—— Calculate Your Costs ——

What does a shoot really cost you?

Most photographers price by guessing — or by copying the photographer down the road.

Here's a braver way: work out what YOUR business actually costs to run, and what your clients need to spend for it to pay you properly.

In about fifteen minutes.

Answer a few honest questions — your hours, your real costs (including the ones everyone forgets), the salary you actually want — and it works out three numbers most photographers have never seen:

  • What a year in business really costs you, before you've paid yourself a penny.

  • The minimum each client needs to spend for your business to pay you properly.

  • How many clients you can genuinely serve WELL in a month.

No spreadsheets. No accountancy degree. Just your numbers, and a few home truths I wish someone had shown me a decade ago.

Step 1 of 7

What Does a Shoot Really Cost You?

Most photographers set their prices by looking at everyone else's. This does something braver: it works out what your business actually costs to run — and what your clients need to spend for it to pay you properly.

You'll need about fifteen minutes and rough figures. Don't overthink any of it — an approximate answer will do fine. There are no wrong numbers here. Only real ones.

Your time

Before the money, the hours. Because your time is the one thing you can't buy more of.

Be realistic — give yourself time to have a life and spend time with the people you love.

Holidays, travel, illness, school plays, the unforeseens. They're coming whether you plan for them or not.

That works out to — working hours a month.
You can't spend all those hours on client work. You have to spend time working on your business or it simply can't flourish. A full-time photographer should spend at least an hour a day on business and marketing — and honestly, it should be more. As your business grows, it will need to be more, and it should be.
That's — of your working time.
That's on the low side. The marketing doesn't do itself (I've tried).
So you have — hours a month for actual client work. Remember that number — it comes back later.

Your costs

Now for the costs — and it's easiest to work them out across a whole year. Include everything. Even the costs that don't exist yet. Planning to book training you haven't organised? Include it. Know you need to upgrade that camera body, even though you haven't yet? Include it. Childcare not sorted, but it's coming? Include it.

Leave a line blank only if it genuinely doesn't apply to you — but be honest about that. Should it apply to you?

Tap the ⓘ on any line if you're not sure what goes there.

—
That's what it costs you to be in business each month — before you've paid yourself a penny. (£— a year.)

Your salary

Include your income tax — and if you're not sure how much that'll be, here's the habit that's served me well: set aside 15% of your income to cover it. It's what my accountant told me to do years ago, and it works.

Look at the hours you're working. Your salary has to be enough to justify them, or your time in business will be short and bitter. But be realistic too — we'd all love £50k a month, but unless that's genuinely within reach right now, writing it down won't help you.
£
With this salary you'd be earning — an hour. Is that enough?
That's below minimum wage. An employer couldn't legally pay you this — don't accept it from yourself.

Self-employment is risky and unpredictable — quiet spells, holidays, the unforeseens. You should be paying yourself well above minimum wage to cope with them.

What your business must bring in

Here's the machine working. Two numbers, from everything you've told me so far.

To cover your costs and pay you the salary you named, your business needs to bring in:
—
a month.
And because only — of your hours each month are client hours, every one of them has to earn:
—
per hour of client work.

But you don't sell hours. You sell shoots — and a shoot is never just the shoot. Let's see what one really takes.

What one shoot really takes

Work out the time based on your level of service and your ideal client. Averages are fine. Photographers grossly underestimate this — if you're not sure, spend a week timing yourself.

Add up every minute one client takes, start to finish. Use the + and − buttons or type straight in.

Your shoot isn't a —-hour job.
—
That's how long one client really takes, start to finish.

Optional — but it powers the most useful number at the end. Skip it if you'd rather.

£

Your real numbers

The minimum each client needs to spend with you
—
to cover your costs and pay you the salary you named.
And this is how many you can serve well in a month
—
Not hustle through. Serve well.
Sense-check this against your last three months. If your real bookings are nowhere near this number, that gap isn't a maths problem — it's a marketing one. (And it's exactly the thing the paid course is built to fix.)
—
One thing this doesn't include: the cost of anything clients order from you afterwards — prints, frames, albums. If you know your average product cost, add it to your minimum spend. If you don't yet, just remember it's not in there.
One thing worth noticing: we never once asked what anyone else charges. Their costs aren't your costs. Their salary isn't your salary. This number is yours — built from your business, not the photographer down the road's.
That minimum spend might scare you. It might be more than your clients are spending right now — more than it even feels possible to spend with you right now. But the real question is: what are you going to do now you know? Is it time for a price rise? Cleverer packages? Braver marketing? These are the moments that make you a business person — the moments you start to feel like one. This is one of them. It won't happen overnight — it never does. It's a journey to profitability, and you're already on it. You've got this.

Your numbers need clients who'll pay properly. So — who are they?

If that minimum spend is more than your clients are spending now, the answer usually isn't a cleverer price list. It's a clearer client. Knowing exactly who you're for — and why they'd choose you over the photographer down the road — is what makes a higher price make sense to the person paying it. It's where I'd start, and I've built a short course that does it in an afternoon.

Start with your ideal client
The Real Cost Calculator · The Leap — Kirsty Hamilton Photography Education

—— Before You Ask ——

Great Questions, Honest Answers

  • Start with your hours rather than your prices. The Real Cost Calculator walks you through it in seven short steps: how many hours a week you realistically work, how many weeks a year you take off, what the business costs to run across a whole year including the things you know are coming but haven't bought yet, and the salary you actually want. From that it works out what a year in business costs you before you've paid yourself anything, what each client needs to spend, and how many clients you can serve well in a month.

  • There's no single right number, and any figure copied from another photographer is theirs rather than yours. What you can work out is your own floor: the minimum a client needs to spend for your business to cover its costs and pay you the salary you named. The Real Cost Calculator gives you that figure from your own numbers. What you do with it — a price rise, cleverer packages, braver marketing — is the decision it hands back to you.

  • It's completely free, and takes about fifteen minutes. Rough figures are absolutely fine — there are no spreadsheets to build and no accountancy required. Approximate answers work perfectly well, there are no wrong numbers, and there's a small information button on any line you're unsure about.

  • Because their costs aren't your costs and their salary isn't your salary. Pricing by copying the photographer down the road means inheriting a number built from someone else's kit, childcare, mileage and ambitions. The Real Cost Calculator never once asks what anyone else charges. It builds your number out of your business.

  • That gap is common, and it's worth sitting with rather than dismissing. If your real bookings are nowhere near the number, the problem usually isn't the maths — it's the marketing. Knowing the figure is the whole point: it turns a vague worry into something you can act on. It won't change overnight, but you can't fix a number you've never seen.