He was loading the car in fifty minutes, drone and all, so I asked his price
I was finishing trim in a vacant townhouse when the listing photographer came through. I figured I'd be in his way for an hour. He was done and loading the car in about fifty minutes, and that's with the drone.
His routine was tight. He walked the unit once, decided the order, then shot every room from two corners and left. No lights on stands, just the on-camera flash and a bunch of exposures per frame that he said get blended later. The drone went up twice, once for the roofline and once looking back down the street, and he was watching the neighbor's dog the whole time.
So I asked. He does 3 to 5 stops a day in season, quotes by square foot with tiers, and adds on for the drone and for the vertical video the agents want for social. Editing is the part that eats him, so he pays someone overseas to do the first pass on the stills overnight and he only touches the exteriors himself. He said his 3D scanner paid for itself in about a year and a half and now it's the thing that keeps two brokerages calling him instead of the cheaper guy.
The part that stuck with me was slow season. He said November through January he's mostly doing headshots and construction progress sets because the listings aren't there. His income follows sales volume with a two-week delay and there's nothing he can do about that.