What a Commercial Photo Shoot Actually Costs in San Francisco and Los Angeles
From someone who bids them every week.
Almost nobody in my industry publishes numbers and I understand why. Every job is different, clients compare apples to oranges, and there's a fear that the number scares people off before the conversation starts.
I've decided the opposite is true. The people who email me usually already know roughly what they can spend. What they don't know is what a number buys them, and that's where the bad experiences come from: a "day rate" that turned out to be a fraction of the real cost, or a $900 shoot that produced images nobody could use. So here's how commercial photography is actually priced in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, from my own estimates, with real ranges.
One caveat up front: these are numbers from my business accumulated over the last five years, for brand and campaign work in San Francisco, Sonoma, Napa, and the greater Bay Area all the way down to Los Angeles. My clients range from food and beverage to hospitality and lifestyle. A photographer in a different market, or with a different kind of client, will land somewhere else. But the structure is universal, and the structure is the part worth understanding.
The question I actually ask: what are the stakes?
Photographers price from a few places. "What do I need to charge to pay my bills?" (math on running a business). "Where and for how long will the images be used?" (usage). These are valid and they're real questions, but none alone is the key that is going to unlock the secret to what you should actually charge.
The question to ask yourself is this: what are the stakes?
If you get this wrong, what does the client lose? On some shoots the honest answer is a few hours or a day of their time and a few hundred dollars. On others, the answer is a product launch, a season of advertising, the $500,000 they spent on the production, or a million dollars of media spend. These examples are not the same job, and they should not be priced the same way. And if I am being honest, if a shoot goes south and the images are not usable on a high stakes job, someone who hired you is also losing their job.
Which turns the question around onto the photographer: are you experienced enough that when a million-dollar budget is put on your shoulders, you (and your team) can produce exactly what the client needs, no matter the pressure or the circumstances? Rain, a location falling through, talent running late, an art director changing the brief at noon? And those images you make are still completely consistent with your style and portfolio! If the answer is yes, that is worth a lot, and you charge for it. If the stakes are lower, the pressure is lower, and there's less to lose, the numbers can be smaller. Both are legitimate, but pretending they're the same is where clients get burned.
That's why my creative fee ranges from $1,500 for small editorial and local magazine work to more than $10,000 a day for a national campaign. Same camera. Completely different stakes.
The anatomy of an estimate
Every estimate I send is itemized, because a single number hides the decisions you should get to make. Mine break down the same way every time, whether the total is two thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars. I use BlinkBid to make my estimates, and I would say it's the standard software for bidding and estimating in this industry.
Creative fee. This is what you're paying for me (the photographer and/or director): the direction, the eye, the experience running a set under pressure. These are the number ranges I cited above. It scales with the stakes, usage, and creative scope. A two-hour social shoot, natural light, just me and no crew, social-only use might run around $1,800 for my fees. A full day of stills on location with a crew and solid creative direction: mid four figures per day. A national campaign where I'm also directing motion: $7,500 to $10,000 a day and up, with prep days and a tech scout billed as their own lines, because they're real days of work. Fees are based on a ten-hour day unless the estimate says otherwise.
Occasionally photographers will work for partial or half days, but crew on a commercial shoot is billed at a full ten-hour day rate regardless of whether they are on set for four hours or ten. They're giving up a whole other day where they could have received that day rate to be on your set. It's not (and shouldn't be) their problem that you only need them for four hours.
Usage. You're licensing the images for a defined purpose: how long, where in the world, which media, and whether anyone else can use them. Sometimes usage is its own line on the estimate, sometimes it's wrapped into the creative fee. It depends on the project, the term, and the territory. A family-owned winery's email, website, and social channels for a few years is a very different license than asking for "five years, North America, print and online" for a restaurant chain, or a five-year digital buyout for a national brand, and the usage number reflects that. On national work, usage is often its own four- to five-figure line, with renewal options priced per year so the client only buys the time they need. Large-format print (billboards, bus wraps, anything over a few feet) and broadcast are higher-ticket usage asks and always deserve their own conversation. This isn't a trick. It's the difference between paying for what you need and paying for everything you might someday want.
When a client asks for a "buyout", or anything in their contract mentions "work for hire," that is them asking to own your copyright. Usually you can spend some time educating them on work for hire vs. usage in perpetuity. Only once in my career have I sold my copyright to a client, and I sold it for four times my day rate. Whatever they are asking, you need to understand it and you need to charge accordingly for each. The AMA (Artist Management Association) has a free comprehensive guide to understanding usage and a list of usage terms. It's an incredible resource for photographers, clients, and agents.
Crew. Crew is everyone that makes a commercial set actually run and function. An assistant on a commercial shoot day is not optional. They run lights and manage real-time needs on set while you are directing, building rapport with talent, or communicating with the creatives or clients at the monitor, and they keep the day moving. Assistants in the Bay Area and Los Angeles run from $650 a day for a second assistant to $1,200 a day for a lighting tech, plus the payroll and workers' comp California requires on top. A digital tech, who runs the capture station so the client sees frames as we go, is $750 to $950 per day. Motion adds a DP ($1,500 to $4,500 a day depending on the job), a first AC, and a DIT. And on larger shoots the production side has its own crew: a producer at $1,200 to $1,400 a day for a week or more of prep, a production manager, a coordinator, a first AD, production assistants, and a studio teacher whenever there are kids on set. Payroll runs about 27 percent on top of all of it.
Talent. If there are people in the frame and they need to be released for commercial use, they get paid. Professional talent starts around $700 a day plus a usage fee. Depending on the campaign and the usage the client is asking for, this can start at $700 per person and run up to several thousand, plus a 20 percent agency fee. High-end talent is more. Just like photographers, professional talent doesn't hand over broad usage without a price that reflects it. Casting is its own line, because someone has to source and find the talent who fit the client's specs. For smaller, easy-to-cast shoots (think a couple in their thirties drinking wine at a winery) you could be looking at as little as $1,500 to cast a one-day shoot. To cast a multi-day campaign with video casting and specific casting specs, you are looking at $10,000 and up. On a campaign with twenty people on camera over two days, talent is a serious share of the budget.
Styling. Food, prop, hair and makeup, and wardrobe stylists are what make a frame look like the thing you're selling instead of a snapshot of it. Day rates for stylists run from about $950 for smaller and editorial work to $1,600, and specialty stylists can sometimes be $3,500 or more per day. Stylists also usually work with assistants, who run between $450 and $650 a day in the San Francisco and Los Angeles markets. Both stylists and their assistants need prep and wrap days, not just the shoot day; on a multi-day national campaign a wardrobe or prop stylist can be on for six to twelve days. And the stuff they bring is a separate line item altogether from their fees. Prop rental and purchase for a dinner table might be $500. Prop purchase and rental to dress, say, a bedroom in a home and make it into a nursery for a diaper brand might be $6,500. A multi-day campaign might budget wardrobe at $450 to $850 per look. Wardrobe and prop purchases on a large commercial job can easily pass $10,000.
Production. Somebody has to find the location, pull the permits (San Francisco and Los Angeles require them for more than you'd expect), book the talent, feed the crew, and solve the thing that goes wrong at 9 a.m. On a small shoot with no talent on it, that can be me, and it's a few hundred dollars of insurance, meals, and mileage. On a campaign shoot with lots of moving parts, a producer is always needed and can be provided by the agency or the client, or it could be a freelance partner who I bring on. Some example production line items could look like: a home location at $4,000 to $5,000 a day, permits at $500 to $1,500 a day, a motorhome for talent and wardrobe at $1,350 to $2,000 a day, crew parking, floor protection, security, catering at $50 to $85 a head for forty people, and a contingency. Production is the line clients most often underestimate, and it's the one that determines whether the day goes smoothly.
Equipment. Camera and lens rental alone starts around $500 a day. A tethered capture system, so the client can see frames on a monitor as we shoot, runs $700 to $2,000 and up depending on playback needs. Lighting and grip is a huge range, from a few hundred dollars for a simple day to $2,500 a day with a large grip truck on a campaign. A photographer who owns their own kit may discount it to meet a budget; it's one of the only line items we can dip into without truly affecting the bottom line of what we can do and make on set. A motion camera package is its own $2,000 a day. All in, gear is anywhere from $450 to $3,500 or more a day, and the number reflects how much it takes to execute the project.
Post-production. Processing and delivery (selects, color, cropping) runs $250 to $750 depending on the volume of images. Retouching is separate, and it runs on two tracks. On local work I bill it hourly, from $85 an hour, and I manage the notes and the rounds myself so the client doesn't have to interact with a retoucher. On agency and campaign work, retouching is bid per image, starting around $150 and running to $300 and up depending on what the image needs and how many rounds of feedback are built in. Video editing and color grading are their own lines. Social edits start at $350 per reel. For my clients, they are never obligated to run post-production through me, and I am happy to hand over files for them to edit in-house.
One honest thing about right now
Crew rates have gone up across the board in the last few years. As much as I love seeing our hard-working, amazing crew members getting paid what they are worth, budgets are tighter than ever at the same time, and there is less work going around than there was. That makes the market feel contradictory: the standard is higher than it has ever been. When things are slow, people will sometimes take less to keep working, photographers included. That is true of every industry, and it is not a secret.
What I would say is this: the broad and complicated ranges here are why people don't usually talk about these things openly and transparently. You must have a lot of experience and understand the nuances of production to bid jobs. These are the numbers as I have them, in my experience, from my archive of proposals and estimates over the last five years, and this is what the work costs to do well. A quote far below them is not always a red flag, but it usually means something on the list above isn't there: the assistant, the stylist, the usage, the insurance, the prep days. Sometimes that is fine for the job. The stakes question is how you know when it isn't.
Five real shoots
These are composites of jobs I've bid in the last five years, rounded.
The small one. Two hours on location for a winery: portraits of the owners, the tasting room in use, all natural light. Just me, video and stills, and a few short social edits. About $1,500 to $2,500 all in.
The full day. A full day for a food brand: product on location, the people who make it, a few portraits, product in its natural environment. Me, an assistant, lighting and grip, image processing, mileage, usage defined and included. No stylist, no digital tech. Stills only. About $5,000 to $7,000.
The styled two-day. Two days for a winery: a studio day for bottles and tabletop, a location day for the tasting room, guests, and the team. Me, an assistant, a digital tech so the client can approve frames on set, a prop stylist with a prep day and a wrap day and a $500 to $1,500 prop budget, studio rental, insurance, processing, mileage, usage defined and included. Stills, with a few social clips if time allows. About $13,000 to $27,000 all in. This is the job I bid more than any other. My bread and butter, if you will.
The produced campaign. One ten-hour day at a home location for a national brand: a producer for a week of prep, a food and prop stylist with an assistant for four days, perhaps a wardrobe stylist with wardrobe sourcing and purchase, hair and makeup, four recognizable talent with session and usage fees, $4,000 in props, $3,000 in wardrobe, full lighting, insurance, meals, etc., etc., etc. About $40,000 to $140,000 all in, and my fee is a small piece of that. The range on this one is large because this is an example of where usage for national campaigns can really come into play and change the bottom line. When we add a motion crew, a tech scout, and a prep day, the top of that range is where it lands.
The national campaign. Two to five shoot days on location for a national brand, stills and motion, with a tech scout and prep days ahead of it. A producer and production team for two weeks, a full photo crew plus a DP and camera department, wardrobe, prop, and food stylists each on for a week or two, hair and makeup, casting and twelve to twenty released talent with usage, locations at several thousand dollars a day, permits, a motorhome, catering for fifty-plus people (breakfast and lunch), and a multi-year usage license as its own line. $250,000 and up. My fees, including prep, scout, shoot days, and usage, are roughly ten to fifteen percent of that. The rest is the machine that makes it possible to deliver under that kind of pressure, which is the whole point of the stakes question.
What moves the number
- The stakes. Everything above flows from this one.
- Usage. Longer terms, more territories, more media, broadcast, and exclusivity all cost more.
- People in the frame. Real, released, professional talent is the biggest variable after the fee itself.
- Styling. A stylist is worth every dollar on food, product, and wardrobe, and their prep days are real days.
- Motion. Adding video to a stills day means a second camera package, often a DP and gaffer, and post. Doing both in one production is far cheaper than two productions, but it's not free.
- Setups vs. deliverables. Ten finished images from one setup is a very different day from ten images from ten setups.
- Production. Whether someone is producing the shoot properly, and who.
- Overtime. Every number above assumes ten hours. Crew and talent go into overtime after that, by law.
How to get an accurate estimate fast
With my clients, I send an itemized estimate within 48 hours of a short call. I rarely, if ever, send estimates without getting on a call first.
Here are the general questions (in no particular order) that need to be answered before an estimate can be made and sent:
- What the images are for (website, social, paid ads, packaging, print, broadcast, etc.) and for how long. This is usage.
- Roughly how many finished images or setups you need. Is this a "library," meaning the client gets all the images, or are they licensing ten selects?
- Whether there will be people in the frame, and whether they're real customers, staff, or hired talent.
- Where you're thinking of shooting, or whether you need me or someone on my production team to find it.
- A date window, so I can hold the time for you.
- Who's producing it. Will you produce it, will I bring on a producer, do we need one at all? Most marketing teams, agencies, and clients don't have the time (or, honestly, the experience) to properly execute production, and more and more clients are seeing the value in a producer, or at minimum a line item for me to self-produce on a smaller project. Not every job needs one. A small studio day or a run-and-gun location shoot with no talent can usually go without if the client is willing to take the lead with coordination and logistics. It all depends, and it's a question that needs to be settled right from the beginning.
That's it. No budget required, though if you have one, telling me saves everyone time. The estimate comes back with every line visible, and we shape it together before anything is booked.
If you're planning something, I'd love to hear about it.
A few more resources for help and support with the bidding process:
AMA (Artist Management Association)
APA (American Photographic Artists)
Wonderful Machine
A Photo Editor