Once we established our core business model, as creatives ourselves, it was important for us to figure out as many ways to “protect” our photographers’ time as we could. 

The Right Support

We wanted to be a platform that could take care of all the time-consuming, costly, pesky business activities that photographers don’t typically enjoy so if they decided to join our platform, they could do so and be able to just focus on what they love: photography! 

Here’s the list of activities that Shoott takes care of in order to make that happen:

• Finding clients

  • Shoott handles all marketing and social media

  • Shoott finds potential partners to help provide more brand exposure / value packages to clients

• Scheduling and Permits

  • Shoott maintains a list of bookable locations for clients based on our constant research in 60 metropolitan areas across the US

  • This requires conflict tracking to try to avoid any major events like festivals or marathons

  • This requires maintaining a list of backup locations

• Customer Service and real-time client management

  • Shoott provides emergency hotlines for photographers to help them troubleshoot any issues that arise when they have their sessions. Need to move all our clients to a backup location due to unforeseen construction? Need help managing a difficult client? We have a hotline!

  • During the week, we have a message center where we help provide support for any questions; we also maintain as detailed of guides and resources as possible to help you navigate through our policies and practices with confidence.

• Proprietary tech platforms and online photographer resources

  • Shoott has built out fully proprietary online platforms to help Shoott photographers provide their schedule,

  • Photo editing solution for those interested

Average Photographer Hourly Rate

On average, a Shoott photographer makes $140-150 per photography hour + tips (~$23 per session). Photographers can opt to edit their own photos for color, cropping, and lighting or choose to use our in-house editing solution to save time (available at a low per photo fee). There is no photoshop work for the level of photo services we offer.

Photographers also earn extra bonuses to protect their time for client lateness, no-shows, or late cancellations. There may be additional bonuses if they work more specialized “custom sessions” if it requires extra travel or other equipment as well.

Are Photographers Paid Fairly?

We try to be upfront with what a photographer can expect by working with Shoott so there are no surprises. The reality is that Shoott is not a service for all photographers - it’s for those looking to earn easy and convenient supplemental income with gigs that we find them at the rate described above.

Some photographers are so “booked and busy” that Shoott wouldn’t make sense for them economically. However, there are a lot of other photographers for whom the pay + services provided by Shoott makes sense to them. We’ve found these photographers are often multi-hyphenate artists and professionals trying to make ends meet and they love working easy gigs they themselves didn’t have to find. Our photographers range from:

• Talented-but-earlier-stage artists who want to build their business and grow their portfolios to

• Experienced photographers who have a few years of photographing professionally under their belts but they might also have multiple ventures going on (e.g. they are equally passionate about building their tattoo business, working as a tv producer, or they’re moms with young kids trying to make ends meet) to

• Well-established professional photographers who have decades of experience and many credits and publications under their belt but who just want the option to work more in a season of their life.

No matter what the reason (we don’t judge!), we want to be a platform that helps these types of photographers find more gigs and support them with supplemental income so they can continue to pursue their passion. 

Have more questions about what it’s like to work as a Shoott photographer? Check out our page for prospective photographers.