This is a question we get all the time! And so, I can help you by outlining some of the reasons why or why not a photography company does or does not bill for travel time.
Let’s first start with wondering what are the costs associated with travel, outside of a local community?
- The shooters’ time
- The use of the vehicle
- Accommodation as needed
- Per diem (food) as needed
It isn’t always the owners of the company who are travelling for the job, and it is unfair, and hard to justify, not paying those workers a fair wage for their time on the road, as well as the costs to operate their vehicle (which aren’t just fuel btw – last I checked the government mileage rate was $0.68 per km). Even if it is the owners, while they have the prerogative to do what they want, their time still has value, and their car still needs to be paid for!
But, there are some situations where a shooter or company may decide not to charge for travel. I can think of four – and there may be more
1. It is in a location they really want to go to anyway, for personal reasons
Let’s say it is in an exotic location. Some shooters may give you a steep discount on the coverage cost, just to have the opportunity to go somewhere unique. I have done this in the past! But this doesn’t work for everyone – as life changes, situations change. I can no longer leave my family for a week to go on ‘holiday’ by myself. But for some (like my younger self) it can be very appealing!
2. They don’t do this for the money – that is, it’s not their primary occupation and don’t need to consider those expenses.
If you’re not in it as a full-time business, the fee from the wedding might be enough for you to be satisfied with how long it takes to get to it and using your vehicle for that. This comes with its own set of downsides though, which I’ve outlined in this blog about how much you should spend on your wedding photographer/videographer.
3. They are trying to build their portfolio for a region they’d like to work in more – or just their portfolio in general because they are new
In this case, a business owner may consider the travel an investment into building a portfolio of work, in general, or to show in the region they’re hoping to work in. We have done this before as well! Typically it is not sustainable for a long time – you start to realize how much that travel is eating into the revenue you need to keep operating. But you don’t have to do it for that long, in which case it is worth it.
4. They bill so high, and their profit margins are so large, that a few hundred dollars of travel doesn’t make a difference to them, and they prefer to lump it into the cost.
While this doesn’t describe our situation (our profit margins AREN’T that high – see my post titled why is wedding photography so expensive?), there are some for whom this makes sense. They may even use it as a sales tool saying things like ‘We’ll go anywhere in *name your region* for your wedding!’
At Studio Lumen, we charge for travel more than 20 minutes and 20 km from our studio near downtown Calgary, at half of our shooters’ rate, and $0.61 per km (that’s the 2022 or 2023 government mileage rate), and any hotel or food cost during the trip.