Ask the agent
How much should I charge for twilight, floor plans and virtual staging?
The price is not the problem. The word "add-on" is. Every add-on nobody picks is one more small no on every quote you send, and it makes your whole sheet read like a menu she has to work.
Add-ons are decisions. Bonuses are gifts.
Look at your sheet the way she does, on a phone, between showings. Three add-ons at the bottom means three small decisions before she can book, and three small nos is how she gets through it fastest.
Every add-on is one more thing she has to decide between showings. Three add-ons is three more chances to say no, and she takes them, not because the price is wrong but because deciding is work.
Same items, different sentence. "Twilight, +$75" is a decision. "Twilight included" is a gift. She pays for the second sentence, and she pays more for it.
From the agent’s chair, where I sat for ten years, an add-on is one more line to justify to the seller. A bonus is one more thing to brag about at the listing appointment.
Put virtual twilight and the floor plan inside the package
Which two do you give away? The two that cost you a click, not a trip.
On our sheet, virtual twilight and the floor plan sit inside the package, not on a menu. They cost me an editor’s click. No second drive, no second shoot, no waiting for dusk.
Reprice the middle package for them. The bottom package stays plain. The middle package now has two things in it she can brag about at the listing appointment, and nothing on the sheet asks her to decide anything. It becomes the obvious pick without a single upsell.
Charge for what costs you a trip. Sell the upsell after the yes.
A real twilight is a second trip at dusk, so it earns its own line. The virtual one does not. That is the whole rule: a trip gets a price, a click gets included.
Virtual staging is priced per image, and only for the empty rooms she names. Not a package line, not a bonus. A per-image price for a specific problem. Nobody stages a furnished living room.
The upsell that moves the ticket gets offered after she picks a package, never in the same breath. It is the waiter asking about dessert before you have ordered. That upsell is video. It gets its own sentence after she says yes.
Three rules and the sheet writes itself. A click gets included. A trip gets a line. The upsell waits for the yes.
Stop handing her more choices. Hand her the obvious pick.
This week: move virtual twilight and the floor plan inside your middle package, reprice the package for them, and send the new sheet to the next agent who asks.
The three-package sheet I send agents
Put your numbers in it before your next booking. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.
Get the sheetGet my roadmapStraight answers
- Should twilight photos be an add-on or included?
- Virtual twilight goes inside the package; it costs you an editor’s click. A real twilight is a second trip at dusk, so it earns its own line.
- How should I price virtual staging for real estate?
- Per image, and only for the empty rooms the agent names. It is a specific fix for a specific room, not a package line and not a bonus.
- Why does nobody buy my real estate photography add-ons?
- Because every add-on is a decision she has to make between showings, and skipping is easier than deciding. Move the cheap ones inside the package and offer the paid upsell after she says yes.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.