How Do I Make My Photography Business Profitable?

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There is just one perfect answer to the question, “How do I make my photography business profitable?” Hard Work!

But dozens of photography business tips on a less general scale also make good answers. Let’s review a few of them and explore some tips for starting a photography business if you’re new to running a photography business.

Have a Photography Business Plan

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A top-tier tip for how to make and keep your photography business is to have a business plan.

What is a photography business plan? Here is a good YouTube video from Paul Borosky, MBA, that helps explain what might go into a photography business plan:

You might think of a photography business plan as a profit vs loss model. In this plan, you would include the expenses of operation and sales costs of items and the pricing or fee structure you’re using.

You would also include investments such as advertising, expansion goals, and so forth, both short-term and long-term endeavors. This also gives you a good idea of where you’re at and where you’re likely to go.

Since every small business is different, no one-plan-fits-all is available for your photography business. Still, many principles and basic ideas can easily adapt to your unique circumstances.

Insure Your Photography Business

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Part of any photography business plan should be insurance. Liability insurance is the biggest thing, but you can also inspire against theft and loss or even errors and omissions that might come up in contract disputes.

It is a worthwhile investment; you might even list it as a must-have part of doing business. This applies to a photography business just starting or an established business. Working in the gig economy as a side hustle also requires insurance for stability and profitability.

What gets some people just starting out a side hustle photography business is the fact that once you start doing something for payment, even if the payment isn’t real money but bartering, then simple consumer insurance plans no longer cover you.

As an avid amateur photographer, your homeowner’s, renter’s, or car insurance might cover certain damages and losses, perhaps even some liabilities. But once you’re in it for profit, you are now seen as a business by insurance.

Thankfully, it’s super easy to get insurance for your photography business. The costs are great, too, sometimes less for a year of coverage than buying a new lens or heavy-duty tripod. Applying is simplified as well; many companies will underwrite and provide a policy 100% online.

Photography Business Products Must Be High Quality

Another key step for a profitable photography business is ensuring that your clients get the quality they deserve and know you can give. In your business model, using a printing company that delivers high-quality photo products is worthwhile.

I look at it this way; if my image files are top-notch, then any physical production should be as well. I know my work is good, so why cheapen my photography business by fulfilling orders with lower-quality goods simply to make a little more profit on one sale?

In the long run, that lower-tier print could cost you future clients because of a lack of referrals or getting repeat business from existing clients. The opposite is true as well. Provide great prints, and they shout about your quality as a photography business every time they’re seen.

I use a high-quality printing company for order fulfillment. One of the best I’ve found recently is Shiny Prints. Specializing in metal prints, Shiny Prints makes them so well that they will stand out as high-end art.

Shiny Prints specializes in metal prints, and wow, are these guys good! Not only are their dye sublimation metal prints among the best I’ve ever seen, but their commitment to excellent customer service and pro-friendly programs are top-tier as well.

The result is that your photography business clients will give you referrals before you ever ask them, and they will come back for more themselves. As far as photography business tips go, mark this one down; it’s a good one.

Simplify Your Photography Business Workflow

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Running a photography business can involve more than one might initially think of. Besides everything we need to do to capture the images in the first place, we need to post-process in some manner.

Delivery of the goods, physical or electronic, also is part of a photography business workflow. And then there’s all of the non-photography stuff to do - emails, schedules, payments, receivables, promotions, networking, and so on.

So, anything we can do to simplify our workflow will be beneficial both to our bottom-line profits and to our own sanity. We use many business apps for automating some processes, such as scheduling promotion emails or texts and accounting tasks.

Looking at the photography ends of tasks, we can simplify our workflow with non-destructive editing and batch editing in our post-processing. I’m a huge fan of non-destructive editing. It takes up less room on my computer, and it speeds things up. Batch editing is also a huge time saver.

Versatility Is a Key

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Tips for starting a photography business vary about these next two points. One school of thought for a new photography business is to try out several different types or styles of photography.

An established photography business could also branch out from its primary business model. For example, I’m a landscape photographer and do portraits, real estate, and video instruction. If you can excel at it, go for it!

So Is Specializing

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The other line of reasoning for running a photography business is to not be an “I can do it all!” type of photographer. Jack of all trades, master of none, is a saying with a long history and an appropriate way of seeing things for some people.

Finding a niche and sticking with it can help your photography business develop a brand and a reputation. A niche can be expansive or very narrow.

As an example, a wedding photographer may want to take on only weddings and nothing else. That’s fine. But if they want to add wedding videography or portrait photography into the mix, well, that’s in the same family of people imaging, so it might work very well for them.

The bottom line is, what’s best for your bottom line? If you can do a variety of photography jobs quite well, that’s good. If you feel comfortable doing only one or two things, let that be your brand. No two photography businesses are the same.

Prioritize Your Photography Business

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The hard work for some of us is that we must prioritize our photography business if we want to stay in business. That means operating it like a business, not a hobby.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun in this line of work. I’m a professional photographer, and I love my job! You can too, and making your photography business profitable is a good incentive for keeping the joy of photography alive.

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