How a solo real estate photographer should structure pay for a first second shooter

The part that stands out is keeping all the editing in house. At 50 minutes a shoot across a high volume of monthly shoots, that's already a heavy chunk of editing hours before a second shooter adds more. Once a second shooter's volume is added, that workload can climb past 40 hours a month of screen time, which is often the exact job someone was trying to get out of by hiring help. Sorting out who edits should come before sorting out how the new hire is paid, because the pay number depends on it. If editing responsibilities ever shift, a flat fee usually has to move with them, which means renegotiating sooner than planned.

The thing that actually causes trouble on a two-person setup like this isn't the rate, it's the reshoot. First time a seller says the light was wrong or the agent wants the kitchen from the other side, who drives back out and does that trip get paid? On a flat fee she'll assume it's covered and you'll assume it isn't, and you find out on a Saturday. Write the reshoot rule into the same message as the number. Also the size band is right but I'd draw it on shooting time rather than square feet, because a 1,400 foot house with six outbuildings takes longer than a 3,000 foot townhouse.

Disagree with the earlier take a little. Keeping the editing for now is defensible because the edit is the thing clients recognize, and handing it over in week one is how a client gets lost without anyone knowing why. But the math does break. A common approach when adding a second person is flat pay per shoot plus a separate editing rate she can opt into once she clears a quality bar written down in advance, say three sample sets approved. That transition often takes about four months and frees up roughly 22 hours a month on the owner's side. On the number itself, $85 against a $310 invoice is 27 percent of revenue for maybe 55 percent of the field labor. That's fine while the owner still edits. It stops being fine the moment she edits too, so the second number is worth deciding tonight even if it doesn't turn on yet. And get the contractor question answered properly. The tests turn on how much control there is over her schedule and methods, and they vary by state, so that's a call for someone licensed in that state rather than a forum answer.