Why am I writing this post? We want to help explain, from our somewhat unique perspective, why a headshot costs what it does. I am an engineer turned photographer turned co-owner of a photo/film-making business – so I think I look at these things a little differently from a lot of other photography businesses.

I haven’t seen a lot of information out there on this.  So hopefully I’m adding something new!

First off I would like to say, there will be variance! Maybe your headshot photographer is new and starting out – and don’t expect to earn as much. Or maybe they are VERY VERY good, and in VERY HIGH Demand, in which case, they can charge a lot more. Maybe they live in a place where rents are higher (or lower), where their shooters cost more (or less).  Also, none of these estimates include travel.

So let’s begin, shall we?

DISCLAIMER: Some of this may be a bit dry to read!  But it really dives into the nuts and bolts of running a photography business. And while I love taking beautiful photos, once an engineer, always an engineer – this is how I think.

Overhead

Any photography company has  overhead and activities that are not specific to a particular headshot session.  These costs have to be covered one way or another.  What are the fixed expenses for a photographer?

Gear

A busy, professional, and experienced photographer might need the following gear.  This is more or less what we have.

Gear Cost
2 camera bodies at about $4,000 each  $ 8,000.00
Up to $10,000 worth of lenses if not more  $ 10,000.00
Studio Lights with stands  $ 2,500.00
Total  $ 20,500.00

The government tells us our capital cost investments (like camera gear) depreciate over 5 years. And photographers need to buy a new camera every 3 years or so (technology changes, cameras break), and lenses every 6 years or so – that has been our experience more or less.  So dividing the initial investment over 5 years is a pretty good estimate of the annual cost of maintaining and having the gear we need to do the job, even after the first 5 years.  That’s $4,100 per year, or $342/month.

Advertising and Subscriptions

Another category of expenses are the software, advertising, and other subscriptions that we need to do our work. Not every photographer will use the same tools we do, but we’re not that unusual, so I’ve used our platforms.  For example, some photographer might not use Adobe or GSuite or Chamber of Commerce, opting for “who knows what”, Apple “something-or-other”, and going to trade shows.  I am simply sharing my experience, as an ‘average’ headshot photography company.

A note on the marketing spend.  To be able to be completely full with headshots every week, week in and week out, would require a significant marketing budget for online or other digital advertising.  I have been running a campaign for a few hundred a month for a while, and we don’t get nearly enough website hits to be get 20 headshots per week.  Luckily for us we have a lot of other stuff going on. I’m going to make a big assumption here and say that Adwords, or some combination of that and other digital advertising, would have to be north of $2,000 per month. It’s probably more than that realistically.

Subscriptions Cost/Month Cost/Year
Adobe Creative Cloud – photo editing software  $ 100.00  $ 1,200.00
GSuite – email and other very useful tools  $ 75.00  $ 900.00
Chamber of Commerce or other networking organization membership  $ 200.00  $ 2,400.00
Google Adwords – we have to pay to play – and part of that is advertising  $ 2000.00  $ 24,000.00
Totals  $ 2,374.00  $ 28,500.00

Utilities & Rent

Of course, as a business, we have utilities and rent.  To be competitive, a full-time, busy, headshot photographer needs to have a space to shoot.  This doesn’t come cheap these days.

Utilities & Rent Cost/Month
Telephone  $ 50.00  $ 600.00
Internet  $ 100.00  $ 1,200.00
Rent  $ 2,000.00  $ 24,000.00
Totals  $ 2,150.00  $ 25,800.00

Other Marketing Activities

There are also other activities that any photographer has to do to keep the lights on.  Clients don’t just drop from trees!  Before you can serve them, you have to find them (or they have to find you), you have to consult with them, sell to them, etc. There are lots of ways of doing this, but we’ve put an example breakdown below.  Some people might rely more on social media, or blogging, or newsletters, or networking, or any other way of marketing, but either way, that is still time spent doing marketing activities. Note that the rates we’ve used here, from experience, I think are more or less what you’d have to pay for someone else to do these things full time – that is, what a blog writer, social media manager, content creator, etc., might ask for if they were employed full time in a company – so I think it’s fair to do the same rate for our hypothetical solopreneur photographer.  The networking, I feel, is a higher value activity more related to sales.

Marketing Activities Hours per week Rate Cost/week Cost/month Cost/Year
Networking 2 80 160  $ 653  $ 7,840
Blogging 2 30 60  $ 245  $ 2,940
Developing marketing materials 2 30 60  $ 245  $ 2,940
handling calls with bigger clients 2 30 60  $ 245  $ 2,940
Extra retouching 2 30 60  $ 245  $ 2,940
Cold Calls/Business Development/events 2 30 60  $ 245  $ 2,940
Total  $ 22,540

So, what is the total cost of all these fixed expenses and marketing activities, on an annual basis?

$80,944

And that is not even talking about working with any particular single client!

Figuring out the Cost Per Headshot

Now the fun bit: figuring out what to charge. For simplicity, we need to make a few assumptions here.

  • The average professional headshot takes 30m.  Some will take more, while others may be done in 5m. What you choose is up to you (that’s a subject for another post some day)
  • We have assumed that a full-time professional photographer can shoot between 11 and 20 headshots in a week.  That would depend on how many can be done back to back in one location, or not. The more we can do at once, the lest ‘setup’ time there is per person.
  • We have not accounted for situations where the photographer would go on-location to the client and/or require a location scout.  This would add significantly to the cost.

Why 11 to 20 you might ask?  For two reasons.

  1. Burnout

Being a headshot photographer is like doing a bunch of first dates in a row.  You have to be ON THE BALL the whole entire time, engaging, funny, reassuring, confident, and also doing your job professionally. It is mentally draining. I have canvassed some other shooters, and we agreed that doing more than 20 would be unfair to the photographer and the client both.  The 21st client’s session is unlikely to be that great with a burnt out photographer!

  1. Time

A photographer doing this full time doesn’t have time to do all the activities needed to maintain their business for much more than that.  It would be a full time job. In the best case scenario, all the headshots are in their studio, back to back on two days.  That minimizes the setup and teardown time between sessions, as well as travel to and from an on-location shoot.  So in the best case 20 headshots, in the worst case 11.

Maximum Minimum
Item N N
Headshots per week 20 11
Headshots per year 980 539
Headshots per month 82 45
Shooter hours per headshot 0.666666667 1.166666667
Editing hours per headshot 0.4 0.4
Communication hours per headshot 0.166666667 0.666666667
Total hours per week 24.7 24.6
Total hours per year 1209 1277
Minimum Maximum
Other Activities Hours/week
Networking 2 2
Blogging 2 2
Developing marketing materials 2 2
handling calls with bigger clients 2 2
Extra retouching 2 2
Cold Calls/Business Development/events 2 2
Total Hours per Week 11 11
Total weekly work time, solid, without lunch or breaks 37 37

So you see, it is really a full time job, to do between 11 and 20 headshots per week.

First Way to Figure out the Cost Per Headshot

The simplest way to determine how much to charge per headshot, is to take the average salary a headshot photographer should bring in per hour, who can book 11-20 headshots per week, then add the overhead costs (gear, utilities, rent), and divide by the number of headshots that it is possible to do in a year.  What’s a fair annual salary for a professional photographer with years of experience and knowledge?  We’ll assume about $70,000, in our Canadian market. A very popular, in-demand, highly experienced photographer might get more than double that at $150,000, while someone starting out might look for 2/3 or so

  • Headshots a photographer can do in a year: 539 to 980 (worst case not sequential in studio to best case all sequential in studio)
  • Annual salary before income tax: $70,000 to $150,000
  • Total annual expense in overhead: $ 58,404
  • Total revenue needed annually: $128,404 to $208,404
  • Total revenue needed per headshot: $131 to $387

So with this method, a headshot should cost between $130 and $387.

But that’s not good enough for me.  I like to dive a bit deeper to understand the root costs of things. Hence the second way to figure out the Cost Per Headshot, below.

Second Way to Figure out the Cost Per Headshot

The second way to figure out how much a headshot should cost is to add up all the activities that need to be done to carry out each headshot, and add the overhead that each one has to provide for. A few things to note:

  • The rates we have used are the average market rates to have a beginner to really experienced lead shooter, assistants, photo editor, as subcontractors.
  • We have assumed a setup time per person ranging from 10m to 40m, depending on if they’re in sequence or not.
  • We provide two worked up headshots per person.  We take about 15m to work up each and every selected image.
  • We’ve included the time to set up proofing galleries, send them, remind people to pick their favourites, etc.

The table below has two sets of rates.  The first 3 columns of data are for a beginner headshot shooter with a little experience and headshots back to back in studio.  The last 3 columns are for a very in demand lead photographer and headshots out of sequence requiring setups every time.

Per shoot costs Hours Minimum Rate Total cost per headshot Hours Maximum Rate Total cost per headshot
Lead shooter shooting + Setup 0.7  $ 50.00  $ 33.33 1.2  $ 150.00  $ 175.00
Assistant Shooting + Setup 1.0  $ 25.00  $25.00 1.5  $ 25.00  $ 37.50
Editor 0.5  $ 25.00  $ 12.50 0.5  $ 25.00  $ 12.50
Client communications, minimum, from lead to job done 0.2  $ 25.00  $ 4.17 0.7  $ 25.00  $ 16.67
Equipment, advertising, networking, and other costs, divided between the year’s headshots  Total Annual Cost  $ 80,944.00  $ 82.60  Total Annual Cost  $ 80,944.00  $  82.60
 Total cost  $ 157.60  Total cost  $ 324.26


So a 30m headshot is between $158 and $324.

Do you notice something? That is not too far off from the first method for determining the cost of a headshot

Of course, as mentioned at the start, there are tonnes of variables that can impact this.  The cost will change depending on:

  • Market
  • Popularity of the photographer
  • Experience of the photographer
  • Rental costs
  • Advertising budget
  • I’m sure a bunch of other factors I’m not listing here.

Is it worth it?  That depends on what you hope from it and how you will make the most of it.  A properly used headshot can be an extremely useful tool that can really help your leads and sales.

A professional, experienced, photographer is dedicated to their work full time – and delivers a service they can be proud of, and that clients will love – all while sustaining that for years and years.