What Does Commercial Photography Cost in Southern Maine?
Most commercial photographers in Maine don’t publish their rates.
You fill out a contact form, wait a couple of days, get on a call, and eventually get a number that tells you nothing about whether it’s fair or what it actually buys you. I’ve never understood the logic of that approach. A business owner deciding whether to hire me isn’t just weighing a cost. They’re deciding whether they trust the person quoting it. Hiding the number until after a sales conversation doesn’t build that trust. It just delays the moment you find out.
So here’s every number, upfront. Transparency is the standard here: every rate below is real, and it’s what you’ll actually pay.
Ongoing Story: starting at $1,375 a month. Your operation is never going to stop needing photography. The website gets stale. The team changes. The season turns over, and eventually everything online is a year behind what’s actually true. This tier is built around that reality instead of pretending it away: one two-hour session a month, thirty curated images, delivered on a locked rate that never surprises you at the end of a quarter. No re-booking a shoot every time something changes. For a lot of businesses, once it’s laid out next to the alternative, this ends up being the obvious answer.
Brand Refresh: $1,675. A half day of zero-disruption documentary coverage. Forty curated and edited images. Five media-ready selects within three days, full gallery within two weeks.
Asset Library: $2,875. A full day of comprehensive coverage. Seventy-five curated and edited images, ten media-ready selects within three days, same two-week gallery turnaround. The option most businesses land on when they need a real library to pull from for months.
Enterprise Brand Overhaul: $5,175. Up to two full days of coverage for a business rebuilding its entire visual presence at once. A hundred and twenty curated images, fifteen media-ready selects, and a pre-shoot creative brief where we map out exactly what needs to get covered before I ever pick up a camera.
Every tier includes the same non-negotiables: a commercial license with no per-platform charges and no recurring fees, speed selects within three days, and zero disruption to your actual operation: doors open, staff working, nothing staged. Every published rate covers local and regional use. National licensing is available upon request; inquire for details.
Add-ons, if you need them. Additional edited images beyond your package are a flat $50 each. Need more time on-site than a package covers? An extra $200 an hour. Want a physical print out of the shoot, something for the office wall and not just the website? Archival prints start at $20, a full wall print at $75, an instant on-site print package at $150. And if you’re rebuilding a website and need words as well as images, there’s a Session Profile add-on for $375: a 300 to 500 word biography of your business, built from observations made while I’m shooting, ready to drop straight into an about page or a press release without a second round of edits.
Within 30 miles of Westbrook, travel’s included in every package. Between 30 and 100 miles, it’s a dollar a mile, round trip. Beyond 100 miles, that’s a custom quote before anything gets booked.
None of these rates are the ceiling, either. Published pricing is the standard, but bespoke arrangements are just as common: a business with a specific need that doesn’t fit neatly into a package, a nonprofit working within a real constraint, a multi-location operation that needs something structured differently. If that’s you: need something specific? I’m listening.
The honest range, if you’re comparing across the market: commercial photography in Southern Maine runs from a few hundred dollars for a basic session to tens of thousands for a full agency production. HMS sits in the working-professional middle: flat rates built for a real business with a real budget, without the agency overhead or the vague quote at the end of a sales call.
Ready to talk about your project schedule? Text “HMS” to 207-400-4410
Need a record? Email me at tyler@humblemoments.com