Pricing for Business Event Photography

A few months ago, I was asked to quote for a three-hour business event. So I quoted for a three-hour event.

Two days before the event, the event organizer said they needed me onsite 45 minutes sooner to do some early photos. They also wanted me to stay after the event so I could edit “one or two pictures” right away for their social media.

On event day, I arrived one hour before the start and, as requested, I was ready to go 45 minutes before the start. But the event was 45 minutes late getting started. It also ran 1-1/2 hours longer than planned. After the event they wanted some group photos. Then the “one or two pictures” that they needed right away became 16 images. What was originally supposed to be three hours onsite turned out to be more than 6-1/2 hours.

Did I get paid for those extra hours?

You bet.

Pricing for Event Photography

This long article is about how I price photography for business and corporate events. Some business events might also require you to do business headshots or even some product photography. These would require additional pricing and this is not included here.

This article is more about general concepts than exact prices but examples are included. Prices mentioned are in Canadian dollars and do not include expenses, except travel time, and do not include sales taxes.

Always get a deposit for any event that has high expenses. If the job requires you to pay for a hotel room, out-of-town travel, etc., always get a deposit at least equal to all your expenses. Also consider getting a deposit of one-third to one-half of your photo fee. This is especially important if the company is not located in your province. It’s common practice for vendors to get a deposit and most event organizers expect to pay a deposit. To make it quick and easy, you should accept credit cards and be set up for e-transfers.

Charging for City Travel

For some reason, not all photographers charge for local travel. Vehicle expense and travel time are legitimate business expenses that must be paid. It either comes out of your pocket or the customer’s pocket.

The customary procedure is to charge by distance. Charging by kilometre is okay for long highway drives but it’s not good enough for in-city travel. Your time is worth more than a few litres of gas.

It takes me about an hour to drive 25 kilometres from my home in Toronto to downtown Toronto. It can take much longer during rush hour or in bad weather. If I charge 75¢ per kilometre, that’s $37.50 for a two-hour, 50km round trip. This ($37.50) isn’t realistic for car expense plus two hours of my time.

I charge travel time at one-quarter my photo rate. This might be low because some photographers charge half their photo rate. As shown further below, my travel rate is $45 per travel hour. So I would charge $90 for a 50km round trip.

To put this in perspective:

1) A taxi would cost about $95, not including tip, for the same 50km round trip.

2) The average Canadian hourly pay rate in 2022 for people over 25 years old is just over $33/hour. I’m excluding people under 25 because (a) I assume under-25 includes a lot of minimum wage jobs, and (b) I’m over 25 years old.

If this average Canadian worker drove their personal vehicle for company business, they would earn, on average, $33/hour plus the usual employment benefits plus a mileage rate of perhaps 68¢/km depending on their province. If they drove the same 50km route to/from downtown Toronto, they’d be earning $33/hr x 2 hours + $34 mileage = $100.

Charging for Photo Editing

You have to charge for photo editing because it’s work that you’re doing.

All things equal, a business conference with one speaker every 10 minutes will require three times as many photos as an event with one speaker every 30 minutes. An event with many activities (e.g. speakers, panel discussions, trade show, working lunch, social events, etc.) will require a lot more photos than an event with speakers only.

You need a reasonable idea of how many photos you have to deliver. A few events know what they want but most don’t. Some hapless photographers simply give the customer every (unedited) photo they shot. This is the easy way but it’s lazy and unprofessional.

You might guess 20 images delivered per event hour but it really depends on the event’s itinerary. This is for a “normal” business event. If you’re stuck shooting some type of corporate “bonding” event, for example where employees run an obstacle course through large pools of mud, then you’ll be delivering a lot more pictures per hour.

By coincidence(?), I can fast edit 20 pictures per hour. So my base estimate of editing time is: one hour onsite will require at least one hour of basic editing. But this can increase to two, three or four hours of editing per event hour depending on the event and the customer’s needs and expectations.

More images => more editing time => higher hourly rate.

An event in perfect light will require less editing. But an event in a dark room with PowerPoint slides projected onto a washed-out screen will require a lot more editing.

More complex editing required => more editing time => higher hourly rate.

If you do more work, you should be paid more.

Charging for Overtime

Events can run longer than planned and/or the organizers may want extra pictures before or after the event. I once shot a golf tournament and, after the event, the organizer asked me to do some pretty landscape photos around the golf course so they could print and hang the pictures in their office. (I’m not joking.)

Photo quotes for business events, conventions, and conferences should always include an overtime rate just in case. For example:

Photographer onsite from 1pm to 4pm (three hours). Photo fee: $750

Additional time onsite: $200/hour.

You have to let the customer know ahead of time what your overtime policy is. If you say nothing then they will assume overtime is free. Other event vendors charge for overtime.

I don’t usually charge for the first overtime hour especially if I’m basically just standing around. An event that I did a few years ago was delayed almost an hour due to a fire alarm and, of course, I did not charge overtime for that. But if I’m shooting then I’m charging.

Looking at the numbers

Event photography is the only type of photography that I price based on hours. But I do not quote in hours. The fee varies depending on the volume of photos which depends on the event itself.

Here’s a simple example for an imaginary business event in Toronto. In real life, this calculation will vary for each event. Expenses and taxes are not included.

Base rates:

• Photography: $180 per onsite hour.

• Travel at one-quarter the photo rate: 1/4 x $180 = $45 per travel hour.

• Editing: $50/hour of basic editing. Basic editing includes caption, crop, curves, and sharpening.

My quote to the customer will be expressed as a set number and not as an hourly fee except for the overtime rate. Here’s an example assuming one hour of editing per each event hour:

• For a three-hour event:

$540 (photo) + $90 (2 hrs. travel) + $150 (edit) => $780 (Equivalent to $260/event hour)

Customer sees:

Photographer onsite from 9:00am to 12:00pm (three hours). Photo fee: $780

• For an eight-hour event:

$1,440 (photo) + $90 (2 hrs. travel) + $400 (edit) => $1,930 (Equivalent to $240/event hour.)

Customer sees:

Photographer onsite from 9:00am to 5:00pm (eight hours). Photo fee: $1,930

• And in both cases:

For each extra hour onsite: $180 (photo) + $50 (edit) => $230/hour.

Customer sees:

Additional time onsite: $230/hour.

If you offer discounts for longer events or for overtime, remember that there’s no economy of scale in photography. More time onsite is more time onsite and more pictures require more time to edit. I give discounts to charities and non-profit healthcare agencies.

Real Examples

Last week I photographed two events. A three-hour event had 110 images delivered (~36 images per event hour) and a four-hour event had 42 images delivered (~10 images per event hour). I knew ahead of time that the three-hour event had many speakers and that they also needed pictures of the audience, several groups and the product displays. The four-hour event had 12 speakers and the organizer just wanted a few pictures of each along with some audience photos.

My quotes were calculated as:

• Three-hour event:

$540 (photo) + $90 (travel) + $400 (8 edit hours) = $1,030.00 plus tax. (Equivalent to $340/event hour)

I knew ahead of time that a lot of editing would be required. But it turned out that I underestimated the editing time. It should’ve been 12 hours.

• Four-hour event:

$720 (photo) + $90 (travel) + $200 (4 edit hours) = $1,010.00 plus tax. (Equivalent to $250/event hour)

You can see that there’s no overall fixed hourly rate. The price depends on each event, what the customer wants, and what my estimate is of the editing involved. If I had a fixed hourly rate, the three-hour event would’ve been priced less than the four-hour event even though the three-hour event required more photography and more editing.

More work should always earn you more money.

Too High or Too Low?

Remember that it’s not really ~$250 for each hour onsite. It’s $250 for each hour onsite PLUS an hour of editing PLUS your travel time PLUS your licensing fee PLUS time for job administration. Every job requires time to plan and prepare, respond to customer’s emails, prepare an invoice, archive images, etc. At the very least, job administration is another hour of work for you.

Photography of small business events isn’t a big moneymaker compared to other types of photography. This is why you should have a minimum charge for event photography. My minimum event charge is three hours. Even then, my base rate of $180 per onsite hour plus $50 per edit hour is probably low and I will increase it next year.

Some business events shop price and some don’t. It depends on how much they value photography. But it’s more important on how much you value your photography.