The spreadsheet is open. The spring minis are wrapped. The numbers are right there in front of you, and something doesn't add up.

You worked a full Saturday. You delivered beautiful galleries. You had clients hugging you and telling you how much they loved their photos.

And then you sat down to look at what you actually took home, and it was… less. Way less than you expected.

If that's where you are right now, here are two things I want you to know. First, you're not alone. This is one of the most common things I hear from photographers after a mini day.

Second, there's a fix. It starts with your mini session pricing, and it comes down to real math instead of a guess. Let me show you how I'd build the price for a $3,000 mini day.

The Mini Session Pricing Number Everyone Gets Wrong

Most photographers set their mini session pricing by looking at what other photographers in their area charge. They hop on Instagram, they check a few websites, they pick a number somewhere in the middle, and they call it a day.

I'm going to be direct with you here. If you're basing your pricing on what other people are charging, you're doing it wrong!

That number you found on someone else's website was based on their expenses, their tax situation, their gear, their editing speed, and their revenue goals. Not yours.

Pricing is one of those things that people constantly ask me about. They expect me to throw out some magic number that will work for everyone. It's time for a wake-up call! There isn't one.

Pulling numbers from thin air or copying what other photographers are doing won't help YOU. The real question is what it actually costs YOU to show up. That's your Cost of Doing Business, and it's where your price comes from.

And this matters more than you think. Statistics show that most photographers don't make it past year 3. This is solely because they don't price their work appropriately.

So let's run YOUR numbers.

How to Price Minis from Your Cost of Doing Business

This is my actual method, and it's an ordered equation. Follow it in this order with your own numbers and you'll land on the lowest price you can charge for a mini and still make it worth your while.

Step 1: List EVERY expense you have for one month. List out any expenses that go toward your business, including softwares like your CRM (gallery delivery), Lightroom or ImagenAI (your editing software), email marketing, your Google domain, website costs, gear, props, or client gifts. If you pay for something annually, divide it by 12 to give you a monthly amount.

Step 2: Set your hourly rate. How much do you want to be paid for your hourly rate? And please pay yourself more than a teenager who works at Costco! I suggest no less than $50/hour, because you are well worth your time!

Step 3: Calculate the total number of hours you'll spend on these specific minis. Don't just include your shooting time! List the time spent marketing, driving to locations, editing, and post processing. My rule of thumb is about 6x the number of hours you spend on the session. So if you ran your mini sessions for 2 hours, you multiply that by 6 and end up with 12 hours.

Step 4: Hourly rate x number of hours = your pay. Take your hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours for these sessions, and that's your profit.

Step 5: Add your expenses to that pay amount. Next, take your expenses and add them to your profit amount.

Step 6: Divide by the number of sessions. Finally, divide that number by the amount of sessions you're running, and this gives you the bare minimum you should be charging for your mini sessions!

If that amount comes out to less than $150, you should consider either recalculating your expenses or paying yourself more. It's a good rule of thumb that minis start at $150 and go up.

I am a firm believer that you shouldn't charge anything less than $150 for mini sessions. Once you do, you're getting into all the price shoppers and super difficult clients.

Your numbers will look different from mine, and that's exactly the point. The equation is the same. The dollars are yours.

Don't Forget the Hours (or the Taxes)

Two things trip people up inside this equation, so let's slow down on both.

Count ALL the hours. There's the marketing, the client communication, the editing, the delivery, and the driving. That's why my rule of thumb is roughly 6x your shooting time. Two hours behind the camera is rarely two hours of work. It's closer to twelve.

Set aside about 30% for taxes. If you're taking paying clients, you ABSOLUTELY have to be paying taxes. The 30% comes from 15% self-employment tax plus estimated federal income tax. This varies depending on your situation, but 30% is a safe number to start with.

I want to be really clear about this one, because it's where the math goes sideways for a lot of people. The self-employment tax alone is NOT your full tax picture. If you only plan around it, you'll think you made more than you did. Plan for the full 30% and your real take-home stops surprising you.

Reverse-Engineering from a $3,000 Goal

Here's where it gets good! Instead of guessing what to charge, you can also work backward from the number you actually want to hit.

The method is simple. Set your revenue goal, decide how many sessions you'll shoot, and divide one by the other to get your per-session price.

Let's say your goal is $3,000 from a single mini day.

16 sessions: $3,000 / 16 = roughly $190 per mini.

12 sessions: $3,000 / 12 = $250 per mini.

Both get you to $3,000. The fewer slots you run, the higher each one has to be priced, and the more your real hourly rate climbs. That's why I'd rather see you raise the price than cram in more bodies.

One big caveat though. This per-session number is BEFORE taking expenses and taxes into account. After you set aside 20 to 30% for taxes and another 30%-ish for expenses, your profit is much lower. So always run this side by side with your Cost of Doing Business from the section above. The goal-divided-by-slots number tells you what to charge. The CODB tells you whether that price actually pays you.

And if there's a venue or rental fee, fold it in too. When I shot at a venue that cost $70/hour, or rented a red truck at $150/hour, that fee got divided across the four minis I shot that hour. It should be collectively covered by the clients, not eaten by you.

Want the full walkthrough? Grab my free $3K Mini Sessions Blueprint. It walks you through making your first $3,000 on a single date of minis.

Your Real Hourly Wage (the Eye-Opener)

This is the part that either makes you feel really good or makes you want to rethink some things. Either way, it's important.

Here's a real example of how low your hourly wage gets when you under-price. Say you book 16 minis at $50 each. That's $800 in revenue. Now add up your true hours the way we did above, and you're looking at around 22.5 hours of actual work for that day once you count marketing, editing, communication, and delivery.

Divide your pay by those hours and you're making something like $16 to $19 an hour.

That's the wake-up call, Friend. At $50 a mini you FEEL busy and booked, but you're paying yourself less than the teenager at Costco. When you price from your Cost of Doing Business instead, that same effort finally pays you what you're worth.

Understanding how your full session pricing and mini pricing work together is a big piece of this too. I do the opposite of most photographers here. Instead of using my minis to push people to full sessions, I use my full session pricing to push people to my minis!

A good rule of thumb is that full sessions should be at least double your mini sessions. If your minis are $150, your full session should be at least $300. The higher your full price is, the better your minis will book, because it all comes down to perceived value. If your clients see that a full session with you is worth $500, they'll be way more likely to book your $250 mini session.

The Mini Structure That Makes the Math Work

Your base price has to be profitable on its own. But there's one more piece that turns a profitable day into a really profitable one, and it's how you structure what's included.

The magic number is 5 images included. It's just enough to justify the price of the session, but few enough that they'll want to buy more. A mini, to me, is a short 10 to 15 minute session with five images included. It's a limited number. We are not giving a full gallery.

Then when I deliver the gallery, I always deliver about 20 images. That gives your clients the opportunity to choose the 5 that they paid for with their session, or fall in love with the full gallery and purchase more photos!

Think of your session as a cake. If you gave 10 images included in the session fee, you'd be handing them a good-sized slice. Most people are fine with just a slice. By giving only 5, you're giving them a bite of the cake. No one just eats a bite! Of course they'll want more!

This is also why including a big pile of digitals up front quietly costs you. If you hand over 15 images when 5 would have done the job, you've given away the exact thing your clients would have happily paid for. Be generous on purpose, not by accident.

Treat the Upsell as a Bonus

All of my upselling is done online and automatically through my online gallery system in ShootProof. No in-person sales required.

My upsell ladder is $65 an image, sets of three for $90, or the full gallery for $200. And that's on top of the mini session fee they already paid. The trick is capturing must-have shots. By getting individual shots of each of the kids, the parents can't just buy one. They have to buy each of them!

One thing I'll say firmly: if you aren't upselling, you're leaving money on the table. And don't hand over a full gallery without upselling. If they're getting a full gallery, that's a small full session, and you should price it like one, somewhere in the $450 to $500 range.

Here's the mindset that protects you though. Price your sessions so the base price alone makes the day profitable. Treat upsell income as a bonus, not a guarantee. If the upsells come in on top? Amazing! But your pricing should never depend on them.

Your Next Step

Here's what I want you to take away from this. Your mini session pricing should come from YOUR math. Your expenses. Your hourly rate. Your hours. Your revenue goals. Not a number you pulled from someone else's website.

Sit down this week and run the equation like we just did. Pay yourself first, add your expenses, divide by your sessions. I promise you, once you see your real numbers on paper, you'll never second-guess your pricing again. It is SO worth the hour it takes to do this.

And if you want me to walk you through it step by step, grab my free $3K Mini Sessions Blueprint. It walks you through making your first $3,000 on a single date of minis.

You've got the math now. YOU'VE GOT THIS!