Photo licensing fee calculator
Price a commercial licence from the four things it has to name: media, term, territory and exclusivity. Get a usage fee range, the line items for your quote and the licence sentence for your contract.
Free, no account, nothing to install. Your answers stay in your browser.
On top of the creative fee, for a total of €1,500 to €2,000. The quote uses the middle. Aim higher for a larger brand or a product launch.
For your quote
Creative fee: €1,000 Usage licence: €750 Total: €1,750 Licence: Client is granted a non-exclusive licence to use the delivered images in paid social and digital advertising, in [country], for one year from delivery. Not included: any use not named in the licence above, which needs a separate licence.
Fill in the square brackets before you send it.
A licence is four variables
Every usage clause sets the same four things. Media is where the image can appear. Term is how long. Territory is where geographically. Exclusivity is whether you can licence the same image to anyone else. Leave one out and you have granted it without limit.
The calculator asks for all four and writes them into one sentence. Anything not in that sentence is not licensed.
How the fee is worked out
- Media sets the base. Owned channels for one year are included in the creative fee. Paid social and digital advertising adds 50 to 100 percent of it. National print advertising adds 100 to 200 percent.
- Term scales it. Perpetual use is two to three times a one year licence. Two years is 1.5 times and three years 1.75 times, which are our defaults. Owned channels stay included for two years and cost 50 to 100 percent in perpetuity.
- Territory adjusts paid media. The ranges above are national. One city or region is three quarters of that, worldwide one and a half times. These are our defaults too.
- Exclusivity is added on top. Exclusive within the client's sector adds 50 percent of the creative fee, whatever else applies.
Quote one figure, keep the range to yourself
The range is for you. The client sees a creative fee, a usage fee and the licence sentence. Itemised that way, the usage line reads as what it is: the price of the images working for the client, separate from the price of your day.
If the shoot is a smaller job, you can also fold a defined licence into a business day rate: owned channels, one territory, two years. The effective hourly rate calculator shows whether that day rate covers the hours behind it.
Common questions
- What is the difference between a creative fee and a usage fee?
- The creative fee pays for your time and craft: the shoot, the edit, the delivery. The usage fee pays for what the picture does for the client afterwards. You keep the copyright either way. On larger commercial jobs the usage fee is often the bigger of the two.
- When do I need a usage fee at all?
- When the client is a business using the image to sell something. Brand sessions, product and food work, headshots for recruitment advertising, and anything an agency commissions. A family or wedding client needs a print release, not a licence.
- Where do the percentages come from?
- The one year ranges for each medium, the two to three times multiplier for perpetual use and the 50 percent for sector exclusivity are the figures from our usage rights guide. The two and three year steps and the territory factors are our own defaults, labelled as such. None of it is a rate card.
- Why is there no price for billboards, packaging or TV?
- Because those are quoted per campaign. The value depends on the size of the campaign, the number of placements and the brand, and a percentage of your day rate does not capture it. The calculator shows the national print range as a floor and leaves the rest to you.
- Should I show the client a range?
- No. Pick one figure and quote it. The quote text uses the middle of the range. Move toward the top when the image carries a launch or a national campaign, toward the bottom for a small local business.
- What happens when the licence runs out?
- The client stops using the images or renews. Put the expiry in your calendar the day you deliver and send a renewal quote 60 days before. It is income with no shoot attached.
Put the licence next to the booking
Xposure takes the booking, the contract and the deposit in one flow, so the licence you quote is the licence the client signs.
See how bookings work7 more free tools for photographers are on the tools index: gallery platform cost calculator, delivery count planner, package builder, effective hourly rate, travel fee calculator, cancellation policy generator and portfolio speed check.