Photographer Day Rate Worksheet

It adds your Annual Salary Goal and Annual Business Expenses, then divides the total by your Billable Days Per Year. The result is shown as the Target Daily Rate in dollars, to two decimal places. With the starting values of a $75,000 salary, $15,000 in expenses and 100 billable days, the target is $900.00 per day.

Replace the starting numbers with your own: type your Annual Salary Goal ($), your Annual Business Expenses ($) and your Billable Days Per Year. Then click Calculate Daily Rate. The Target Daily Rate appears below the button. Change any figure and click again to see how it moves your rate, which is a quick way to test different scenarios.

Use the amount you want to pay yourself before income tax, as if the business were your employer. As a self-employed photographer you may also carry costs an employer would normally cover, such as health insurance, retirement savings and self-employment taxes. Including them, either in your salary goal or in your expenses, keeps the rate realistic.

Count every yearly cost of running the business: camera and lens purchases spread over their useful life, repairs, computers and storage, software subscriptions, insurance, studio or office rent, website, marketing and advertising, travel, accounting and legal fees, education, and phone and internet. Small monthly charges add up, so review a year of bank statements to catch them.

Count only days a client pays you to shoot or produce work. Editing, marketing, email, travel and bookkeeping are real work but are not billed by the day, so they reduce the days available. Testing a few values, such as 80, 100 and 120, shows how sensitive your rate is to bookings. Cutting editing time, for example with AI editing software like Imagen, frees up days you can bill.

Yes. The worksheet is free and runs entirely in your browser, so your salary and expense figures stay on your device and are never sent anywhere. There is nothing to install. The first time you use the tools, answer that you are a photographer and create or log into a free Imagen account, which unlocks every tool.