How the calculator works
The logic is deliberately simple and fully visible, so the number is one you can stand behind in front of a couple:
- Real hours per wedding = shooting + editing & culling + admin, travel and delivery. Editing is usually the biggest and most under-counted block.
- Your time = those hours × the hourly wage you want for yourself.
- Overhead per wedding = your annual fixed costs ÷ how many weddings you actually shoot in a year. Fewer weddings means each one has to carry more overhead.
- Cost floor = your time + overhead. This is break-even — the point where the wedding pays your wage and your bills, and nothing more.
- Tiers add your profit markup on top of the floor for the Essential package, then space Signature and Full above it.
Change any input and every figure updates instantly. Nothing here is pulled from a survey, a competitor, or a "national average" — the honesty of the number is the whole point, and it's what makes it defensible.
Why price from cost instead of the market
Copying whoever's nearby anchors you to their costs, tax situation and speed. A cost-plus floor is built from your own life, so it protects your time even in a slow month. Published local averages are still useful — but as a sanity check on the number your costs produce, never as the starting point. For the full reasoning behind this method, read how much to charge for wedding photography.
Turning tiers into a booking
Three tiers change the couple's question from "should we book?" to "which one?". But the price only becomes a booking when the couple can say yes and pay a deposit in the same moment — a confusing PDF or a "let me get back to you" loses momentum. That's the gap an interactive quote is built to close, and where a deposit collected on the spot turns a maybe into a reserved date.
Questions
How is the price floor calculated?
The floor is your break-even per wedding: total real hours × your target hourly wage, plus your annual fixed costs ÷ weddings per year. Selling below it means paying to work. Every figure comes only from your inputs.
Does this use average market prices?
No. The calculator never uses market averages, survey data or competitor prices. The pre-filled numbers are clearly-labelled examples for you to overwrite — the output is entirely your own math.
Why three tiers instead of one price?
A single price invites haggling; three tiers change the question from whether to book to which package. The middle tier is the one most couples pick, and the top tier anchors the range so the middle feels reasonable.