Photographer Booking & Profit Tracker
This photographer booking tracker costs every shoot properly — travel, delivery, card fees and editing hours included — and shows what each package actually earns you per hour.
A ten-hour wedding is a thirty-eight hour job: ten on the day and twenty-eight culling and editing. The fee gets agreed against the first number and the work gets done against the second, which is why a package can feel well priced and still pay badly. This file puts the editing hours back into the sum.
What is in it
- Six tabs: Start Here, Settings, Packages, Shoots, Expenses and Overview — with hours, costs, mileage rate, currency and distance units all set once in Settings.
- Packages — 30 rows, each carrying its shoot hours and its editing hours, and the earnings per hour that fall out of the two together.
- Shoots — 200 rows following every booking from enquiry through to paid: type, fee, travel distance, delivery cost, card fees and what is actually left.
- Expenses — 300 rows across eleven categories, with costs assigned to the shoot that caused them rather than tipped into one pile at the end of the year.
- Overview — fees, extras, costs, net, hours and earnings per hour for each of the twelve months, measured against the hourly rate your own year actually costs you to run.
- A stuck list — enquiries you never quoted, quotes nobody answered, shoots not yet delivered, and deliveries not yet paid for.
Who it is for
Wedding photographers, portrait and newborn studios, branding shooters, anyone in a first full year of trading, and anyone about to raise their prices who wants to know which package is the one to reprice first.
The worked example
The arithmetic starts with the hours. A ten-hour wedding is a thirty-eight hour job once the twenty-eight hours of culling and editing behind it are counted, and every package in the file carries its editing hours the same way.
That is what reorders the price list. A $180 mini session earns $67 an hour; a $520 newborn session earns $51. The bigger fee is the worse hourly rate, and nothing on an invoice or a booking calendar will ever tell you that — only the editing hours will.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Buy it on Etsy — $9
Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the buyer protection are all handled by Etsy.
Questions people actually ask
How do I find out what my packages really earn per hour?
Each package carries both its shoot hours and its editing hours, and the file divides the fee left after costs by the two together. In the worked example that puts a $180 mini session at $67 an hour and a $520 newborn session at $51 — the bigger fee is the worse rate. It is the editing time, not the invoice, that decides which package is worth keeping.
Is this useful for a portrait photographer rather than a wedding one?
Yes — the Packages tab takes any shoot type, and the worked figures include mini sessions and newborn sessions alongside weddings. It suits portrait and newborn studios, branding shooters, wedding photographers and anyone in a first full year of trading. It is most useful to anyone about to raise prices and unsure which package to raise.
I have not tracked any of my shoots before. Where do I start?
Start with Settings and your package list, then enter shoots forward from today rather than reconstructing last year. Settings holds your working hours, your costs, your mileage rate and your currency, so everything after that calculates itself. The filled workbook comes with worked examples in all six tabs so you can see what every column expects.
Does it work on a Mac, or in Google Sheets?
Yes to both — it is an .xlsx file that runs in Excel 2016 or newer on Windows and Mac, in Google Sheets, in Apple Numbers and in LibreOffice, and the mobile Sheets and Excel apps open it too. There are no macros or add-ons. Currency and distance units are yours to set.
Does it connect to my booking system or take payments?
No — it never connects to a booking system, a gallery, a bank or a card processor, and it takes no payments and sends no client emails. You enter shoots and expenses yourself and the file stays on your own computer or Drive. It does show what is stuck — unquoted enquiries, unanswered quotes, undelivered shoots and unpaid deliveries — so you know who to chase.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes you shoot, edit and deliver yourself, with costs that belong to a shoot. If you run second shooters on a day rate, an outsourced editor, or studio rent that has to be spread across every booking rather than charged to one, I can rebuild the same per-hour arithmetic around how your studio actually runs.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.