How much does real estate photography cost in Australia?

Photography on its own commonly runs $150 to $600 per listing in Australia, with 15 to 28 edited images a typical delivery. Where a quote lands inside that range is mostly a function of property size and how many finished images you need.

A cinematic 60 to 90 second property walkthrough video is commonly $380 to $550 in Sydney, quoted separately from the stills.

A premium package that bundles twilight, drone and video usually lands between $700 and $1,200 in the capital cities. That is the number most agents have in mind when they say photography is expensive, and it is worth being precise that it is a package price rather than a photography price.

Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane command higher rates than regional markets. The work is the same, but demand, travel and overheads are not, so an identical brief priced in a capital and priced in a regional centre will not come back at the same number.

Adelaide gives a useful read on where the mid market sits. Published packages there commonly start at $275 for 15 edited photos, $330 for 18 to 21 photos, and $395 for 25 to 28 photos.

Notice what changes between those tiers. It is the number of finished images, not a different standard of photography. That is the shape of almost every package ladder you will be quoted, and it is worth knowing before you assume the higher tier buys better work.

Property size. More rooms means more setups, more time on site and more frames to edit. A one bedroom apartment and a five bedroom home on an acre are not the same job and are rarely priced as one.

Image count. The main lever inside a package ladder, as above. Decide how many images your listing genuinely needs before you read the tiers, rather than after.

Twilight. A dusk shoot is a second visit inside a window that lasts about twenty minutes, so it is usually a line item rather than an inclusion.

Drone. Aerials need a licensed pilot and cooperative conditions, and travel to a property outside the metro area is often billed on top.

Video. A separate shoot and a separate edit, and typically the largest single add on in a package.

Floor plans. Usually measured on site and drafted afterwards, and usually priced per plan.

Turnaround. Standard editing is commonly 24 to 48 hours. Faster delivery, where it is offered at all, generally carries a rush fee.

Read the exclusions as carefully as the inclusions. Additional images beyond the package count are commonly billed per image. Travel outside a defined metro radius is commonly separate, as is a return visit for twilight or for rooms that were not ready on the day.

Virtual staging, floor plans and listing copywriting are usually quoted as their own items rather than folded into a photography package.

Reshoots are the one that catches people out. If the vendor decluttered after the shoot, or the weather turned, or a tenant was home, fixing it means another booking and another fee.

Licensing is worth asking about in writing. Confirm you can use the images for social, print and your own website, and confirm what happens to them if the campaign or the agency changes.

Photography earns its fee when the images are a material part of the price the property will fetch. On a prestige listing, or a genuinely beautiful home, someone standing in the room deciding where to put the camera is worth paying for, and no amount of processing replaces that judgement.

It is also the right call when the rooms need work before they can be shot. Furniture moved, styling brought in, a shoot timed to particular light. That is on site work, and it is the hardest part of the job to buy any other way.

The harder question is the listing in the middle: a mid range home where the vendor will not fund a $900 package, the campaign has to be live this week, and the realistic alternative is not a cheaper photographer but eight phone photos and no video at all.

Quotes vary partly because briefs do. Send every photographer the same brief and the numbers become something you can actually compare.

Include the property type and rough size, the number of finished images you want, whether you need twilight, drone, video or a floor plan, the turnaround you need, and where the images will be used. Then ask two follow ups: the price of extra images beyond the package, and the price of a reshoot.

We sell generated listing marketing, so read this section as the interested party it is. DomeAgent works from photos you already have. One module, Images, Aerials or Video, is $149 on a listing, and all three are $299. There is no shoot, so there is no booking, no travel and no weather.

That is a different product from a photography package rather than a cheaper version of one. A photographer makes choices on site that generation cannot make from a finished frame. What generation covers well is the listing that was never going to get a package at all, and the parts of a campaign a stills quote does not include.

Plenty of agents do both: a photographer on the listings that carry the fee, generation for the aerials, the video and the collateral that was not in the quote.