Every retoucher's pricing page says "contact for a quote", and every photographer reading it is trying to answer one question: is this cheaper than my own Sunday evening? So here are the numbers I actually charge, and what moves them.
In short
- $4–5 per image, depending on how many you send in a month
- No monthly fee, no minimum contract, no rush surcharge
- A composite counts as one image, not three, even when it takes an hour
- A 25-image newborn gallery lands around $100–125
- Two images free at the start so you can price the decision against real work
Why per-image and not per-hour
Per-hour billing punishes you for sending hard files and rewards me for being slow. Per-image means a wrap with fifteen creases and a composite with three source frames cost you exactly what a clean, well-exposed portrait costs, and the difficulty is my problem.
The rate moves on volume, not on difficulty. Photographers sending me 20–40 images a month pay $5; regular studios sending 80 or more pay $4. That is the whole pricing table.
What is included at that price
Colour and white balance, skin work (flaking, milia, baby acne, red blotching, purple hands and feet), wrap and backdrop cleanup, distractions removed, and composites assembled where the pose needs one. Revisions are included until it matches what you wanted — that is not an add-on, it is how you find out my read of your style was wrong.
Delivered as JPEG, or PSD with layers if your workflow needs it. There is no charge for either.
Is it cheaper than editing it yourself?
Work it out honestly. A 25-image newborn gallery takes most photographers three to five hours to finish properly. At $120 for the gallery you are buying that evening back for roughly $25–40 an hour.
If your session price is $500 and you shoot four newborns a month, outsourcing costs you about 10% of that revenue and returns fifteen or twenty hours. Whether that trade is worth it depends on what you do with the hours — booking two more sessions makes it obvious, and sitting on the sofa is a perfectly good answer too.
What does not cost extra
Rush jobs. If something has to be back tomorrow, say so and it usually is, at the same rate. I would rather have the work than an argument about a surcharge — and if I genuinely cannot make your date, I will tell you the same day rather than take it and be late.
FAQ
Not a contractual one. Practically, sending fewer than about 10 images a month means we never really get in sync on your style, which is where the value is. The free test is two images, and there is no minimum on that.
An invoice when the gallery is delivered, paid by PayPal or bank transfer. No card on file, no subscription, no retainer.
No. A froggy pose assembled from three frames is one image at the same rate as a straightforward portrait. It takes me longer; that is priced into the rate, not billed on top.
Tell me what is wrong and I redo it. That round is included. If it still is not right, you do not pay for the file — I would rather lose one image than have you show a gallery you are not happy with.
Deividas Kvederys — photographer and retoucher based in Lithuania, EU. 450+ weddings and 1,500+ sessions of my own before I started editing for other photographers, and I still edit every image myself. Newborn retouching · All genres and pricing