How Much Do Real Estate Photographers Make?

Two-thirds of photographers work for themselves, so a salary figure only goes so far. This guide shows what the official numbers cover, then works out what a freelance real estate photographer actually keeps, per shoot, per hour and per year, using numbers you can swap for your own.

What does the BLS say photographers earn?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't track real estate photographers separately. Its figures are for photographers of every kind, from newspaper staff to school-portrait studios:

The catch is in the BLS's own fine print: these pay figures don't include self-employed workers, because the survey behind them only asks employers. So the median describes the third of photographers on a payroll, not the two-thirds running their own business. If you shoot listings for yourself, it isn't describing you. Use it as a sanity check on what a photography job pays, not as a forecast of what you'll make.

How much does a real estate photographer make per shoot?

Your price minus your costs. Business costs (gear wearing out, software, insurance, driving, and everything else) come to about $8,300 a year in the defaults of our pricing calculator: $2,000 gear, $1,000 software, $800 insurance, $3,000 vehicle and $1,500 for the rest. Spread over 288 shoots a year, that's about $29 a shoot. So a $200 shoot leaves about $171 before tax, and a $250 shoot about $221.

Add-ons sold on the same visit raise that number without another drive. Drone, a floor plan or a hosted tour each earns at least your hourly rate when priced the way the calculator does it. Twilight is the exception: it's usually a second trip at dusk, so price in the drive.

How much do real estate photographers make a year?

Here's the same business at four prices, six shoots a week for 48 weeks (288 shoots), with $8,300 in yearly costs and 25% set aside for taxes. These are example prices, not a survey of what photographers charge; rates vary a lot by market.

The last row is the calculator's default answer run forward: to keep $60,000 at this volume, you need about $310 for an average home.

Volume moves the number as much as price. At $250 a shoot with the same costs:

Read the 10-a-week row with care. Costs don't stay flat at that volume (more driving, more gear wear, often paid editing), and ten shoots at 3.5 hours each is 35 hours a week before you answer an email. Outsourcing the edit is one way to get there; it turns hours back into a cost.

How much do they make per hour?

Count every hour a shoot takes, not just time on site. An average home is about an hour to 90 minutes on site, but driving, editing and delivery bring it to around 3.5 hours all in, the calculator's default. At six shoots a week that's 1,008 hours a year, about 21 hours a week, roughly half of a full-time job's 2,080. So at $200 a shoot:

• About $49 an hour of profit before tax ($49,300 ÷ 1,008)
• About $37 an hour take-home after a 25% set-aside

That looks well above the BLS median of $21.47, but it isn't a like-for-like comparison. The hours above leave out marketing, bookkeeping, quoting and the shoots that fall through, none of which anyone pays for. And an employee's wage comes with an employer paying half of Social Security and Medicare, plus any benefits. Self-employed, you pay the whole 15.3% self-employment tax (12.4% Social Security, 2.9% Medicare) on top of income tax, and you buy your own health insurance.

Why does take-home vary so much between photographers?

• Price. The same week of work at $150 and at $310 is the difference between about $26,000 and $61,000 take-home in the table above. Underpricing is the most expensive habit in the business; see how much to charge for real estate photography.
• Booked volume. Steady weekly volume comes from repeat agents, not one-off listings. Our guide to finding real estate photography clients covers how photographers build it.
• Add-ons per listing. Drone, floor plans, video and tours raise the average ticket on the same visit.
• Hours per shoot. A faster edit is a raise. Cutting a shoot from 3.5 to 3 hours all in lifts the hourly figure by about a sixth at the same price.
• Costs. A subscription you pay for in slow months, or gear bought before the work needs it, comes straight out of take-home.

Is real estate photography a good business?

It can be, if the numbers close in your market. Before you buy gear, put three numbers into the pricing calculator: what you want to keep, what you'll spend, and how many shoots a week you can honestly book. If the minimum price it gives you is near what established photographers near you already charge, the business works. If it's far above, you'll need more volume, more add-ons or lower costs. Our guide to starting a real estate photography business covers the first steps, and what insurance costs covers one of the costs new photographers leave out.

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