When people ask what a brand shoot costs, they are usually bracing for a confusing answer full of per-image fees and licensing tiers. I do not work that way. I price by the day, I tell you exactly what you get, and I do not bill you again every time you use a photo. Here is how it works, from the quote to the final edited images.
The base rate: $950 for a half day, expenses on top
We price by day rate, not by the individual licensed image. A half day is $950 plus expenses, and that buys you five hours. The reason I do it this way is simple. It lets us set expectations and adjust as we go, and it gives us the freedom to have ideas and ask for a little more without nickel-and-diming you. I do not like doing that, and I do not like the invoicing and accounting that comes with it either. So instead: for $950 you get us for five hours, and we talk through exactly what the deliverables are.
A half day is $950 for five hours and about four scenes; a full day is $1,800 for eight to nine hours and around seven scenes.
We price by the day and by the scene, roughly one room per hour including setup, so you can plan around outcomes instead of counting individual images. Travel inside Nashville is free. Source: The Haven Agency photography day rates.
You own the images, in perpetuity, for real
Everything we deliver is licensed to you in perpetuity for all marketing, advertising, and editorial use. The only thing you cannot do is resell the images themselves. That has happened exactly once, and we sorted it out very quickly. We are not going to bill you a licensing fee every year as you use the work more. I would rather everyone have what they need.
What actually drives the price up: scenes
The price moves with scenes. I plan for about one scene, or one room, per hour, and that hour includes setting up the lights, testing the lighting, and testing where everyone stands. Once we are set up in a scene, we shoot it wide, medium, and tight. You get the wide room shot where you can see everything, the medium shot focused on one subject, and the tight detail shot you will drop onto the website or into social. Out of a five-hour half day, that works out to about four scenes, because there is real time to load in, set up, and pack out. A full day runs eight to nine hours, gets you around seven scenes, and costs $1,800.
One scene, shot wide, medium, and tight, for every place it will live.
A couple of things sit outside that. We do not cover hair and makeup. We can find and recommend people, but that is a separate invoice you pay directly. Travel inside Nashville is free. For anything outside the city, we price it with the same calculator that is on our website. Beyond that, we keep it simple and cut and dry.
Planning a shoot or a larger content push? Get a real number in about a minute.
Estimate your shoot →The mistake companies make when they DIY it
The biggest tell of a DIY shoot is inconsistent color and editing. Either nobody edited the photos and they look like they came straight off an iPhone, or someone opened Lightroom, clicked a preset without thinking, and now the colors are all over the place. When we edit, we are going for natural and on brand, and once we lock that look we do a lot of copying and pasting across the set so the color stays consistent from frame to frame.
The other miss is use case. On a DIY shoot, people grab the one wide shot they came for and call it done. We are thinking the whole time: as long as we are set up right here, how many different ways could this scene get used? We shoot for distribution, not for a single slot on one page.
We shoot for distribution, not for a single slot on one page.
What shoot day actually looks like
If we are in the same city, we will often do a walk-through together during preproduction. On the day itself, we show up and spend the first twenty to thirty minutes unloading, meeting everyone, and getting people comfortable, then we walk the space to confirm the plan. We set up the first scene while we are still talking and having a good time, and we shoot the lowest-priority scene first on purpose. That is how everyone gets comfortable in front of the camera. Then we shoot the most important scene second, while the energy is still high and everyone is warmed up.
About halfway through, we stop. No shooting. We pull everything up on the laptop and scroll through what we have captured to make sure we are hitting every box, whether it is a half day or a full day. At the end we do a final recap against the shot list, scene by scene, to confirm we grabbed everything. If we missed something, we either plan to come back or agree we skipped it for a reason. The moment we wrap, we offload and back up all the footage and raw images, and then editing begins.
How a Haven shoot day runs
- 1Load in and warm up
Twenty to thirty minutes to unload, meet everyone, and walk the space. We set up scene one while people are still just talking.
- 2Lowest-priority scene first, biggest scene second
The easy scene gets everyone comfortable on camera. Then we shoot the most important one while the energy is high.
- 3Midday laptop check
We stop shooting, pull it all up, and confirm we are hitting every box before we lose the setup.
- 4Final recap, then immediate backup
We run the shot list scene by scene, then offload and back up every raw file the moment we wrap.
The edit: three passes over 7 to 21 days
Editing takes seven to twenty-one days, because we do three passes on every image. The first is the initial color edit. Then we sit on it for a few days and come back to check that everything looks consistent and make revisions. The final pass happens in Photoshop, cleaning up any blemish or anything that should not be in the frame. All three passes are included in your rate. The creative process should be fun, and the planning behind it is what lets it stay that way.
Three passes over 7 to 21 days, all included in your rate.
Tell us what you are trying to make, and we will price it plainly.
Get your estimate →
