Recently I was participating in a thread in one of the photo communities that I enjoy, and the subject of the cost of doing business came up. I decided to take a serious look into the costs associated with being an event or wedding photographer. Turns out, the costs associated that I could determine made me appreciate even more the fact that I am a hobbyist/enthusiast and not a pro – I couldn’t survive on this salary and with that kind of workload!
Anyway, I thought I’d share the results of my calculations here, and hear what others have to say. Am I too high in my estimation? Too low? Did I miss any expenses? Are some unrealistic? (I don’t know how much health insurance is if you are not part of an employer plan…)
I categorized the costs into various groupings to include:
- Hourly Commitment
- Gear Investment
- Educational Investment
- Advertising Investment
- Miscellaneous Expenses
Is there anything else? See the attached Excel spreadsheet and plug your own numbers in! (I made columns C, D and E formulas so everything should adjust out for you…) In the meantime, Happy Shooting, and I hope all your shots are good ones!
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Jason! You’re in my head! Thanks for the spreadsheet!
those green thing look an awful lot like a class 9 sub
= )
The link to your Excel sheet seems to be broken.
@Janine – too funny, glad you enjoyed it
@Mike – I kinda liked it, and for clipart, I wasn’t expecting too much!
@ AJ Are you trying to open the spreadsheet in the browser? I set it up to download, so a CMD-click or right-click (Mac/PC) should save it for you.
Link is broken… Can you please fix it?
Hi Milan,
It’s not viewable in a browser – on Windows, right-click and choose “Save Link As”. On Mac CTRL-click and do the same. That should get the Excel file for you…
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