Most photographers never run the number, so they keep saying yes to jobs that quietly lose money. This one spreadsheet tracks every shoot, deposit, gear purchase, and editing hour, then shows your real photography effective hourly rate per project. It also handles your photographer tax deductions 2026 and your quarterly estimated taxes so April stops ambushing you. Built for 1099 photographers and videographers. Excel and Google Sheets, pay once for $29, yours forever, no subscription.
You pay once, you download the file, and it is yours for life. Customize anything, add your own columns, build the view you want. Your numbers stay on your computer, not on their server.
Built for the real money of your work: the numbers that decide if you made a profit, and the deductions most people leave on the table.
Logs your shoot fee against every real hour: shooting, editing, travel, emails, and gallery delivery. It turns a $1,500 booking that ate 22 hours into the honest $47 an hour you actually earned, not the $375 the shoot day pretends. That one number is why you stop underpricing the jobs that bleed you.
Shows exactly who paid a retainer, who still owes a balance, and what is due on delivery day, with a paid or unpaid flag on every line. No more discovering three weeks later that a final $900 payment never came in.
Sorts every ordinary business expense (software, props, backdrops, second shooters, lab and print costs) into the exact Schedule C categories your tax form uses. The deductions most photographers forget are the ones that cut your bill the most, and here none of them slip through.
Tracks every body, lens, light, drone, and gimbal with purchase date and cost, then flags whether you expense it now or write it off under Section 179. You hand your CPA a clean asset list instead of a drawer of receipts, and you stop leaving four-figure gear write-offs on the table.
Logs every drive to sessions, scouting trips, and client meetings at the 2026 IRS rate of 72.5 cents per mile. One full wedding season of driving routinely totals a four-figure deduction you would otherwise never claim.
Auto-calculates the 25 to 30 percent you should park from every payment and tracks it against the four quarterly estimated tax deadlines. You always know what to send the IRS, so the bill never blindsides you and the underpayment penalty never hits.
Your business at a glance: YTD revenue, profit, true effective rate, taxes owed, and outstanding balances
Every booking with package, total hours invested, and what it actually earned per hour
Track retainers, balances due, and payment status so no final payment slips through
All ordinary business spend sorted into Schedule C categories
Asset log for cameras, lenses, lights, and rigs with expense-now vs Section 179 flag
Business miles to shoots, scouting, and meetings at the 2026 IRS rate
Where your unbilled hours actually go, the data behind your effective rate
Prices a shoot for all the work including the unpaid editing hours, and shows your real pay per hour.
Schedule C totals by category and quarterly estimated tax set-aside
Yes. The shoot, deposit, gear, and mileage tracking are identical whether you shoot stills, video, or both. Videographers lean harder on the editing and time log because post takes longer, and that is exactly where the effective hourly rate calculator earns its keep by exposing how much an hour of color and cutting really costs you.
It is what you truly earn per hour once you count editing, travel, emails, and delivery, not just the hours behind the camera. A $1,500 wedding that takes 32 hours end to end pays about $47 an hour, not the $375 the shoot day suggests. Most photographers have never seen this number, and once you do, it changes how you price every package.
It covers the ones photographers actually claim: gear under Section 179, mileage at the 2026 rate of 72.5 cents per mile, software and editing subscriptions, second shooters and assistants, lab and print costs, props, and home office spend, all sorted into Schedule C categories. It also calculates your quarterly estimated taxes so you set aside the right amount from every payment.
No. You type in your shoots, payments, and expenses, and the built-in formulas handle the math, the tax set-aside, and the dashboard. Every tab is already labeled in plain English, so there is nothing to build and no formula to write.
Yes. It is $29 once, with no subscription, no per-month fee, and no upsell. You download it, it is yours forever, and you can copy it for next year or duplicate tabs however you like. Unlike a booking app, your client and income data stays on your computer, not on someone else's server, so it never vanishes because you stopped paying.
Free, no-fluff guides written for your trade. No email wall, no upsell.
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