Should you hire a property photographer or take the photos yourself?

Hire a professional property photographer for luxury or large properties, and for any listing that needs drone photography, true twilight photos, video, floor plans or a 3D tour. For a flat, starter home, rental or FSBO listing in a well-lit property, a recent smartphone and an editing app are usually enough, provided you keep the camera level and shoot in good light. A professional typically charges a few hundred dollars per listing. Doing it yourself takes an hour or two.

Below are genuine published prices, what the extra money buys, and how to tell which type of property your listing is for.

What a professional photographer charges

Prices vary widely by market and property size, so here are two published sources rather than a made-up national figure.

Thumbtack's price guide, based on its own platform data and labelled 2025, puts the national average at $150 an hour, with prices ranging from about $123 to $272. Its average cost for photographing one property is $286. It quotes one firm's price tiers as $130 for 13 photos, $165 for 25 and $195 for 40.

Estate Photos L.A. publishes a full price list under the heading "2024 Services and Fees." Los Angeles is an expensive market, so use it as an upper-end benchmark:

A 2,500-square-foot house with photos, drone and twilight shots comes to $1,040 on that list, before video is added.

Zillow also sells packages. Zillow Media Experts Essentials includes around 30 HDR photos, an interactive floor plan and a virtual tour. Premium adds 5 to 10 drone photos, virtual twilight and a short social media video. Zillow shows starting prices by market on its availability page, so check yours.

When a professional is worth the cost

Luxury properties and large homes

For a large house, the photos do more to support the asking price, and large rooms are harder to photograph. Mixed lighting across an open-plan layout, double-height ceilings and long sightlines make a photographer's fee for flash, lenses and editing worthwhile. If the commission is substantial, a few hundred dollars for photography is a small proportion of the total.

Drone photos

Large grounds. A view. A swimming pool. A plot backing onto something attractive. These are the properties that call for aerial photography. The FAA says that flying a drone for work or business falls under Part 107, which means you need a Remote Pilot Certificate. If you don't have one, hire a pilot who does. Thumbtack lists example drone photography packages from $200 for eight shots to $249 for unlimited aerial shots.

True twilight

True twilight photography means returning at dusk with every light on and working quickly while the sky still has the light. Smartphones struggle with those conditions. Studios also sell "virtual twilight" (included in Zillow's Premium package): a daytime photo edited to look like dusk. Estate Photos L.A. charges $25 per photo for this edit. It's an altered sky. This has disclosure implications, as explained below.

Video, floor plans and 3D tours

Different skills, different software. And buyers do use them. In NAR's 2025 Generational Trends report, 57 per cent of buyers who searched online rated floor plans as "very useful", while 41 per cent said the same about virtual tours. If buyers in your market expect them, outsource them.

When you can't photograph in the right light

The photographer arrives at the time you book and brings lighting equipment. If the only time you're free is 7 p.m. in November, that alone can justify the fee.

When a phone and an app are all you need

Most listings aren't mansions. A two-bedroom flat, a starter home, a property between tenants or a seller selling without an agent: buyers want to see clean, bright, honest rooms. A modern smartphone can deliver that.

Zillow has said both things at various times. Its photography guide for sellers lists "using a cell phone to take pictures" among common mistakes and estimates the cost of professional photography at $150 to $200. Its guide for agents, published in the same year, describes a smartphone as a reasonable camera. Both were published in 2019. Smartphones have improved since then. The problems that rule out phone photography haven't changed: you still need to fix leaning verticals, yellow rooms and blown-out windows.

Phone photos work if you follow these steps:

• Shoot in landscape orientation, at chest height, with the phone level.
• Use the 0.5x lens, but keep furniture away from the edges of the frame.
• Turn on all the lights and open every blind.
• For the front of the house, shoot in daylight with the sun behind you.
• Correct the colour and verticals afterwards.

Our iPhone guide covers the settings, while the shot list tells you which rooms to photograph.

What a phone and an app can't do

Be clear-eyed about the gap. Real Estate Camera adjusts lighting and white balance, straightens verticals, removes furniture and stages empty rooms. It can't fly, record video or draw floor plans. It doesn't replace skies or fake a twilight scene either; that's deliberate, so you won't get the blue-sky cover shot included in a studio package.

That last limitation cuts both ways. Zillow's Essentials package says "blue sky enhancements are included." Under California's AB 723, replacing the sky counts as adding or changing an element, and the Bay East MLS rule classifies sky replacement as digitally altered. If your photographer replaces the sky, you may need to provide a label and a link to the original. Our AB 723 guide and disclosure wording guide explain what you need to write.

The cost of DIY

A phone you already own, an hour or two at the property, plus editing. In Real Estate Camera, Enhance costs 1 credit per photo, and each edit takes 20 to 60 seconds. A 25-photo listing uses 25 credits, which fits within the 60-credit pack for $24.99, with credits left over for the next one. Credits never expire, and the first credit is free. Declutter and Virtual staging cost 2 credits each if a room needs them.

The real cost is your time and your eye. Can't stand taking photos? Do they keep coming out crooked? The fee takes care of it for you.

A quick way to decide

You can also split the job. Hire a drone operator for the exterior and take the interior shots yourself. Or book a professional for the listing and use your phone for the rental next door.

However you do it, the same mistakes can ruin a photo set. Our list of listing photo mistakes is worth a look before the shoot, and the FSBO guide and the rental guide take you through a DIY shoot from start to finish.

If you're going the DIY route, see the real estate photography app.

Try the DIY approach on one listing and judge the results for yourself. Start free: 1 credit.