Clients usually arrive with one question: “How much will it cost?” — and they want to hear a single number. The problem is that content shooting has no unit of measurement. You can pay 20,000 roubles and cover a month of publishing, or pay 20,000 roubles and get five beautiful frames with nowhere to put them.
So instead of an “average Moscow price”, let me break down the structure: what you’re paying for, how volume is calculated, and how to budget for your specific task.
Three Ways to Pay for Content
By time. An hourly rate. Suitable when the scope is unclear — for example, you need to shoot the office and see what comes out.
By package. A fixed sum for shooting hours and a set number of edited frames. The most predictable option: you know both the result and the price in advance.
By volume over a period. One shoot per quarter, calculated to cover several months of publishing. The lowest cost per frame, but it requires planning.
What It Costs with Me
| Package | Time | Retouched photos | Source files | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Hourly" | 1 hour | 5 | 30 | 20,000 ₽ |
| "Flagship" | up to 2 hours | 20 | all | 35,000 ₽ |
| "First Class" | up to 5 hours | 50 | all | 65,000 ₽ |
| Additional retouched frame | — | 1 | — | 1,000 ₽ |
The price includes a consultation before the shoot, help with looks and posing, editing and the archive. It doesn’t include studio hire or a make-up artist — I can arrange those separately if needed.
The Key Figure Is the Price per Frame
Let’s calculate the cost of a retouched frame in each package:
- “Hourly”: 20,000 ÷ 5 = 4,000 ₽ per frame
- “Flagship”: 35,000 ÷ 20 = 1,750 ₽ per frame
- “First Class”: 65,000 ÷ 50 = 1,300 ₽ per frame
That’s a threefold difference — with identical editing quality. The reason is simple: preparation, lighting setup and travel take roughly the same time regardless of how many frames you end up with. So a short shoot is almost always more expensive per frame.
The practical conclusion: if you need content regularly, the larger package is better value not because the photographer gave a discount, but because you’re not paying repeatedly for the same preparation.
How to Budget for Your Task
A four-step formula:
- Publishing frequency. How many posts a week you can genuinely sustain — not in theory, but in a busy month.
- The share of photos. What proportion of posts is visual rather than text, video or reposts. Usually half to two-thirds.
- The horizon. How many weeks of reserve you need. Sensible is 8–12 weeks.
- A margin. Add a quarter on top: some frames won’t work, some will go to other channels.
Example: five posts a week, three of them with a photograph, covering 12 weeks. That’s 36 frames plus a margin — around 45. That’s the “First Class” package at 50 frames, so 65,000 ₽ per quarter, roughly 21,700 ₽ a month.
What the Price Is Made Of
Preparation. The brief, the shot list, the moodboard, choosing the location. That’s time before the shoot, and it’s included in the price.
Shooting time. Lighting setup, blocks of frames, costume changes, moving furniture.
Editing. Colour correction and retouching. In content with people, retouching takes longer than the shooting itself.
Formats. Crops for each channel are separate work that often goes uncounted.
Rights. Being able to use the photos in advertising broadens the licence and affects the price.
Why Cheaper Isn’t Better Value
A cheap shoot almost always means one of three things: few frames, no crops, or editing that isn’t brought to a consistent look. The result is that you either buy more frames, or re-shoot a month later, or publish whatever you have — and the feed loses its coherence.
What’s worth calculating isn’t “the price of a shoot” but the price of a month of content, including repeat costs.
A Checklist Before Discussing Price
- How many edited frames will I get?
- Are crops for vertical and square included?
- What exactly does editing include?
- Are studio hire, make-up artist and props included?
- Who owns the rights, and can the photos be used in advertising?
- What’s the delivery time and what does it depend on?
- What happens to the archive in a year?
If you’d like to budget for your own account, tell me how often you publish, what niche you work in and how far ahead you need the reserve. I’ll calculate the volume and suggest the right option.
Need photos for your business?
I’ll help you put together a list of the shots you need, choose the right shooting format, and organise a shoot of your staff, office, production or product. If you have a website or a prototype, send me the link — we’ll go through the pages and work out which photos are missing right now.
