Hotel Photographer
Like everything in life a similar service or product price can vary by hundreds of presents and there’s a good reason why. It is important to understand how photography agencies price their work.
Don’t worry I will give you all the numbers you are looking for.
One thing to have in mind before jumping to the details is that you are not only paying for “just” great photos you are receiving the entire value it comes with our capabilities (experience, know-how, licensing, studio equipment), and most importantly results!
Here are a few things that impact the pricing, it’s crucial you understand and recognizes them so that you can inquire if those costs are calculated in an offer you receive.
Production Expenses
Today, there is no reason to compromise on trying to find local hotel photographers as there are only a few in the industry that has the experience and knowledge to execute large-scale projects.
We travel all around the world for our clients at minimum to no additional costs.
Travel Cost – We only charge for travel expenses if the location of your hotel or resort is outside of the main cities.
The reason is our partners travel to all major European cities on monthly basis like Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Paris, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, and so many more destinations.
Our agency partners in the US travel coast to coast on monthly basis as well.
So when would you pay for traveling expenses, usually if there’s a full production team (models, actors, makeup and hair, styling, project managers) and everything related to commercial production.
Only then you might have to bare minimal traveling expenses if your location is located outside of the city or in a remote location.
Accommodation – In most cases, accommodation is not required due to daytime photoshoots.
However, it is in the interest of the property to accommodate the staying of the team in order to have more flexibility in production time.
For remote locations, many of the hotels accommodate their photographer and production teams.
However, sometimes it is not possible due to high capacity or the property is under construction, and then we usually charge the direct cost of the closest accommodation available.
Equipment
Most professionals like us to include the gear and equipment price in the daily or project cost and do not include separate line items just for gear.
We might add it in the quote for the client to understand that the service includes all the gear, but it is a part of the overall cost.
Experience and Expertise
While it is obvious, that not every hotel photographer has international experience working with all major brands and hospitality brands and their experience may differ from ours.
I think it crucial to understand that the price does not reflect the experience it reflects the value, solution, and results derived from those.
How to tackle specific challenges and how to overcome them, and how to create better visuals that sell your property.
Basic Terminology
- Usage (duration/time) – how long will the property will use the images? 1/3/5/7 years?
- Usage (location) – local, national, or international.
- Licensing – client usage (for their needs) or buy-out (buying the rights for other users).
Pricing structure
The most common ways to price the work are based on three elements time, photo, or project.
Per time – daily pricing based on time typically 7 hours of work.
- Pros – more flexibility
- Cons – limited time frame
Per Image – per picture is common when the time requirements can be challenging and when you need an exact certain number of pictures.
- Pros – no matter how much time it takes, you get the x number of images you needed.
- Cons – some may take 30min to create some may take 3 hours at the end it’s not a con, because it balances the time between client and professional.
Per Project – for multiple days and weeks projects or with big production needs.
- Pros – you get one price for the entire project, and you know it includes all the needs.
- Cons – Committing to the entire project in advance at a reduced rate.
Can you simplify this?
It is time to say, as part of our agency values, we do not work with those complicated methods, we promise our clients streamlined, transparent, and simple-to-understand contracts.
All of our contracts include unlimited time and usage for our clients without transferring the rights to 3rd party. No long, complex, and dual-meaning terminology.
Licensing
The last part before we jump to the actual numbers is the licensing.
It’s pretty simple from the agency side and it answers the question of how many companies (3rd party) would like to enjoy/use the photos for commercial purposes, how long, and where.
Time – how long will you be using the visuals? Typically it’s 3 years and can be updated to 5/7/10 or unlimited.
We recommend asking for 5 years as a minimum, at allure captures we provide unlimited time usage for all of our projects.
Usage – pricing changes when a company aims for international or national advertising campaign usage, it’s important to clarify what is the intent of usage, offline, online, billboards, paid ads, etc.
Allure captures in most cases allow unlimited usage with most contracts.
Licensing
Lastly, who will be using the images? Only you and your corporate partners (OTA’s) or other vendors would be using those as well. (Designers, architecture firms, and other vendors on the project).
Typically unless otherwise requested, only the client can use the final product, as other vendors could purchase a license directly from the photographer saving you additional costs.
Buy-Out refers to the client buying the intellectual property of the images, meaning they are not limited in time, usage, or transfer of rights and can do with the visuals whatever they want.
This adds about 50%-100% to the project costs as it prevents us from licensing to 3rd party, note that there is not really a viable reason why to cover other 3rd party licensing unless you want to accommodate them.
It’s important to remember that there is no value to you to pay for any element that you don’t really need for the “sake of having it”.
Hotel Photographer Pricing & Cost
For Hotel Photography price will be dependent on the size of the project, licensing, number of pictures, days, and production needs (excluding talent sourcing and management) you can expect those ranges.
- Per day: 4,000-8,000 euros / USD
OR
- Per Photo: 700-1,500 euros / USD
This may include the time, travel, photography, equipment, and post-production depending on the overall price, additional licensing (buy-out) and retouching requirements may incur additional costs.
Hotel Photography Production Pricing & Cost
For Photography Agency Production prices are depending on the size of the project, the number of final images and different sets, and of course, the number of models and actors that can impact the final pricing.
This may or may not include makeup, hair, and styling.
- Half Day Production with 4 talents / 1-3 sets – 12,000-18,000 euros / USD
- Day Production with 4 talents / 3-5 sets – 18,000-28,000 euros / USD
- National and International Licensing (models & actors) – Additional 25%-50%
- National and International Licensing Paid Ads/Billboards (models & actors)- Additional 50%-100%
note: creative and talent (models and actors) charge additional compensation once their images are used for large-scale commercial production that includes paid ads and billboards in national and international campaigns.
pricing reflects industry standards not necessarily our pricing structure, it is meant to provide a range of the industry based on our experience.
