Wedding Photography CODB Breakdown
What is the real cost of doing business as a wedding photographer?
Where does the money go when you hire a photographer?
This blog is mostly for photographers, because it’s really important to understand how much effort we are putting into our businesses. However, if you’re a potential client looking to know what you’re paying for, this blog can be a very educational breakdown of what is happening behind the scenes.
The numbers below are my own, calculated after years of working full-time as a photographer and many years before that working part-time while building this business.
I’ve applied the hours of work I have put in already, to the potential profits of my 2026 pricing guide, assuming couples book me for full-day wedding packages.
In the past, I’ve worked more and profited significantly less.
This blog is intended to be a reminder to myself that my time is valuable, but it should also serve as a lesson to you that you should know where your money is going.
As photographers, we are real people. We have families we need to support, we deserve to take vacations, and we need to see our efforts as something profitable or else we will burn out too damn fast.
How many weddings do I need to book to work full-time?
Full-time is socially considered a 40-hour work week. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, that comes out to 2,080 hours of work.
If we were working “normal” jobs, we’d probably be offered sick days and PTO. Since we are self-employed that does not happen, but I’d like to calculate it in anyway because we deserve it! The standard PTO plus sick days comes out to 3 weeks on average, or 120 hours.
That puts us at 1960 hours of work each year to be full-time photographers.
How many hours of work goes into each wedding?
While photo coverage, travel time, and editing time vary per booking, I have paid attention to those hourly breakdowns for years to find my own personal average. For me, I put in an average of 70 hours of work per wedding.
The breakdown looks like this
Day of coverage—9 hours (average)
Travel time—8 hours (average)
Culling & editing—45 (average)
Client communication & planning—8 (average)
I have recently cut down on my editing time by including Imagen, an AI-based editing software that applies the foundation of my edits to each image. When I say the foundation, I mean it gets each image to about 75% of where it needs to be, and I still spend a lot of time ensuring the images are individually brought up to my standard. With Imagen I have been able to reduce my editing time while also delivering more photos, which I think is a huge win for my clients.
But how much time do I put into my business NOT specific to each wedding?
This includes maintaining my website, blogging, posting on social media (marketing) & doing research.
It varies widely throughout the year, but I personally put in about 160 hours of work into backend tasks that keep Wild Coast going.
Lets do the math!
If the goal is 1960 hours of work, and I put in 160 hours on maintaining my business, that leaves 1800 hours to dedicate to weddings.
If each wedding is an average of 70 hours of work: 1800/70=25.7 weddings
Of course, each year I also photograph engagements, proposals & couples sessions outside of weddings, so let’s round that number down.
For me, booking 25 weddings each year means working full-time!
Want to make this even more interesting?
Let’s break down the cost of each wedding!
First of all, we need to know the annual cost of all the things that are necessary to just do the job—this is stuff like software, gear, website, gas, gallery delivery systems, photo storage, advertising, etc. Some gear lasts multiple years, some needs to be replaced on a regular basis, and some stuff requires annual or monthly subscriptions. Below is my personal breakdown of costs.
Website: $300/year
Dubsado: $350/year
Pic-Time: $408/year
Adobe: $261/year
Imagen: ~$1500/year
Travel/Gas: ~7500/year
Gear: ~6000/year
Advertising: ~3500/year
Extras: ~5000/year
I’m guessing on a lower end for the variable costs. There are plenty of extra things that pop up some year to year, but generally my annual costs for extra things have been reducing as I streamline my process, take good care of my gear, and build more solid habits. Gone are the years when I am booking the Airbnb that is easiest—no, I plan ahead to save cash. I don’t second guess whether I need the newest gear, I use what I have until I need to upgrade.
So my average annual cost of doing business is $24,819, but let’s round it up to a solid $25,000 just to call it even.
That means each wedding costs me about $993.
Assuming my average wedding client is booking my 9-hour package, which is currently $7000, that means I am making $175,000 any year I work full-time. About 30% of that goes to taxes, $52,500, which means I am profiting $122,500. After I subtract my cost of doing business, I will bring home $97,500, which comes out to an average income of$8,125 per month.
And that is why photography is so expensive.
Someone can be working full-time, 40 hours/week on average (though our schedules are so often seasonal), and take home only about 50% of what we are charging our clients. That is standard in this business, but people so often don’t see it.
I hope this breakdown was informative!
It sure helped me to see it all laid out like this. I recently raised my prices because despite working 40+ hour work weeks, I was barely staying out of debt. I struggled to stay on top of the bills when tax time rolled around. Something had to change.
Now, I can see a way forward. I might work over the next year to cut costs even more, but the phrase “you have to spend money to make money” is sadly true. I can’t find clients without advertising. I can’t do my job without working gear, and the tools I use to do this job aren’t going to last forever. Even though I spend thousands on my cameras, just a couple seasons will wear them out. That’s normal.
The numbers above are higher than I’ve personally profited (that feels a little TMI, but I want to be honest). Maybe that won’t be true next year.
I am proud of what I’ve been able to do. With what I’ve been profiting I have managed to support my husband through years of medical disability, rescue too many pets, maintain an acceptable level of safety and security in our home that we own, and keep going as a small business owner.
If you’re considering running your own business, know that it can cost a lot to maintain. If you can’t manage to maintain it with what you’re charging, you need to raise your prices. We’re all out here trying to survive, but a business needs to be making a profit to be more than a hobby.
