(s) of the team in charge of product photography production have other jobs within the company, they may be working in admin, marketing, design, anything, and you basically have to pull them from their primary role, and give them an additional assignment, taking photos.
For this to happen you will need:
- An employee who knows how to take product photos (or is willing to learn),
- A product photography camera (we will talk about this in more detail later),
- Product photography lighting equipment,
- Product photography props,
- Space where the photography will take place,
- Post-production arrangement
PROs
Full control of the creation process
CONs
Need to purchase a professional camera (+maintenance)
Need to purchase lighting equipment (+maintenance)
Need to allocate space to convert to a studio
Need to allocate space to store equipment and props
Time spent learning
Inefficiency of the process due to inexperience
Need to manage productions
If staff in charge of photography quits, problem of finding and retrain a replacement
The cost of a casual in-house photography team is basically the purchasing of equipment and props, the rent of the allocated space you will need, and the salary of the employee(s) for the hours spent performing photography tasks, time spent by manager managing the in-house team performance and speed of work, and the opportunity cost of having said manager spend time managing an in-house photography team, when their time is probably better spent working on your business.
Additionally, if a person has different tasks to do in a single day, they will be less productive than someone who is dedicated to doing a specific task, so you also need to account for productivity loss in your calculation.
Example: Let's say you assign the product photography task to 1 employee, whose salary is $40,000. Let's say you need to produce 50 product photos a month. For someone without a dedicated studio space, equipment, and experience as a professional photographer, producing 50 product on white photos will take 2-3 full days (lifestyle photos will take longer), this includes prep, lighting set-up, photography, importing photos from camera to computer, if you want the employee to do post-production, it will take even longer, our advice is don't even think about this.
There are many companies who specialize strictly in retouching, so just outsource this, or your employee will spend 5-6 days in total producing 50 product photos, which roughly translates to $800-$1000 spent to create 50 product photos that will not be of professional quality, and this is the cost of the employee's salary alone, when you add the equipment costs, rent part, manager costs, and opportunity cost for both to do this instead of focusing on their primary tasks, the cost will be way over $1000.
To summarize, with this set-up you basically end-up paying $20+ per photo for average quality photos, when for a similar cost you can get professional photos.
b. Dedicated In-House Product Photography Team - a dedicated in-house photography team is when your company has a product photography department and the members of the team only deal with photography production full-time. Typically, a photography team consists of a photographer, stylist, assistant, and retoucher. The pros and cons similar, however, this set-up is much more expensive, because instead of 1 employee who does product photography in addition to other tasks, in the dedicated in-house product photography team set-up, the company is spending a lot more.
PROs
Full control of the creation process, hop in and out of the photo shoot and make changes on the spot
High quality production
Consistent results
CONs
Need to purchase a professional camera (+maintenance)
Need to purchase lighting equipment (+maintenance)
Need to allocate space to convert to a studio (100sqm+)
Need to allocate space to store equipment and props
Time spent learning
Inefficiency of the process due to inexperience
Excessive management of photo shoots
If staff in charge of photography quits, problem of finding and retrain a replacement.
Example :Let's say the average salary of the photography team employee is $40k, so the total cost is $160k/ year in salary + rent for studio space + equipment + equipment maintenance + management. We will use the $160k figure to simplify things, but the actual cost will be higher. For a simple in-house dedicated photography team, a company needs to spent about $13k a month for photography. With a team you can do product photos, lifestyle photos, videos, really anything you like, and a team like that is a pretty big commitment for any company.
If your company has a huge catalog and you are launching products every week along with a huge social media output, this can be a worthwhile investment, and we are talking $650+ per day, that's a lot of photography. If you need 50+photos per day, a dedicated in-house photography team is fantastic to have, however, if you don't need that many photos every day, this same team can become a luxury and even a burden to maintain. It is not uncommon that companies that make these in-house teams end-up trying to rent out the studio space or start a photography business on the side, just to be able to to cover the costs of maintaining the team.
Another factor to consider is burnout. Even the best team will lose their creativity on a project over time, so for lifestyle product photos managing the team in a way that produces creative and inspiring photos can be a challenge, especially for someone who does not have extensive experience managing photography production.
2. Outsource Product Photography
Outsourcing product photography is a product photography production set-up where your company hires someone from outside your company, like another company or individual to produce the product photos for your business.
a. Hire a Freelance Photographer
Hiring a freelance photographer is fairly simple, you find a photographer not too far from your office location, set-up a meeting, negotiate the requirements and terms and then proceed with doing photo shoots. Freelance product photographers are usually a 1-2 person(s) operation where the photographer is also the person with whom you will be in direct contact and with whom you will be negotiating.
PROs
Skill set needed to create product photos is already present
No need to build your own studio and buy equipment
Cost efficient and negotiable rates
No commitment
CONs
Not scalable
Limited Areas of Expertise
Inefficient workflow
Production Can be Slow
Management time can be high
Hiring a freelance product photographer can be very good if you find a good and reliable freelance product photographer in your area. There is no commitment (in terms of salary or long-term contract) and no overhead for your business, which makes hiring a freelancer appealing and cost efficient.
However, the freelance photographer will still have to take the product photos somewhere, either at your own studio, studio rented for your assignment, or a studio the photographer rents full time. There are many very dedicated and talented freelancers out there. The main problem with freelance photographers is that they rarely have the resources to create an efficient workflow, which in turn means that many freelance product photographers' rates are not cheap at all. In addition freelance photographer operations is not scalable, which means that there may be inconsistency in the quality of work they deliver, inconsistency in the speed they deliver your product photos, even times when they cannot take your project, and a lot of back and forth in communication.
Cost: Freelance product photographers have varying rates and for product on white photos the prices will be $10 - $50/ photo, depending on the photographer. Some freelance photographer also charge by the hour, and rates vary but can be anything from around $100/ hour to $1000/ hour. Usually, a freelance photographer will have a minimum booking fee, and if you have regular photo shoots you may be able to negotiate some sort of a retainer.
b. Hiring a Photography Company
The third alternative is hiring a product photography company like ours. If you are looking for high quality fast product photography productions hiring a professional company is a great choice.
PROs
Skills already present
No need for your company to prepare studio, equipment, training
Expertise in a variety of categories
Quality control system
No commitment
Smoother workflow
More options like available props and sets to choose from
Knowledge of online marketing
Speed
CONs
Rigidity, companies have their own rules and terms of operation
Can be more expensive than hiring a freelancer
Layers of communication, you won't get to talk directly with the photographer
Cost: Hiring a product photography company can cost anywhere from $10 - $50/ photo for basic product on white photos. Most photography companies hire by the project, and have minimum booking fees. For some projects a hourly fee is needed, such a for the production of a creative photo where the end result is not defined by the client, so the team needs to experiment until a satisfactory result is achieved.
c. Hiring an Influencer to Create Images
The third alternative is hiring an infuencer.
PROs
New faces, new skills, new places
No commitment
CONs
Unpredictable results
Not suitable for every type of photo
Teaming up with influencers can be a really great way to get social media style product photos that you can use to share on your own accounts and also have the influencer make a post sharing your product on their pages. These images can be fun, relatable, and attention grabbing when there is a fit between influencer and brand.
The cost can by anything from trading samples for photos, to $1000s for photos+post.
There is no one way that fits all businesses for their product photography needs.
