Wedding photography pricing calculator.
Find the number most photographers never calculate: what one wedding actually costs you to shoot — and the floor price you can't afford to book below.
Most photographers set prices by looking at what everyone else charges. The problem is that a good chunk of the market is guessing too — and some of them are quietly losing money on every booking. The honest way to answer how much should I charge for wedding photography is cost-of-doing-business math, and this calculator does it for you.
Add up your annual fixed costs — gear depreciation, insurance, software, website, marketing — plus the salary you actually need to take home. Divide that by the weddings you shoot per year, then add what each wedding directly costs you: the second shooter, travel, albums, and the editing hours you never invoice for. The result is your floor price. Book below it and you are paying for the privilege of working a 12-hour Saturday.
Then test any package price against that floor and see your real margin instantly — green, amber, or in the red. Your numbers save in your browser, so they're still here when you come back, and you can print the breakdown for your next pricing review.
Your numbers are saved in this browser only — nothing is sent to a server.
Go deeper
Package tiers that sell, add-ons, anchoring psychology, regional benchmarks for 2026, and when to raise your prices.
Job profit & loss in FrameFlowFrameFlow tracks profit on every real job automatically — contracted revenue minus crew pay and expenses, per wedding, no spreadsheet.
Pricing questions, answered.
- How much should I charge for wedding photography?
- Start from your cost of doing business, not from competitors' websites. Add your annual fixed costs (gear, insurance, software, website, marketing) to the salary you need to take home, divide by the weddings you shoot per year, then add each wedding's direct costs — second shooter, travel, albums, editing time. That total is your floor price: the minimum a wedding must generate before you make any profit. Most full-day solo photographers in major markets land somewhere between $3,800 and $10,000 depending on region and positioning, but your floor is personal to your numbers.
- What is a good profit margin on a wedding package?
- Aim for at least 20% after overhead and direct costs. Below 20% there is no buffer for a slow enquiry season, a camera body failure, or the cost inflation you absorb between price rises. A negative margin means you are paying to shoot the wedding — subsidising your clients with unpaid labour.
- What counts as cost of doing business for a photographer?
- Everything that flows out of the business per year whether or not you shoot: gear depreciation (replacement cost divided by lifespan), insurance, software subscriptions, gallery hosting, accounting, marketing and directory fees, education — plus your own salary. The salary is the number photographers most often leave out, and it is the biggest line.
- Should I count my own editing time as a cost?
- Yes. Twenty hours of culling and editing at even a modest hourly rate is hundreds of dollars per wedding of real labour. If you outsource editing, enter your editor's actual bill instead. Either way, a package price that ignores post-production hours will always look more profitable than it is.
- Why is my floor price higher than what local photographers charge?
- Often because they have never done this math. A meaningful share of any wedding market prices below its own cost of doing business and quietly burns out or quits within a few years. Price to your numbers and your positioning, not to the median of a market that is partly guessing.
- Does this calculator store or send my numbers anywhere?
- No. Everything runs in your browser and your inputs are saved to your own device's local storage so they are still there next visit. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no signup or email gate.
Know your margin on every real booking.
This calculator works on averages. FrameFlow runs the same math on each actual job — quote, crew pay, expenses — so you see profit per wedding without a spreadsheet. Free plan, no card.