Wedding Photography Package Calculator
Build wedding photography package pricing based on coverage hours, second shooter, album, and editing time.
About this calculator
This calculator builds a wedding package price from five separate line items rather than a single flat day rate, which is closer to how real studios actually cost out a shoot. Shooting cost is straightforward: coverage hours times a $150/hr lead-photographer rate. Editing cost is where a lot of new photographers underprice themselves — it's driven by an editing ratio (hours of post-production per hour of coverage), so an 8-hour wedding at a 2x ratio means 16 editing hours billed at $75/hr, not 8. Album cost only applies if you set album pages above zero, and follows a $200 base plus $8 per page.
A second shooter, if selected, adds coverage hours at a flat $75/hr — the same duration as the lead photographer, since a second shooter covers the whole day rather than a partial block. Digital delivery is rolled in more quietly: it's $5 for every 100 images (rounded up), added into the total package price but not broken out as its own labeled cost line in the results, so if your total looks slightly higher than the sum of the four visible cost categories, that delivery fee is the difference. The most common planning mistake this tool helps catch is undercharging for editing time on packages with a high image count or a demanding editing style — bump the editing ratio up before underestimating your own post-production hours.
Inputs
Results
Package Price
$3,465.00
≈ 3 smartphones
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter Coverage Hours, Second Shooter, and No.
- Set Yes, Album Pages, and Digital Images Delivered.
- Adjust Editing Ratio as needed.
- Review the Package Price ($) result.
- Use Shooting Cost ($) and Editing Cost ($) to inform your decision.
How the result changes with Coverage Hours
| Coverage Hours | Package Price |
|---|---|
| 4 | $1,965.00 |
| 6 | $2,715.00 |
| 12 | $4,965.00 |
| 16 | $6,465.00 |
What each input means
- Coverage Hours
- Total hours of wedding day coverage.
- Second Shooter
- Include a second photographer for additional angles.
- Album Pages
- Number of pages in the wedding album (0 for no album).
- Digital Images Delivered
- Number of edited digital images included.
- Editing Ratio
- Editing hours per hour of coverage (2x means 16 editing hours for 8-hour wedding).
What each result means
- Shooting Cost
- Lead photographer coverage cost.
- Editing Cost
- Post-processing labor cost.
- Album Cost
- Wedding album production cost.
- Second Shooter Cost
- Cost of second photographer.
- Package Price
- Total recommended package price.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersCoverage Hours = 8, Second Shooter = 1, Album Pages = 30, Digital Images Delivered = 500 = 5 input(s) provided
- Calculate Package PricePackage Price3465 = $3,465
- Calculate Shooting CostShooting Cost1200 = $1,200
- Calculate Editing CostEditing Cost1200 = $1,200
Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my package price seem higher than the sum of the four cost line items shown?
The digital delivery fee — $5 for every 100 images delivered, rounded up — is added directly into the total Package Price but is never broken out as its own labeled cost category in the results. So if you add up Shooting, Editing, Album, and Second Shooter cost and the total doesn't match Package Price, that gap is the delivery fee working quietly in the background.
How much does the Editing Ratio actually affect the total price?
Editing Hours is coverage hours multiplied by the ratio, and that result is billed at $75/hr — so for an 8-hour wedding, moving the ratio from 1x to 2x doubles editing cost from $600 to $1,200. Since editing cost has no cap tied to image count or any other input, underestimating this ratio is one of the most common ways photographers underprice a package relative to their real post-production time.
Why is the second shooter costed for the full coverage duration instead of a shorter block?
The calculator assumes a second shooter covers the entire wedding day alongside the lead photographer, so their cost is coverage hours times $75/hr — the same number of hours as the lead shooter's rate, not a partial add-on block. If your actual arrangement only brings in a second shooter for part of the day, this calculator will overstate that cost since there's no separate input for a shorter second-shooter duration.
Does setting Album Pages to zero remove the album cost entirely?
Yes — the album formula ($200 base plus $8 per page) only applies when album pages is greater than zero; at zero, Album Cost drops to exactly $0 rather than charging the base fee for a nonexistent album. This makes it easy to model a print-only or all-digital package by simply zeroing out that one input.
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