Session Pricing & True Hourly Earnings

Summary

This calculator answers a narrow planning question: after the time and costs you choose to assign to one portrait session, what remains for the owner, what is that amount per business hour, and what total revenue would support the owner-earnings target you entered? It does not select a price for you. Use the result as a transparent starting point, then apply your own positioning, client experience, demand, and professional advice where needed.

How the calculation works

PortraitPace first estimates processing fees from the percentage fee, fixed fee, and transaction count you enter. It subtracts those fees, direct session costs, and allocated overhead from collected revenue. Dividing the remainder by total business hours produces the modeled true hourly earnings before owner income tax.

The target calculation runs the relationship in reverse. It adds the target owner earnings for all modeled hours to direct costs, overhead, and fixed processing fees, then adjusts for the percentage fee. Expected add-on revenue can be separated from the base price so you can see how much of the total must come from the session fee itself.

Prepare inputs you can trace

Choose one consistent session boundary before entering numbers. If revenue covers the session, a gallery upgrade, and a product order, include the time and costs used to deliver all three. If you want to test only the base service, exclude both the add-on revenue and the add-on fulfillment work. Use calendar records for client and administrative time, invoices or receipts for direct costs, and a written allocation note for overhead.

Run an expected case and at least one cautious case. Editing time may be longer than planned, add-on revenue may be zero, or a client may pay through more transactions than expected. A result that only reaches the target under the most optimistic case deserves a closer review.

Synthetic worked example

Synthetic scenario — invented values for product demonstration and QA. Not a US or Canadian market benchmark. Imagine one session collects 600 USD, takes 10 total business hours, carries 90 USD in direct costs, receives 60 USD of allocated overhead, and has a 3% modeled processing fee. Before owner income tax, the tool subtracts those entries and shows the remaining owner earnings and hourly result. If the user enters a 50 USD hourly target, the tool also solves for the total revenue needed under those same assumptions. Replace every value with your own documented inputs before making a decision.

Assumptions and exclusions

The tool assumes all monetary entries use one display currency and one session boundary. It excludes sales tax, GST/HST, owner income tax, exchange conversion, local demand, competitor prices, and legal or accounting conclusions. Optional zero-cost entries are allowed, but they deserve a deliberate review rather than an automatic assumption.

Read current owner earnings, required revenue, and the price gap together. A negative price gap says current modeled revenue is below the target case; it does not prescribe how to close the gap. The photographer can review scope, workflow, package structure, costs, or price. Save the plan before changing inputs, then compare it with actual time, costs, and collections after delivery.

Sources and next step

The cited SBA material explains fixed and variable cost thinking for break-even analysis. IRS and CRA pages provide recordkeeping context. Stripe’s public pricing page can help a Stripe user locate published fee information, but your own processor statement or contract is the right input source.

Start with the Session Pricing & True Hourly Earnings calculator, then read How to Price a Family Photography Session for the full workflow.