How to Price Photography Packages (A Step-by-Step Guide for 2026)
A simple, step-by-step way to price photography packages: find your cost of doing business, count the real hours, build three packages and plan for print sales.
By the Terracotta team · Updated · 7 min read
Pricing is the part of photography nobody teaches you, and the part that decides whether you have a business or an expensive hobby. Price too low and you burn out. Guess too high without a reason and you go quiet. The fix is the same for every genre: work out what a session really costs you, decide what you need to earn, and build packages that make the right choice easy for clients.
Step 1: Know your cost of doing business
Add up everything the business spends in a year: camera and lens upgrades spread over their life, insurance, software, your website, gallery storage, marketing, travel and taxes. Divide it by the number of sessions you realistically shoot. That is the amount each session must cover before you earn anything at all.
Software is where small costs pile up. A gallery plan that bills for the top of its tier can cost more than it should every month. With usage-based gallery pricing, 100 GB of client galleries is about $15.60 a month, and the first 3 GB are free.
Step 2: Count the real hours in a session
A two-hour family session is rarely two hours of work. Here is a typical breakdown:
| Task | Hours |
|---|---|
| Shooting | 2 |
| Travel and setup | 1 |
| Culling | 2 |
| Editing | 4 |
| Gallery delivery | 0.5 |
| Emails and planning | 1 |
| Total | 10.5 |
Multiply your total hours by the hourly rate you want to earn, then add your cost per session from step 1. That number is your floor: the least a session can cost without losing money.
Step 3: Build three packages
Three options work because they give clients a choice without overwhelming them. Make the middle package the one you want most people to book, and price the top one to make the middle feel like great value.
- Essential: a shorter session and a smaller set of edited images. It sits just above your floor.
- Signature: the session most clients need, with the full gallery and a print credit.
- Heirloom: everything in Signature plus an album or wall art, for clients who want a keepsake.
Step 4: Plan for print and product sales
Prints, canvases and albums are the easiest way to raise what each session earns without raising your session fee. A gallery with a built-in, lab-fulfilled store does the selling for you: clients order the photos they love while the excitement is fresh. Read our guide to selling prints from your client gallery.
Step 5: Raise your prices on a schedule
Revisit your pricing every year, or whenever your calendar fills more than a couple of months ahead. A full calendar is a signal that you are underpriced. Raise prices for new bookings, honor existing quotes, and let your portfolio carry the change.
Common pricing mistakes
- Copying a competitor's prices without knowing their costs or their hours.
- Pricing only for the shoot and forgetting the editing and delivery time.
- Offering so many packages that clients cannot decide.
- Leaving print sales out of the plan entirely.
Frequently asked questions
How do I figure out what to charge for photography?
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Add up your yearly business costs and divide by the sessions you shoot to get your cost per session. Then count every hour a session takes, including editing and delivery, multiply by the hourly rate you want, and add the two. That is your minimum price.
How many photography packages should I offer?
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Three is the sweet spot. It gives clients a real choice without overwhelming them, and you can design the middle package to be the one most people book.
Should photography packages include prints?
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Including a print credit in your middle package is a simple way to raise your average sale. Clients use the credit in your gallery's print store and often order more.
