What does a shoot actually cost per photo?
Put in how many products you need shot and what a photographer charges you. This works out the total both ways, picks the cheapest credit-pack combination, and shows where the two lines cross.
Runs entirely in your browser — the image never leaves your device and nothing is uploaded to us.
How the credit side is worked out
Phoxel sells credits in four packs — $6 for 200, $15 for 600, $29 for 1,500 and $49 for 3,000 — and 10 credits are one delivered photo. The calculator solves for the cheapest combination of packs that covers your total, which is usually not simply the biggest pack: at some counts two mid packs beat one large one plus a small.
Failed generations retry for free, so the credit total is what you pay for photos you keep. Credits don’t expire, so leftovers from an over-buy carry into the next batch rather than evaporating.
What it doesn’t count
- Your time either way — shooting references still takes a few minutes per product.
- The photographer’s judgement on set, which is worth something a render can’t reproduce.
- Anything platform-specific: Etsy wants a real photo of the finished item in the first slot regardless of cost.
For the version of this with words rather than sliders — day rates, per-photo studios, DIY, and a plain list of the shots that still need a human — see AI photos vs hiring a photographer.
For a per-marketplace view of what you actually need, see the Amazon, Etsy and Shopify guides.
Other free tools
The number on the right is the one you can start today.
No booking, no studio day, no reshoot fee. Upload a few phone snaps per product and get the set back in minutes.