Outsourcing product photography: DIY, photo factory, or photographer?

Outsourcing product photography: the short answer

You can get product photos three ways: shoot them yourself with a smartphone and light box (from roughly €50 in gear), send products to a studio that charges a fixed price per item (typically €10 to €25 per packshot), or hire a photographer or agency for brand-level imagery (typically €80 to €110 per hour). The right route depends on your catalogue size, sales channels and brand ambition.

Search for product photography services and you get three very different kinds of providers side by side: DIY tutorials, photo factories that shoot your products for a fixed fee per image, and photographers who bill by the hour or half-day. All three can be the right call; it depends entirely on what you sell and where. This guide puts the routes next to each other honestly, with typical market rates per route and a decision framework, so you neither overpay for simple packshots nor underinvest in the imagery your brand has to carry.

Why product photos make or break your conversion

In an online store, the photo is the product. Visitors cannot hold, try or turn anything; the image has to compensate for that. Sharp, consistent product photos lower the barrier to buy and reduce returns, because customers see exactly what is coming. Blurry or inconsistent images do the opposite: they plant doubt, and doubt clicks away.

Your photos also work far beyond the product page. They show up in Google Shopping, in image search results, on marketplaces and in your ads. Good product photography is raw material for the rest of your marketing, and a direct lever for conversion rate optimization.

The three routes side by side

The rest of this article walks through the routes one by one, including when to switch from one to the next.

Route 1: DIY product photos with a smartphone and light box

Shooting your own product photos is a fine starting point, and sometimes even the best choice. Modern smartphones are sharp enough for web use, and with a light box (roughly €30 to €100), a tripod and daylight lamps you can get a clean, cut-out result at home. For a starting webshop with ten products, or to test a new product quickly before investing in imagery, this is defensible.

The limits are not in the camera but in repeatability. Photographing one product neatly is doable; fifty products in exactly the same style, lighting and crop is another story. And every evening spent shooting and editing does not go into buying stock or serving customers.

Route 2: fixed-price packshots from a product photo studio

The second route is a studio that charges per product: you ship your products or drop them off, add instructions per item, and receive cut-out photos within a few working days. Typical market rates run €10 to €25 per packshot, depending on volume, product size and the number of images per item; some studios work with volume tiers or packages starting at a few hundred euros.

For large catalogues this model is hard to beat. The quality is consistent, the price predictable, and you need no skills of your own. It is exactly what marketplaces and price comparison sites require: uniform, cut out, white.

The flip side is that you get exactly that: uniform and white. A factory packshot does not distinguish you from the competitor using the same studio. Fine for category pages; too little for your homepage, campaigns and brand building.

Route 3: a photographer or agency for brand-level imagery

The third route is a product photographer or agency working per hour, half-day or project. Typical rates sit at €80 to €110 per hour (excl. VAT), with half-days between €195 and €795; fixed packages for a full product series start around €400 in the market. In return you get what the other routes cannot deliver: direction. A photographer thinks along on styling, light, composition and the mood that fits your brand, and delivers lifestyle imagery, detail shots and model photography alongside packshots.

This route pays off once imagery has to carry your brand instead of merely filling your catalogue. Think premium products where the look has to justify the price tag, campaign work, or categories like fashion where mood and fit decide everything; for that last one we wrote a separate guide on clothing photography. Our own team has shot couture for Mart Visser and worked for the Meesteropleiding Coupeur, Amsterdam’s master-tailoring academy; that fashion-world experience sets the bar we apply to every product image.

What is a packshot, and when do you need more?

A packshot is the cut-out product photo on a white or neutral background: the product, sharp and honest, without distraction. It is the standard for product pages and marketplaces, and the unit photo factories bill in. But a strong product page usually needs several kinds of imagery:

The mix partly decides your route. If you mainly need packshots, fixed price per product wins. If you need lifestyle, detail and model shots, you end up with a photographer or agency; many webshops combine both.

How to decide whether to outsource product photography

Outsourcing product photography is not an all-or-nothing choice. The honest decision framework runs along four questions:

1. How many products do you have? Up to about twenty products you can manage yourself or outsource small. From dozens of items onward, a fixed price per product almost always beats your own hours; our guide to product photography costs runs the scenarios.
2. Where do you sell? Marketplaces and comparison sites demand uniform packshots: route 2. Your own store and campaigns demand distinctive imagery: route 3.
3. What does the image have to do? Merely show what it is: a packshot suffices. Convince why it is worth its price: then you need mood, styling and direction.
4. How often does your range change? Weekly new items call for a repeatable process (route 2, or a fixed rhythm with a photographer). A stable collection can run on one good shoot per season.

Many webshops land on a combination: fixed-price packshots across the full catalogue, plus a photographer or agency for the brand imagery that carries the homepage, campaigns and hero products.

Imagery that also gets found: the Viralistic approach

There is a difference between beautiful product photos and product photos that perform. Imagery created in isolation from your website and findability often ends up half-unused: wrong formats, heavy files, no alt text, and a product page that was never designed around it.

At Viralistic we plan product photography together with the people who build your site, brand and SEO, from our base on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. In practice that means: a shot list that follows from your page design, image formats that fit every placement, and files that behave well on the web; light enough for your load times and equipped with alt text, so your images also compete in Google Images, Shopping and the AI search engines that increasingly form the first touchpoint. We use the same integrated approach for business photography and campaign imagery.

That reframes the question from “what does product photography cost?” to “what does each image return?”; a healthier calculation for any webshop.

Frequently asked questions

What does product photography cost?

Product photography costs depend on the route. Fixed-price studios typically charge €10 to €25 per packshot. A product photographer typically bills €80 to €110 per hour (excl. VAT), with half-days between €195 and €795. Shooting your own photos costs a one-off €50 to €500 in gear, plus your own hours.

Where can I get product photos taken?

You can have product photos taken at specialised studios with a fixed price per item (you ship your products in), by local product photographers billing per hour or half-day, or through an agency that combines photography with web design and marketing. The right provider depends on your volumes and whether you need only packshots or brand imagery as well.

How do I take product photos myself?

Use a light box or a large window with indirect daylight, put your smartphone or camera on a tripod, and shoot against a white or neutral background. Keep distance, lighting and crop identical for every product, and edit your images consistently. Budget practice time: the first series is rarely right straight away.

How much does a photographer cost per hour?

A professional photographer typically costs €80 to €110 per hour, excluding VAT. Note that most photographers fold preparation and post-production into that rate, and many apply a minimum fee for short jobs. Always ask for the total project price rather than the loose hourly rate.

What exactly is a packshot?

A packshot is a cut-out product photo on a white or neutral background, without a distracting setting. It is the standard for product pages, Google Shopping and marketplaces. Packshots are usually priced per piece and are meant to show the product honestly and uniformly, not to convey mood or brand feeling.

How many product photos do I need per product?

Five to eight images per product page is typical: a main packshot, two or three alternative angles, a detail shot of material or finish, a scale or in-use shot and, where relevant, a lifestyle image. Marketplaces often set their own minimum requirements for count and background; check those before planning a shoot.

Conclusion: choose per image type, not per provider

The smartest way to source product photography is to decide per image type. Packshots for the full catalogue: outsource at a fixed price per product, typically €10 to €25 each. Brand imagery that carries your homepage and campaigns: a photographer or agency with direction and styling. DIY remains the starting point for small counts and tests. And whatever you choose: plan your imagery together with your website and findability, because that is where every euro per photo gets earned back.