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An add-on reads as one number — "$300 for an extra hour" or "$450 for a second shooter" — and that number is the one thing it does not tell you: how much the add-on actually pays once you count what it takes to deliver it. Two real-shaped add-ons below, run through the same arithmetic, end up in very different places.
Target hourly rate $75. One extra shoot hour, plus half an hour of culling and an hour and a half of editing the extra images it generates — three hours of the photographer's own time. A $5 gear wear allowance, no subcontractor and no physical goods, charged at $300.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Gross revenue | $300.00 |
| Your labor cost (at target rate) | $225.00 |
| Total cost | $230.00 |
| Net profit | $70.00 |
| Effective hourly rate | $23.33/hr |
| Profit margin | 23.3% |
This add-on pays the photographer's full target rate for all three hours, plus another $23.33/hr on top — a genuinely profitable add-on, not just one that "sounds fine."
Same target hourly rate. No extra shoot hours for the primary photographer, but the second shooter's take adds an hour and a half of culling and two hours of editing — three and a half hours of the primary photographer's own time. A $250 fee paid to the second shooter and a $10 gear wear allowance for the extra body, charged at $450 — a number that sounds like it should easily cover a $250 payout.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Gross revenue | $450.00 |
| Your labor cost (at target rate) | $262.50 |
| Total cost | $522.50 |
| Net profit | -$72.50 |
| Effective hourly rate | -$20.71/hr |
| Profit margin | -16.1% |
-$72.50 and a -16.1% margin are a loss, not a rounding error: this add-on's own cost — the second shooter's fee, the gear wear, and 3.5 hours of the primary photographer's own culling and editing valued at their own target rate — adds up to more than the $450 charged. A photographer who only checks "does $450 cover the $250 I'm paying the second shooter" keeps taking these.
$150 separated these two add-on prices, and $44.05/hr separated what they actually paid. The second shooter's own fee is easy to check against the price charged; the primary photographer's own extra culling and editing hours are not, because nothing invoices for them. Run your own numbers before you set a second-shooter price from what other studios charge rather than from what the add-on actually costs you.
Because none of its costs disappeared -- the extra culling and editing hours, the subcontractor fee, and the gear wear apply no matter what the client is happy to pay. Together they cost more than the $450 charged, which the headline price alone never shows.
Compare effective hourly rate, not the headline price. The extra-hour add-on pays about $23.33/hr above target on this booking; the second-shooter add-on pays about -$20.71/hr for a costlier version of the same booking -- a $150 gap in price hides a $44.05/hr gap in what the add-on actually paid.