Hire Photographers pricing

Before you ask

The questions that come up on most hire photographers inquiries.

Can you shoot a free sample?

No, and any studio offering to is not going to do it properly — a shoot has a real fixed cost before the shutter moves. What we do instead is edit two images you already have, free and color-matched. It is a genuine test of the same eye and the same standard.

Why does a color reference matter so much?

Because without one, matching a reshoot to the original is guesswork, and a category grid shows the mismatch immediately. A calibrated target photographed in every session costs nothing and makes the whole range matchable months later. It is the cheapest insurance in product photography.

What do you need from us before the shoot?

The products, in the packaging they ship in, cleaned and steamed and assembled. Plus a shot list, references for the look, and where the images will be used at what crop. Prep takes longer than anyone expects, and doing it on the shoot day costs studio time you are paying for.

Do we need model releases?

For commercial use of a recognizable person in the United States, generally yes, and several states have their own right-of-publicity statutes. Some property and trademarked buildings need releases too. We handle them on shoots we run. If you are supplying imagery, the release is your responsibility and we will ask whether one exists.

What usage am I buying?

Whatever is written into the quote — where, for how long, and in what territory. Usage is priced separately from the shoot, and it is where a cheap quote usually turns expensive later. If a campaign runs longer or wider than licensed, renegotiating at short notice costs a premium. Reading the release at the start costs nothing.

Is the free trial really free?

Yes. What the trial covers differs by discipline — two images, a 30-second cut of your own footage, one mastered episode, a technical review of a page you already own — and each service page says which one applies. No card, no invoice, no subscription that starts quietly afterward. It is done by the same people who would do the paid job, to the same standard, because a trial that flatters the work is useless to both of us.

How fast can you turn work around?

Most image work comes back in 6 to 24 hours. Video and 3D depend on the shot and the length, and we tell you the turnaround in the quote rather than after you have committed. If you have a deadline that cannot move, say so in the brief. We will tell you honestly whether we can hit it.

How do you price the work?

By what the job actually involves, not an average. A clipping path around a box and one around a bicycle are different amounts of work, and so are a two-minute explainer and a two-minute product film. The unit differs by discipline: per image, per finished minute, per episode, per product, per project, or monthly for retained work. Every service has a pricing page with our published rates and the US market ranges beside them, so you can sanity-check any quote including ours.