Real estate photography pricing in the Chicago area
Most listings we shoot run between $200 and $800. Pick your property type to get a real price from our intuitive calculator, then add options and book the date immediately.
What are we shooting?
Choose a tile above, and the calculator appears right here — you can see your price and reserve your shoot on the spot.
Vacant land, priced by acreage.
Set the acreage and the price is exact, with nobody to call first. Outbuildings and a farmhouse get a couple of drone frames included.
A 3D tour, without the rest.
360 walkthrough or measured LiDAR model — drag the square footage for the exact price of either on its own.
Just the aerials.
Photos alone at $175 flat, or photos plus an edited aerial video at $350. Pick one and book the date.
Just the twilight.
A real dusk visit for the exterior — $250 flat, and no fewer than four images. The slot follows the sunset.
Just the video.
Walkthrough or produced listing film, priced by list price and footage. Not for a listing? Commercial and brand video is scoped instead.
Quoted per property — because vacation rentals aren't listings.
A vacation rental has no list price to scale from, and the shot list runs to the amenities and the setting as well as the rooms. Tell us about the place and you'll get a real number back, usually the same day.
- Every room and every amenity named in your listing
- The setting — aerials for anything on acreage or water
- A cover-photo frame composed to survive every crop
- Twilight, video and 3D tour available on the same visit
Beds and baths · what's outside (hot tub, fire pit, dock, acreage) · the town · a link to the current listing if it's live. That's enough to scope it.
What are we shooting?
Most commercial work is priced, not scoped — pick the shape of the job and the right calculator opens on the commercial pricing page.
How much does real estate photography cost in Chicago?
Most listings we shoot run between $200 and $800, depending on the property’s size and list price. Land, 3D tours and commercial work are priced separately further down. The pricing calculator above gives you the exact number for your property in about thirty seconds. You do not need to talk to anyone to get it.
Listing packages, and what they cost.
Prices scale with the property, so these are worked examples — the calculator above gives the exact number for yours. Every package includes unlimited photos, drone coverage and a full marketing license.
| Example property | Basic | Essentials | Premium | Estate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $300,000 · 1,400 sq ft | $150 | $200 | $425 | $1,135 |
| $450,000 · 2,000 sq ft | $150 | $280 | $455 | $1,375 |
| $600,000 · 2,600 sq ft | $150 | $370 | $605 | $1,645 |
| $850,000 · 3,200 sq ft | $150 | $515 | $835 | $1,945 |
| $1,300,000 · 4,500 sq ft | $150 | $760 | $1,230 | $2,740 |
Every package is available on every property. Basic Listing is a flat $150, plus $45 outside the core service area. The calculator recommends a package for your property — you can pick any of them.
Basic Listing
$150 flat
A simple, fast option for smaller or lower-priced properties.
- Up to 12 photos
- Color corrected
- MLS-sized + full resolution
- Photos by 11:30am next morning on a pre-2pm shoot
Properties at or under $300,000. The only package with a photo count — everything above is unlimited, with drone.
Essentials
from $200
HDR and drone photography with a floor plan — what a standard listing needs to go live.
- Unlimited HDR photos
- Aerial drone photos (3–8)
- Basic floor plan
- Photos by 11:30am next morning on a pre-2pm shoot
Premium
from $425
Full interior and exterior coverage, with a 3D tour or a listing video, an enhanced floor plan and a virtual twilight photo included.
- Unlimited flambient + HDR photos
- Aerial drone photos (6–10)
- 3D virtual tour — or a listing video instead
- Enhanced floor plan
- One virtual twilight photo
- Fireplace fire
- Photos by 11:30am next morning on a pre-2pm shoot
Estate
from $1,135
The full marketing bundle at a bundled rate — priced at 90% of buying every piece separately.
- Unlimited flambient photos
- Aerial drone photos (10–15)
- 3D floor plan
- 3D virtual tour
- Full cinematic listing video
- True twilight shoot
- Detail shots + drone video
- Fireplace fire
Add-ons, and what they cost.
Add any of these to any package. Prices shown for a $500,000 listing; most scale with the property.
Virtual staging is a flat $30 for the listing. AI declutter caps at $30 too — six photos or sixty, the price is the same.
That is every number we charge.
Pick the property type and the calculator gives you the exact total for your listing, with a live calendar attached.
If the photos aren’t right, they get fixed.
Unlimited re-edits
Tell us what isn’t right and we edit it again. No limit, no charge, however many times it takes.
A reshoot if editing can’t fix it
If re-editing doesn’t get there, we come back and shoot it again at no charge.
Photos by 11:30am, next morning
Shoot before 2pm and the photos are in your inbox by 11:30am the next business day; book later and they land by 6pm instead.
Late on our end anyway? A $20 credit toward your next shoot — automatic, no asking.
Not a listing? Pick your shoot type.
Each one is priced on what actually drives the work — acreage for land, floor area for a tour, the property for a listing. Open the one you need.
Vacation rentals
The only type without a slider, and deliberately so. A vacation rental has no list price to scale from, and the shot list runs to the amenities and the setting as much as the rooms — a hot tub, a dock, a fire pit and forty acres of view are the product.
- Every room and every amenity named in the listing
- The setting — aerials for anything on acreage or water
- A cover frame composed to survive every platform’s crop
- Twilight, video and 3D tour available on the same visit
Tell us beds, baths, what is outside and the town, and you get a real number back — usually the same day.
How vacation rental shoots work →Vacant land
Priced on acreage, not list price — a parcel has no rooms to shoot and no square footage that means anything. Set the acreage in the calculator and the number is exact.
| Parcel | Package | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 5 acres | Lot | $195 |
| 25 acres | Acreage | $255 |
| 50 acres | Acreage | $325 |
| 120 acres | Estate & development | $450 |
| 200 acres and up | Estate & development | $595 |
Buildings on the parcel are fine. Barns, outbuildings and a farmhouse get a couple of drone frames included at no extra cost.
What a land shoot covers →Virtual tour on its own
A tour bought on its own is a dedicated visit — drive, set up, scan, process, host — with no photo shoot to share the trip with, so it is priced on its own curve, higher than the same tour added to a shoot. Floor area is the only thing that matters, because scanning time is floor area. Two kinds: a 360 tour walks a buyer through the house; a LiDAR scan builds a measured 3D model with a dollhouse view.
| Floor area | 360 tour | LiDAR tour |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 2,000 sq ft | $250 | $695 |
| 3,000 sq ft | $320 | $775 |
| 5,000 sq ft | $460 | $940 |
| 8,000 sq ft | $665 | $1,180 |
| 15,000 sq ft | $1,150 | $1,750 |
| 25,000 sq ft | $1,600 | $2,550 |
| 40,000 sq ft | $2,275 | $3,750 |
Hosting is included for the first year. After that a tour stays live for $99 a year — a listing normally sells long before it matters, so this really only comes up on commercial accounts.
Included free with Premium and Estate — these prices are for a tour booked on its own.
How the tours work →One service on its own
For a listing that is already shot, or a property that only needs one thing. Prices shown for a $500,000 property; most scale with it.
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Aerial photos only | $175 |
| Aerial photos + drone video | $350 |
| True twilight shoot, on location — no fewer than four images | $250 flat |
| Virtual twilight from a daytime frame | $35 a photo |
| Reels and social clips | $125 |
| Listing video — walkthrough | $250 |
| Listing video — full cinematic | $930 |
Buying two or more of these usually costs less inside a package than separately — the calculator will show you which way is cheaper.
Floor plans
Floor plans are measured while we are already at the property, so they are added to a shoot rather than booked on their own — including onto a 3D tour appointment, where the measurements come out of the same scan. We are not going to drive two hours for a $50 floor plan, and quoting one as if we would is not honest.
A basic plan is complimentary on Essentials, Premium, Estate and on a 3D tour appointment. Basic Listing does not include one — it is the stripped-back option. Upgrades are priced by floor area, shown here for a 2,600 sq ft home:
| Type | 2,600 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Basic — black and white, dimensioned | Complimentary |
| Enhanced — color-coded rooms | $90 |
| 3D — dollhouse view | $135 |
Enhanced comes with Premium and 3D with Estate, so on those packages the upgrade is already in the price. Need a plan for a property we have not shot? Ask — we will tell you honestly whether it is worth a trip.
Floor plan options →Commercial & architecture
Commercial has its own calculator, priced on the building rather than a list price. Pick the shape of the job, set the size, and the number comes back the same way it does for a house.
- A single commercial space — offices, restaurants, salons, medical suites
- Apartment and multifamily communities, priced per building
- Storage facilities, priced by facility and by city
- Construction progress — photography and 360 tours on a schedule
- Storefronts, retail and brokerage marketing
Three things stay quoted rather than published, because a rate card would short-change one side or the other: architectural photography, where usage and licensing are negotiated per engagement; scan-to-CAD, priced on file requirements; and a measured floor plan with no shoot attached.
For those three you get a written proposal against the property, the timeline and what the deliverables have to do — normally within one business day.
Open the commercial calculator →Why the price follows the list price, not the floor area.
Most studios quote off square footage. We mostly don’t, and it is worth explaining why.
Expensive homes are bigger jobs
Not just larger — denser. Trim and millwork worth shooting close, a finished basement, a garage that matters, grounds, a view. Two homes of identical floor area can be half a day apart in work, and the list price tells you which is which.
It keeps the entry price honest
A flat rate means the modest listing subsidizes the luxury one. Scaling with value means a $250,000 condo pays a $250,000 condo’s price, and the estate pays its own.
It moves with the market on its own
When values rise, the rate rises with them — no annual price-list rewrite, no note telling everyone rates have gone up. The published number stays current by construction.
Size still counts — it just counts second. Two listings at the same price are not the same job:
Same list price, $120 apart — because one is a morning and the other is most of a day. A high price per square foot works in your favor: compact luxury prices below a large home at the same number.
Square footage also sets the price of anything measured outright — floor plans, 3D tours and video.
Your first shoot with us includes a twilight photo and virtual staging — free.
A virtual twilight of the front elevation and virtual staging for the listing, added to whichever package you pick. Normally $65 of add-ons; on a first booking they are on us, because the quickest way to show you the work is worth it is to do it.
See your price →
Commercial work has its own pricing page.
Offices, multifamily, storefronts and construction progress all price themselves in a calculator, same as a house. Floor-plan-only visits, scan-to-CAD and architectural work are the three that stay quoted.
Commercial pricing →The things people ask before they book.
Is the calculator’s price final?
Yes — for the property you described. Every self-priced booking is verified before the shoot: we confirm the square footage, the buildings and the scope against what was entered, and if something differs the price is corrected in either direction and agreed with you before any work or charge. The calculator is a commitment, not an estimate — it just has to be a commitment to the real property.
Why does the price change with the property?
It scales mostly with the list price, and only a little with the square footage. That sounds backwards until you shoot a few hundred houses: a more expensive home is almost always a bigger job. More architectural detail worth photographing, more finished rooms, a basement that counts, a garage, grounds, a view. List price predicts the size of the shot list far more reliably than floor area does — a 3,000 sq ft builder-grade box and a 3,000 sq ft architect-designed home are not the same day’s work.
Does square footage matter at all?
Yes, but less than people expect. It moves the photography price a little at the extremes, and it directly sets the price of anything measured — floor plans, 3D tours and video, which all take longer in a bigger house. Between a 1,800 and a 2,600 sq ft home at the same list price, the photography number barely moves.
Another photographer quoted me $99. Why is this more?
Because at $99 the shoot has to be over in half an hour. That means one exposure per room, no lights out of the bag, and an edit sent overnight to a volume shop that has never seen the house. You can usually spot the result on the listing: windows blown to white or rooms gone dark, walls leaning in at the corners, one room warm and the next one blue.
Here, each frame is lit and blended so the room and the view out of the window are both correct, verticals are straightened, and color is matched room to room by someone working to one standard. Drone is in the package rather than upsold, photos aren’t capped, and if something still isn’t right we re-edit it — or reshoot it — until it is. Drag the before-and-after on the homepage; that is the difference, and it is the whole argument.
Is the drone really included?
Yes. In the package, not an add-on, not a surcharge, not weather-dependent pricing — it is the single most common thing agents get upsold on elsewhere. The one exception is Basic Listing, which is deliberately stripped back.
What is Basic Listing for?
For when you just need quick professional photos and nothing else. Up to 12 corrected photos, MLS-sized and full resolution, back by 11:30am the next morning — no drone, no floor plan, no extras. It is offered on properties at or under $300,000 and it is the only package with a photo count. Everything from Essentials up is unlimited photos with drone included.
What does “unlimited photos” actually mean?
Every frame worth delivering gets delivered. There is no cap at 25 or 40 and no per-photo charge past it. A big house simply gets more photos.
When do I pay?
A retainer holds the date when you book, and the balance is due on delivery.
Can I use the photos anywhere?
Yes. Every package includes a full marketing license — MLS, portals, print, social, your own site, for as long as you want. Some studios license per use; we do not.
No “starting at.” No surprise at checkout.
The number the calculator shows is the number on the invoice. If a property is genuinely unusual, we say so before the shoot — never after.
Real estate photography prices, published in full.
Exact total in under a minute, a real calendar, and photos by 11:30am the next morning on a pre-2pm shoot.