Do Wedding Photographers make a lot money?
Hi friends, thanks again for coming to the wedding blog.
Today, we’re talking about the wedding industry and more specifically about wedding photographers and wedding videographers. Many couples think that the cost of the professional is overwhelming and in many cases, couples have this belief that vendors make a lot of money.
In very few cases that’s true, although most in the industry make an average living and today we’re going to explain what it takes to run a wedding photo or video business and how much you can make after you pay for everything.
The answer may surprise you.
How Much Income Can a Wedding Photographer Make Annually?
The Short Answer:
Extremely good wedding photographer’s can bring in $100,000 per year or more if they are in high demand and offer exceptional images to their clients.
Most however, bring in far less and the wedding industry has become over saturated with photographer’s in the last 5 to 7 years due to low cost in technology compared to years past.
The Longer Answer:
A good wedding photographer, a really good one can make more than $100,000 each year.
That’s doing 20 weddings a year at $5,000 each.
In our part of Virginia, the Roanoke-Lynchburg marketplace, that’s very rare, but when you compare that to prices in the Washington DC metro area for example, it’s more commonplace than you think and that’s a 230 mile drive up the road.
With that level of expertise however, you need a LOT of VERY expensive gear and upkeep.
Realistically in our area however, the average price of a wedding photographer is closer to $1,800. When you multiple that by 20 weddings a year, you’re looking at $36,000 annually.
$100,000 vs. $36,000 is a large spread and even more so if you’re a husband and wife team.
Someone starting out just to get a job is going to undercharge around $500 or so. When they do 20 weddings a year, that’s $10,000 a year, less than poverty wages.
What Does it Cost in Gear to be a Wedding Photographer?
Camera Bodies
Generally speaking, the more expensive you are, the better equipment you are going to have and the more that gear will cost. For example, someone that’s going to charge $500 will not have a $45,000 camera like the Hasselblad H6D-400c.
In fact, someone that’s under $1,000 will many times start with a $500 camera like the Canon 7t or the Nikon D3500. These are starter or budget cameras with very limited capabilities in what they do and many times are limited in the wedding industry.
For the average professional, they’re going to buy something like a $1,500-$5,000 Nikon D5, Canon 5D IV, a Sony a7iii or a Panasonic S1. A smart pro will also have a secondary camera which is usually cheaper and smaller.
Carole, for example, has a Sony a7ii and I have a Panasonic G9 as our backup camera systems. Her main camera body is the Sony a7iii and mine is the Panasonic S1.
Carole’s Sony A7iii and My Panasonic S1. Both are full frame camera systems.
Cameras come in all price ranges, sensor sizes and capabilities in what they can do. A larger sensor, like a full frame will produce a better images than a smaller sensor found in a $500 Canon 7t for example.
So, someone charging $5,000 for a wedding is much more likely to have a medium format camera, which produces the best images and the largest files too, some as much as 100mb per image!
Camera Lenses
And we’re not even getting into lenses, those can many times cost as much or more than the camera bodies themselves. Without getting too technical, a good photographer will have a good prime lens and a good zoom lens.
Carole is a Sony owner and I’m a Panasonic owner.
Carole for example has a 50mm Prime lens, a 35mm Prime and a 24-70mm zoom. Those three together cost more than $2,000.
I have a 35mm Prime and a 20-60mm zoom and those cost $2,100 together.
You can see that camera lenses are not cheap by any means and you need a few of them in order to be able to produce good images for the wedding.
On average, a wedding photo professional will have anywhere from $2,000-$5,000+ in lenses when they come to your wedding.
For high end professionals, those lenses can easily cost in the neighborhood of $20,000+ each. You can go very cheap on lenses too, picking up basic ones for as little as $100, although they’re not going to produce a very good image compared to a professional lens would.
The Miscellaneous Gear
There is a ton of related gear that pros will often purchase.
These would include inexpensive line items like batteries and memory cards to more expensive options like remote flashes, tripods and monopods.
Many of the added gear pieces are not truly needed, although they are helpful in those situations that do arise. The more commonsense items like extra batteries and memory cards are a given here.
Most will have flashes, bags and things of that sort which would range in a few hundred dollars or more.
What’s the Average Cost in Gear a Photographer will Bring to our Wedding?
Low End
A low-end professional will bring about $1,500-$2,500 worth of gear. Many are not going to have a second camera on hand as a backup, so that’s something to be aware of and ask when booking them.
Average
Most will bring a range of total pricing from $5,000-$15,000. They’ll have multiple lenses, bodies and some additional gear for those ‘what-if’s’ that sometime happen.
High End
Your high-end wedding photographer can bring easily $30,000 to $80,000 or more to your wedding. These will have a second shooter and even a third person to help in general.
What kind of Overhead Costs do Wedding Photographer’s Have?
The Short Answer
There are a wide range of overhead costs, but most will include things like the software used to edit and the means to deliver the images, either online or via media such as USB.
The Long Answer
Ah, the long answer. Things like rent, internet, computer systems and software, business card, wedding shows, advertising and marketing can all play a part in the overhead costs. Even the basics can eat into the profits and you also have to pay taxes and also set aside a portion of the money made to replace your gear too, that’s important.
In a typical year an average wedding photography company can very easily burn through $20,400+ in overhead.
Wedding Photographer Overhead
How Much Profit Can a Wedding Photographer Make Each Year?
For those that bring in $100,000, they’re going to pay roughly $14,129.55 in Federal and state taxes. Toss in the overhead at another $12,000 or so, and you have a profit of about $73,000.
That doesn’t really take into account the higher-end gear that you need to replace nor the large amount of money for the wedding shows that you’ll do too, although its a good reference to start with the standard $12,000 overhead.
Looking at a mid-range photographer making $36,000 will pay $5,086.64 in FICA and that $12,000 in remaining overhead. That leaves you with a measly $19,000 in profit.
Many mid-range pros don’t make a great deal of money after the fact, while those making $100,000 or more tend to do very well in larger market areas.
The Competition
Perhaps the biggest issue with wedding photographers in just about all regions is the over saturation of ‘professionals’ that have come into the marketplace in recent years.
In fact, if you check out any Wedding Wire region, there are usually more photographers than there are wedding venues!
That has to do with the technology, it’s become much cheaper to operate than in years past, there is no film to process and you can get a low-end camera for about $500 (although I wouldn’t recommend buying one or shooting a wedding with one).
That’s not a problem for brides looking to book a professional, in fact it’s great!
“Having a sea full of photographers allows couples to be much more picky about who they’d like to hire and their wedding budgets too.”
If you’re a regular on the blog, then you know that I’ve studied the effects of having too many vendors saturate one marketplace, it keeps the prices extremely low and most tend to have short lived careers in the industry.
Take Orlando for example.
It was once a great market for having a wedding, but in recent years, it’s become a hotbed for shootings weddings for literally nothing at all, just a couple hundred bucks. I’ve even seen them listed for just $99, can you believe that!?!
The first thing that comes to mind with that is, what’s the catch and why is it so cheap?
There has to be a catch or something wrong with paying just $100 for wedding photos, I mean would you buy a car for $100? In your mind you’d be asking yourself Okay, what’s wrong with it?
Well, price has somewhat to do with the number of vendors in that region, their experience, their value and of course the amount of time it takes to do the wedding.
In Orlando, there are 1.46 wedding photographer’s for every single venue.
In the Charleston, SC region, there is 0.85 ratio of photographer’s to venues. And in my region, Roanoke, there is a 1.10 ratio to venues.
Those numbers are not that great for Richmond/Roanoke and Orlando, although that’s wonderful for a place like Charleston, SC.
Value is something that is perceived.
The Time You Don’t See
Part of that cost is the amount of time that you work a wedding and couples only see part of what we do as professionals. For example, before the wedding, you’re hopefully prepping.
Charing batteries, clearing out memory cards, cleaning lenses and sensors, testing out the gear, tightening down loose bolts on things like tripods and monopods, updating any firmware, getting all the information together and getting your game plan for the day together.
That can range from 1-3 hours depending on the professional.
Then, you have the wedding day, ranging form just a few hours time to much longer days into the 10-12 hour timeframe, sometimes more.
What couples don’t see is the backend work we do.
In video for example, for every hour we are there at the wedding, normally two hours are spent dumping footage, sorting, logging, making backup copies of the work and of course editing.
It’s very similar in wedding photography, although not as intense.
My point is that couples don’t see the countless hours that go into just one wedding and it’s a lot more than just showing up and taking images or video for the day.
Let Us Know Your Thoughts?
So, what do you think about wedding photographers now? Has it changed your perception about the business and making lots of money?
Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!