How Much Does AirBnB Photography Cost? Complete Guide

Did you know that poor quality images are the 3rd largest reason why online shoppers don’t purchase?

Let’s face it, your potential traveler is judging your listing by its photos whether you like it or not.

This is why it’s incredibly important to have a great image. But how much does AirBnB photography cost?

Good photographers can show your property in the best way possible, deliver excellent head shots for your listing, and come up with creative ideas for highlighting your best features in a way that gets people excited about booking your place.

In fact, according to AirBnB, professional photography can increase your occupancy by up to 24% alone!

However, not all photographers are created equal – and if you get a bad one, you’ll lose more than your money.

You’ll end up wasting your time too.

So in this article we’re going to cover the average costs of AirBnB photography, factors that affect price, and discover what kind of impact it can have for your listing.

Summary

• The average cost of an AirBnB Photographer is between $250-$450 and can be affected by skill, location, property size, licensing, and timeline.
• Photographers can offer rates based on pictures, hourly, or packages.
• Professional photography can impact your revenue by up to 40%.
• Cheap photographers can hurt your listing and cost you time and money.
• Of course, you can take your own photos. Check out our Hero Image Framework For Short Term Rentals.

Real Estate Photographer vs Interior Design

A lot of people think it’s a good idea to hire a real estate photographer for their short term rental. After all, what’s the difference?

A big one, actually!

Before you schedule an appointment, it’s important to realize that real estate photography is a totally different “product” than it is for short term rentals.

A real estate photographer is typically hired by a realtor to take listing images in order to quickly sell a property. The main focus is to show the “space” of the property and it often looks bigger than it really is.

Real estate photographers are also used to taking the same types of shots and turning them around quickly, as realtors aren’t typically that attached to how good the space looks because the lifestyle images wont be relevant once the home is sold.

In other words, real estate photography is a “mass produced” product that caters to the needs of real estate agents.

Interior Design: The Difference

On the contrary, an interior design photographer isn’t as interested in showing the size of a home as they are about featuring the uniqueness of each space and how they convey different moods & feelings.

This is what you want for marketing your short term rental.

This is also where you’ll start to see a lot more natural lighting and how it falls upon a sofa/table, whereas a real estate photographer wouldn’t feature that sofa/table in the first place since it wont be there once the home is sold.

Visual storytelling is the main difference here, because in the short term rental market your space is meant to be sold over and over again.

In other words, interior design photography is a unique service intended to draw out the desire for each space.

Average Costs of An AirBnB Photographer

When it comes to short term rentals, there are two types of photography that get mixed together: real estate, and interiors.

A case can be made that architectural photography can also fall into this category, but at around $1,500 per shoot on average, it may be too expensive for most hosts.

Real estate and interior photography typically costs between $250 – $450 on average, with most hosts paying somewhere in the middle depending on the size of their property.

However, additional value is seen when you add lifestyle photography of your short term rental that helps increase bookings even further, which can be as much as $200 per image or more if models are involved.

Hourly rates aren’t the only ways that photographers will bill. If you’re uncomfortable with a balance that can run away from you, packages are also offered.

This benefits both you as well as the photographer.

You won’t be surprised by the final price or concerned about how long a shoot is taking, and the photographer is rewarded by their skill and experience.

Some typical packages can look like:

Other Factors That Affect The Price Of AirBnB Photography

However, not all photography is the same when it comes to real estate and interiors. While the process for going through a property can be similar, each property is unique and the price can be affected by the location, property size, skill, expectation, etc.

It can be further influenced by the different styles of photography that is taken, such as mixing real estate, interior, and lifestyle.

• Location. Cost of living in the area, travel, etc.
  The rates that photographers will charge can vary dramatically depending on where you’re located. If you’re in the Midwest with a low cost of living, then $300 might be on the high end, while in Los Angeles that will be on the low end for a beginner photographer.
• Property Size. The size of the property is one of the biggest factors that influences the cost of your photography session.
  
  The more rooms there are and the bigger the space, the longer it will take to get through the shoot. If you hired a professional, for example, then the hourly rate can add up quickly.
• Skill. Is the photographer a hobbyist, new to photography, or a professional that specializes?
  
  This will typically determine the styles that the photographer is capable of and what type of equipment they will be bringing.
• Post Processing. After the photo shoot is done, additional time is spent in post production to enhance your images. This is where selections are made, colors are corrected, and defects are removed.
  
  Depending on the skill of your photographer, this may not even be done at all at cheaper rates.
• Timeline. What is the timeline that photos need to be delivered? Is the photographer booked up and you need the pictures yesterday?
  
  Typically there are fees associated with rushed deliverables, because the photographer will need to delay someone else’s work or hire additional personnel to get yours completed by when you need it done.
• Licensing/Usage. If this is your first experience with entrepreneurship, you probably haven’t heard of usage licensing or understand the concept. Essentially licensing/usage is the price you pay to use the photographers intellectual property (copyright) for your business.
  
  Larger companies are used to paying a yearly license, but many photographers will only charge a one time licensing fee for smaller businesses. One way to get around this is to take photos of your Airbnb yourself.

How Much Is Too Much For An AirBnB Photographer?

If your property is located in an expensive area, the sticker shock for the price of photography can be quite high.

For one property owner in the Bahamas, this is exactly the case.

They were quoted between $800-$1000 for a photo shoot that didn’t include video. Turns out, upon further investigation, this was the only photographer on the island that specialized in short term rentals.

Supply and Demand should be considered here, especially since they will likely have a full calendar and price is a way to manage/control how much work one wants to do.

From Jean, a photographer:

$800 may be a fair price for a large house with additional amenities. But not for a one bedroom apartment. Airbnb photographers need to take a lot of pictures, at different angles/directions, both horizontal and vertical (for use on the website vs mobile app), as per the Airbnb photography guidelines. What you end up with on the website often is only a selection (made by the Airbnb editors) of all the photos an Airbnb photographer took.

Source

But is $1,000 too much?

Maybe. Let’s investigate a little further.

The Value Of Airbnb Photography For Your Listing

This is the moment they’ve been waiting for.

A mix between excitement and concern were the emotions that Beila and Shen were experiencing as they uploaded their new photos to AirBnB.

Would the investment they made work, or would it have been a total waste?

All they knew is that they had to do something. Something to move the needle and get more bookings, otherwise they would find themselves under water on their short term rental.

The night came when he heard it.

A ding rang out on his phone from AirBnB. It was a booking! But was it a coincidence?

“Not likely,” Shen thought, after he received more notifications later in the week. Their calendar was starting to fill up, and they were finally becoming profitable!

Turns out that the new photos they added to their listing were attracting more people to book with them.

But is this typical?

In most cases, yes. The quality of your photos are an extension of the quality of your property.

At least that’s what most guests are going to perceive, especially at a glance.

If your photos are blurry, poorly lit, or not very well composed, then travelers are going to wonder what other corners you may have cut with your property.

And with a swipe of the finger they are on to your competitors’ listing within seconds (that’s where that giant sucking sound is coming from).

So it makes sense that guests will find hosts that use professional photography more trustworthy, particularly when it comes to having a consistent experience.

What does this mean for your bottom line? Let’s take a look at some numbers.

AirBnB’s numbers.

They claim professional photography can increase your occupancy by up to 24%, so some quick math would tell us:

Additional Yearly Revenue Due To Professional Photography

So what would the impact look like?

Wow! If you could make an $8,493 return on an $800-1,000 investment, please sign me up!

Granted this is all based on local market conditions, but let’s not forget that these are improvements and investments we are making with our properties to increase the perceived value and revenue potential.

Tax deductible.

And according to AXA, an insurance company in the UK, professional photography can increase the perceived value of Real Estate by as much as 21%, which is similar to AirBnB’s claim that hosts who use such photography usually are able to raise their nightly rates by just as much.

So if you want your bank account to burst at the seams, then upgrading the photos of your listing is the bare minimum you should be doing.

But just because you hire someone with a camera doesn’t mean you will get the best results.

Covid Update: Travel has been restricted all over the world as you have probably seen for yourself. However, lots of different areas still have people traveling for work and some hosts have experienced minimal impact. Guess who’s getting booked up first? That’s right, listings with better photos.

Cheap Photographers Cost You Time

Now let’s take a look at the impact a cheap photographer can have on your listing.

“I have a listing that needs help,” a customer said. “My photos were done by a professional, but I don’t like how they turned out. And I can’t get my money back.”

“What happened?!” I replied, thinking that the client might have high expectations.

Turns out it was just a case of the photographer rushing from listing to listing, because cheap photographers can’t afford to take their time to make sure the property is presented in it’s best light.

This seems to be typical of a lot of freelancers. They tend to earn a measly rate and have to knock off as many properties from their list as fast as they can in order to earn a decent income.

In this particular case, our client had hired such a photographer.

They came in, snapped some shots in under an hour, and didn’t give much consideration to how their work would help this host.

“This should be an easy job,” I said. “But it will take a few hours.”

Below is a before and after shot of one of the photos that we improved for our client’s listing.

I’d be disappointed if my listing photos looked like that “before” photo too.

This was a colossal waste of both time AND money for our client. Because now you have to schedule another photographer to come out, and we aren’t cheap.

What About Photographers From AirBnB?

So the answer is to have AirBnB send over a photographer, right?

In a lot of ways, hiring an AirBnB photographer through their platform is very convenient. You don’t have to pay up front because the cost is taken out of future payouts, and your listing is automatically updated with the new photos with a “Verified by AirBnB” watermark.

The catch?

You don’t get to choose your photographer. So when you click the button for AirBnB to send over a freelancer there is nothing you can do about photos you might not like.

• You can’t get your money back.
• You can’t choose the photos that are selected.
• You can’t get a reshoot for free.
• You can’t edit the photos without losing the “Verified by AirBnB” watermark.
• You can’t use the photos on any other platform.

In many cases hosts are finding that AirBnB photographers have to submit photos under strict guidelines, and you have no control over which photos represent your property.

[…] Plus have refused to change photos that are so overexposed that you can’t see any details as they are blurry. They’ve also used a cover photo of the bedroom instead of living room. Every time I write, they just dismiss me and say the photos are great.

Source

[…] A few weeks later, we got the photos, and we were shocked by how bad they were. I mean, really, really bad. They were often not centered or tilted; they didn’t capture key features that could appeal to our potential guests (such as our brand-new wood fireplace); and they had not had a bit of editing done to them, meaning that they were bland, colourless and lifeless for the most part.

Source

Conclusion

Wouldn’t it be better to just get it done right, the first time?

Considering that the average cost of a photo can be around $50, and you would want around 20 for your listing, the math can add up to $1,000 or more.

So if you have a property that could be shot in 2-3 hours, including setup and staging, I don’t think it would be unreasonable for the cost of an AirBnB photographer to be within $250-$500 for decent quality that can yield infinite returns.

If you’re looking for a photographer that can improve your listing and create content that engages your audience, don’t forget that’s exactly what we specialize in. Click here to get started!