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Session price calculator

In the panel: The calculator spreads fixed costs and monthly time across the sessions you do, adds the cost of each session and the gear, and applies VAT and IRPF.

The session price calculator with fixed costs, session costs and the resulting hourly rate
The calculator shows the effective hourly rate behind every price.
The recommended price panel with the client price, the cost breakdown and the effective hourly rate
The result separates what the client pays, what the session costs and what you earn per hour.

What it answers

Section titled “What it answers”

Two questions that are rarely answered with numbers: how much to charge for a session and how much you are really earning per hour once costs, gear and time are counted.

The calculator does not guess a market price. It makes your studio’s arithmetic explicit so you can see whether the price in your head covers what the session costs to make.

How to use it

Section titled “How to use it”
  1. Set the hourly rate you want to earn and how many sessions per month you actually shoot.
  2. Fill in the four blocks: fixed expenses, session expenses, equipment and time.
  3. Read the recommended price and the effective rate in the right-hand panel.
  4. If the number does not work, change one variable and watch the result move.

Everything saves as you type. There is no save button.

Quick settings

Section titled “Quick settings”
  • Hourly rate: the value you put on an hour of your time, before taxes. It is not what you charge: it is what you want to keep per hour worked.
  • Sessions per month: used to spread fixed costs and monthly hours across sessions. If you shoot ten sessions, each one carries a tenth of the rent and the admin work.
  • VAT: added to the client invoice. Set it to 0 when you are exempt.
  • IRPF: withheld from the base price and credited against your income tax. The switch only applies when you invoice a company or a professional.

The four blocks

Section titled “The four blocks”

Fixed expenses

Section titled “Fixed expenses”

Rent, self-employment quota, insurance, software, hosting, general depreciation, your salary. They are monthly and do not change from one session to another; the calculator divides them across the sessions in the month.

Session expenses

Section titled “Session expenses”

What you only pay when there is a session: travel, an assistant, a second shooter, props, a one-off gear rental. They are not spread out: they are added in full to each session.

Equipment

Section titled “Equipment”

What you bought for that kind of session. The calculator subtracts the resale value, spreads the rest over its useful life and works out how much each session carries. A €3,000 camera does not disappear from the maths.

Time

Section titled “Time”

Not just the shoot. It includes editing, culling, the admin for that session and the tasks you do every month (bookkeeping, social media, sales). Monthly hours are spread across sessions, just like fixed costs.

The result

Section titled “The result”

The right-hand panel separates four things that usually get mixed together:

  • What the client pays, VAT included or after IRPF withholding.
  • What the session costs: fixed costs per session, session expenses, depreciation and the cost of your time.
  • The base price before taxes and the VAT.
  • The effective hourly rate: the base price divided by the total time the session takes.

If the effective rate falls below the rate you set, the price is not covering your time. Now you can see which part weighs the most and adjust it.

You can copy the summary to paste it into a proposal or a note, and reset the calculator to its defaults whenever you want to start over.

Saved per studio

Section titled “Saved per studio”

The values belong to the team, not your user. If someone else in the studio opens the calculator, they see the same numbers. That keeps every member from calculating with different costs.

Section titled “Related”