Photography Invoice Template

You’ll use your invoice to get paid for your photography work. 

Sending a complete and clear invoice puts your clients at ease because they know they are dealing with a professional. They can easily see the services and products they are paying for and when the payment is due. A well-designed invoice leads to fewer questions about amounts, payments, and deadlines.

Accepting multiple forms of payment is easier now than ever before. List the forms of payment you accept on your invoice and invite your customers to choose the easiest payment method. 

Another benefit is the space your invoice gives you to show off your photography business. Without going overboard, make sure your invoice includes extra information that gives your customers clues about your skills. You can use product descriptions to highlight some key photography terms, such as photo editing, light balancing, and image compositing.

You can use your photography invoice to bill clients for any kind of photography:

• Freelance
• Portraits
• Landscape
• Weddings
• Corporate and Advertising
• Art
• Wildlife
• Sports
• Aerial
• Events
• Real Estate and Architecture
• Photojournalism
• Travel

Whatever services you are billing your clients for, using a single form of billing will make life simpler. Connecting your invoices to a payment system and bank account will help you keep track of paid and unpaid bills easily.

You can bill your clients by sending them an invoice. There are a few things to get right with your billing. Here’s a short list:

• You can bill by the hour, milestone, or project. 
• Hourly billing is really common and you can use Indy’s Time Tracker to track your hours easily. You can even add your time tracks to your invoices as line items.
• Milestone billing is useful for larger projects that will take place over several weeks or months. Set some milestones, such as the delivery of first stages, and send an invoice when those milestones happen. 
• Billing by the project is very common for freelancers. Once the client approves the final proof, send them the bill.
• Many freelancers take a deposit at the beginning of the project. This protects you from shady clients and sets you up for cash flow success. Deposits up to 50% are normal.
• You should set out your billing and payment terms in your contract. If you don’t have a contract, use Indy’s Contracts tool to create one before you start work.
• Once you finish the work or pass the milestone, send the client an invoice. If you don’t have an invoice, you can use Indy’s invoice generator to create a professional invoice in just a few moments.

That’s it! Those are the basics of how to bill someone for your work. 

Short answer: 

Entry level photographers usually charge between $50-$150 per hour. Experts in the field $75-$250 per hour. Some charge per image. All photographers should determine how they will charge for individual images.

Experience level is the most important factor in determining the best hourly rate to charge. New photographers usually charge a lower amount, while experienced experts charge two to three times the average rate for their industry.

Knowing how much to charge for your work is a complicated area. We want to help freelancers, so we’re going to give you some general tips here about settling on the best amount to charge clients for your services.

Let’s think about this from a few different perspectives:

First, how much do you want/need to earn? You should create your rates to reflect what you need to earn. Keep in mind that you won’t get paid for some of the things you must do, such as preparing your taxes, looking for more customers, and weekly admin work. So, your hourly or project rate needs to be a little higher to make up for the unpaid work that is part of every freelancer’s life.

Second, how much do others charge for similar services at your level of expertise and experience? This question can be a little difficult to answer, but you can just ask. Join a Facebook group and ask. Call a local competitor and ask. Once you know what they charge, you can go under that if you’re new to the market or over it if you’re the boss.

Another massive item you should plan for is taxes. You’ll be paying your own taxes as a freelancer, so your rates should incorporate the taxes you’ll eventually have to pay. The average tax amount paid by Americans, for all taxes, is about 29%. This means you’ll end up paying $3 in taxes out of every $10 you earn. Price your work to pay your taxes and be left with the income you want.

Your best rates will be different, because everyone’s market is different. What works in California might not be successful in Missouri. Try a few different price points until you find the rate clients accept and you can live on.

This part is simple! Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting your invoice done:

1. Open one of Indy’s Photography Invoice Templates.
2. Add your business branding and information.
3. Insert your client’s contact information.
4. Number your invoice in a useful way.
5. Fill in the lines with your work completed and the cost per task/hour.
6. Check the invoice total and details.

Once you’ve finished these six steps, you are ready to send your invoice to your client. Save it in your Indy workspace or download it as a PDF. Then, email it to your client so they can pay you.

Indy offers an all-in-one platform for freelancers to manage all their admin work. When you sign up with Indy, your invoicing gets better because the other tools work together. For example, you can use Indy’s Time Tracker to note the time spent on a project. When you’re ready, the Invoice tool can automatically pull your unbilled hours for the project onto your invoice to make it ready to use. This makes your billing more accurate and saves time as well. When you set up your customers and projects with Indy, your entire workflow becomes smoother.