How Much Does a Quality and Worthwhile Maternity Photoshoot Cost?
Cost is a big deciding factor on who you’ll choose to photograph your maternity photoshoot, as well as what type of service you’ll invest in. So before I dive into this subject, I want you to know that I absolutely and completely understand how big of a deal it is financially to have a kid and to have baby photography. And you’ll find that all maternity photographers understand that. Many of us have been, are, or once were maternity photography clients ourselves.
I find that it can be particularly difficult to navigate pricing for an industry you don’t have much experience with. And who has that much experience with photography, besides photographers? So here’s a photographer’s deep dive into what you can expect.
How Much Can you Expect to Pay for Your Maternity Photography?
As with everything that has to do with cost, this amount is going to vary from market to market. I can only speak to my own market in the Denver metro and Northern Front Range areas.
Below are the four types of photography businesses you’ll encounter: boutique/luxury, mid-range, budget, and hobby. For each category, I indicate the average client investment and why that investment varies from the other groups in terms of service and product. I am using “average client investment” because photography pricing structure can vary quite a bit (you can read more about that here). To make things easier for this comparison, I am basing it on average spend. This is the amount that the average customer spends for one session with a maternity photographer in the corresponding category.
Boutique and Luxury Photographers
Average Client Investment
You can expect to spend over $1000 per session with a boutique and luxury photographer.
Reasons For the Cost and What You Can Expect
This is a group of photographers where you’ll find highly experienced hands. They’ve been photographing for years and know their craft well. It is also the group where you’ll find boutique businesses. These are businesses that accept fewer clients, so that they can spend more time on each client. Cookie cutter doesn’t exist here. Each session is custom. And the service level is considered high touch, which means that you’ll be guided through each step. You’ll often find custom styled sessions in this part of the market, with client closets, session specific location scouting, and custom outfit styling. Before you show up to your session, you’ll most likely have conversed with your photographer multiple times and know exactly what to expect and how to prepare. The session itself will be a reflection of your personality, because it is custom styled. The resulting images and prints will be hand edited.
The cost of working with these photographers is due to the fact that:
they have made investments in their businesses that benefit you. From high quality photography equipment to designer client closets to products and services that help them elevate their level of service for you.
they spend a lot of time preparing for your session. This could be time spent preparing you for the session, scouting locations for your session, and researching special aspects they will incorporate into your session.
they spend quite a bit of time editing. They will go through each final image and hand edit them to a high quality. This could mean that they include basic retouching, special light adjustments, and much more.
Mid-Range and Medium Volume Photographers
Average Client Investment
You can expect to spend between $500 and $800 per session with a mid-range photographer.
Reasons For the Cost and What You Can Expect
These are photographers who have been in business for quite some time and are also quite experienced. Usually the reason they are in this range is because they don’t have as custom of services and don’t have a level of service considered high touch. With mid-range photographers, they do need to streamline more things in their process because to pay the bills they need to take more clients than boutique photographers. You’ll find quality photography in this range, but most likely a more limited selection of locations and no client closet. Some outfit styling in the form of a style guide may be provided, but you probably won’t find much in the way of custom styling.
The cost of working with these photographers is due to the fact that:
they don’t spend as much time with each client as boutique photographers, but more time than budget photographers do.
they are experienced and provide a selection of locations and options for their clients. It just won’t be as broad as a boutique photographer.
they have spent time scouting locations and understand how to style sessions, so that the resulting images look fabulous. It won’t be as custom as boutique photographers, but it will be more extensive than budget.
they spend time working with you prior to your session via email and are there if you have questions.
they apply their own presets to images, so they will have a unique look to their images in comparison with other photographers and their own style. They will adjust for basic things like exposure and white balance. They will most likely not hand edit images.
Budget and High Volume Photographers
Average Client Investment
You can expect to spend between $250 and $400 per session with a budget photographer.
Reasons For the Cost and What You Can Expect
This is your JC Penney. Although I believe JC Penney prices are a little higher than this. These photographers are usually newer in the business. Or they are experienced, but have opted to be high volume and offer more sessions than the above two categories. This means that things will be streamlined here. I want to be clear. It doesn’t mean that you’ll get bad service. The service will just look different. It is more cookie cutter and less custom. You’ll get some support before your session, but it will be more DIY. And the resulting images will be minimally edited or not edited at all. Often the photographers referred to as “shoot and burn” are part of this group. That is a term used for photographers who will download the images and give them straight to you as is. If they are a skilled photographer, the images will be close to ready for printing. But if they are not particularly skilled, the images will need to be adjusted in order to look good when printed.
The cost of working with these photographers is due to the fact that:
they spend less time with each client, so their labor costs are lower.
they do not provide extra services, like outfit styling or client closets.
Hobby Photographers
Average Client Investment
You can expect to spend less than $200 per session with a hobby photographer.
Reasons For the Cost and What You Can Expect
I wasn’t sure if I should’ve included this group or not in this post, but I feel like to be educated on the subject you need to be aware of this market. This is the only group of photographers I will say, “proceed with caution.” The above groups are all licensed, fully legal, and legitimate businesses. They are just different business models. This group on the other hand is people who are most likely not legal businesses. This can cause you legal and financial headaches. With that said, if you know the photographer personally and can trust them, it is worth investigating this as an option. Just know that photography is a skill that takes time to master and I’d interview them thoroughly first.
Photographers That Are More Than One
To make matters more confusing, photographers sometimes will be in more than one of the categories above. For example, their full sessions are in the mid-range, but they also offer mini sessions in the budget category. What this can mean for you is that there may be a level of service they provide that is within your budget, even if their full service is outside your budget. It also means getting to know their websites well and/or asking questions, so that you know the differences between the levels of service and are able to make the right decision for you.
Other Pricing Information and Considerations
Now that you have an idea of what your maternity photography might cost, I encourage you to check out other blog posts that might help you navigate pricing:
Sara Herkes is a maternity, newborn, family, and senior photographer based in Longmont, CO. She serves the the Denver Metro Area, the Colorado Rockies, and the Northern Front Range and captures your pregnancy amidst the Colorado wilderness. Learn more about her services here.
The Ultimate Maternity Guide
Check out these blog posts for more:
