How to structure wedding photography packages: costs first, tiers second

Step 1: count the hours of one wedding

A wedding is not eight hours. Write down every task and give each a number, using your last three weddings as a guide.

This is an example, not a benchmark. Many photographers find the total is far above the hours they quote. Time the next wedding honestly, and use the real number.

Step 2: add the money costs

Dividing yearly costs by the number of weddings you plan to shoot makes the next bit possible: your cost per wedding falls if you book more and rises if you book fewer.

Step 3: find your floor

A simple floor formula:

Floor = (hours × your target hourly rate) + money costs, then adjusted for tax and fees

With the example hours above, if your target is a certain rate per hour, multiply 35.5 by it. Add the money costs. Then raise the total so that, after payment fees and taxes, you keep what you meant to keep. The adjustment depends on your country, and an accountant can tell you what to use.

The floor is not the price. It is the number below which a booking costs you more than it earns. Any package you sell should sit above it with room to spare.

Step 4: decide what separates the tiers

The boundaries between packages should be things that cost you time or money and that the couple values. Good boundaries:

• Hours of coverage. Six, eight, ten. The most honest difference, and easy to explain.
• Number of photographers. A second shooter changes the cost, and what you can cover at once.
• Events covered. Getting ready, ceremony, reception, plus a rehearsal dinner or a day-after session.
• Engagement or portrait session. A real block of work with a real cost.
• Album or print credit. A cost you can state exactly.

Poor boundaries: a larger number of photos (the count depends on the day), different watermark rules, and extras that cost you nothing but sound generous. Couples see through those, and they muddy your own explanation.

Step 5: cap what is not capped

Every open-ended promise becomes free work. Put a limit on each:

• Hours. Overtime is priced per hour, and the contract says how it is requested.
• Revisions. If you offer album revisions, say how many rounds are included.
• Delivery. A window, not a promise of speed.
• Locations. A number, or a distance, beyond which travel is charged.
• Guest list changes. Family formals, for instance, are timed to a list. A longer list needs more time. See the family formals arithmetic.

Step 6: add-ons, and where to put them

Keep add-ons off the package page. A separate list, short and priced, lets a couple add something without recalculating everything. Typical add-ons are extra hours, a second shooter if not included, an engagement session, a rehearsal dinner, parent albums and rush delivery. Quote each add-on as a fixed price so there are no surprises when the invoice arrives.

Presenting the packages

1. Start with what the couple needs. Ask about their day first, then show the package that fits it.
2. Send prices in writing the same day. A short email with the package, the price and a date until which the quote holds. The inquiry emails show how.
3. Explain differences in a single table. Hours, photographers, events, album. Nothing else.
4. Do not discount, de-scope. If the budget is lower, remove something and say what you removed.
5. Link the process. Show what happens after booking, so the price feels like a service. The welcome packet guide covers this.

A sanity check before you publish

• Every package sits above your floor.
• You can say in one sentence why each package costs what it does.
• The contract matches the price page. See what a contract should cover.
• You have a date on the page, and a plan to review it.

We do not know your market or your costs, and we do not publish average prices, because they mislead. Use your own numbers, your own time and an accountant where tax is involved.

A worked example, with invented numbers

Here are three tiers priced with the floor formula. The hourly target ($40), the money costs and the 10 percent for payment fees and taxes are invented for the example. Your numbers will differ, and your country’s taxes will not work like this.

The last column divides by 0.9 so that 10 percent of the price can go to fees and taxes. Use your own percentage. The prices you publish should sit clearly above these floors, because the floors leave nothing for a slow month, a replaced lens or a hard wedding that takes twice as long to edit. They also assume every hour you counted is billable, which is rarely true.

Notice what the example shows. Going from six to eight hours with a second shooter raises the floor by about $620, and the extra two hours of coverage are a small part of that. Most of the gap is the second shooter and the editing time. That is the thing to explain to a couple who asks why the price jumps.

Mistakes that undercut the packages

• Pricing from competitors only. You do not know their costs, their hours or their taxes.
• Forgetting editing. It is often the largest block in the table. Time it.
• Counting only the wedding day. The weeks before and after are work, and work you do for free is a discount.
• Letting the top tier be a trap. If no one should buy it, remove it. A tier that exists to make the middle look cheap is a tactic, and couples notice.
• Not revisiting after a hard wedding. If one wedding took far more hours than the table says, change the table.

Questions, answered