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Mon Jan 13 2025
Finding Clients as a Photographer: My Honest Take on Different Platforms
Photography as a job can be extremely rewarding, but it also has its challenges. First of all, you need to choose whether you want to have a photo studio, or whether you prefer street photography. Also, what type of jobs are you looking for? There are real estate photography jobs, sports photography jobs, photo editing jobs, and even crime scene photography jobs. You might also want to check photojournalist job openings. Or perhaps you’d like to do something with a human touch, like portrait photography, engagement photos, wedding photos, or even boudoir photos. The sky’s the limit!
Whatever type of photographer job you choose, the biggest challenge you’ll face is finding clients. I’ve searched for photography jobs near me, photography positions near me, and even photography careers near me. I’ve tried a bunch of platforms, and some worked like magic, while others… not so much. Here’s my personal rundown of the good, the bad, and the downright frustrating options out there.
Social Media: FB Groups and Instagram
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Cost: Free
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Effort to get clients: Extra 40 hours a month on self-advertising
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Clients: 5 per month
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Profit: $2,500
If you’re okay with putting a lot of time into hustling, these two platforms are still worth it. Facebook Groups can connect you with niche communities, while Instagram works for building a portfolio and sliding into DMs for gigs. Just keep in mind—you’re exchanging time for money here.
Would I recommend it? Yes, if you’re just getting started and have plenty of time to spare.
Personal Website
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Cost: $10–30/month
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Effort to get clients: One-time build, almost no effort to maintain
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Clients: 1 per month
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Profit: $480
Having your own website is a perfect option for showing off your best work. It’s not a client magnet on its own, but it's great for showing that you are an established professional. It’s particularly useful for those who value brand-building and long-term growth. It can also help you advertise your photography studio and discover more photography opportunities.
Just remember, you’ll need to spend some time on building it, and the learning curve can be quite steep. Or, you could pay someone to build it for you.
Modelmanagement and Onemodelplace
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Cost: $20–80/month
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Effort to get clients: Hardly worth the results
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Clients: Zero
These platforms are for photographers, as well as people looking for modeling jobs (if you need a freelance model for your work).
Despite their promises, these platforms didn’t deliver any tangible results. With monthly fees and no client acquisition, they ended up being more of a cost sink than a revenue generator for me.
On both platforms you could try to reach some models depending on the subscription level you choose, but there are no guarantees that anyone will reply or even show up.
Wedding Vendors’ Websites:
WeddingWire & Knot
- Cost: $2400+/year
- Effort to get clients: Low – but be prepared to bid and chat with a few leads before you get one
- Clients: 0.1/month
- Profit: none
Zola
- Cost: $15/lead
- Effort to get clients: Low – but be prepared to bid and chat with a few leads before you get one
- Clients: 0.5/month
- Profit: $1220
WeddingWire & Knot require a significant investment upfront with minimal client flow, making them a very risky choice. Their sales team is very aggressive, and they force you to subscribe for a year just to get in as a vendor. They did manage to convince me to sign up, but then I had a very hard time getting off the hook from their enormous subscription.
On the other hand, Zola is entry-friendly and delivers a respectable profit margin for photographers focused on weddings. I had a great experience with them getting one client out of 2-4 leads and several weddings booked for the year with not too much hustle.
Thumbtack:
- Cost: $25/lead
- Effort to get clients: High – you need to check and bid every day to get one.
- Clients: Zero
- Profit: none
Upwork:
- Commission: 15%
- Effort to get clients: high – you need to check and bid every day to get one
- Clients: 1 per month
- Profit: $175
Thumbtack and Upwork are options for getting some random gigs. While the lead cost on Thumbtack and the commission on Upwork are moderate, these options work only for photographers who are willing to constantly bid on projects.
Thumbtack has a direct leads option, but you have to pay upfront and the platform will charge you $25 automatically for each lead that messages you. I saw 6-10 other bidders every time someone texted me for the same gig, so it didn't work too well for me. I spent $250 over two years for messaging with leads, and after all that, I got a grand total of 0 clients.
Fiverr:
- Commission: 20% + 5.5%
- Effort to get clients: Zero – direct booking
- Clients: 1 per month
- Profit: $373
Fiverr is your classic freelancer platform with all types of work. The commission cuts deep, but if you don't mind losing a quarter of your revenue, you can make it work. At least you have direct bookings with no bids and not too much wasted time. However, there aren’t too many clients looking for photography services on this platform.
Groupon and Snappr
Groupon:
- Commission: 50% + 25%
- Effort to get clients: Zero – direct booking
- Clients: 10 per month
- Profit: $1200
Snappr:
- Commission: 30% + 50%
- Effort to get clients: Zero – direct booking
- Clients: 10 per month
- Profit: $1000
Yes, Groupon can bring in clients, but your profit margin gets destroyed by their 50% fees on top of the mandatory discount you need to provide to get your campaign approved.
Snappr is kind of similar—it’s good for volume, but the commissions are brutal, plus you have to agree to work at their super discount rates.
These options work only if you’re trying to stay busy and build your portfolio. Also take into consideration that clients there come for cheap deals, not great photos, so you might not have a lot of impressive materials to add to your portfolio.
Platforms I Couldn’t Even Get On
U-booker and Swipecast: Both had a very high threshold and long waitlist/approval processes that had no time limits or any hints as to the status. My wife and I have been waiting for two years already with no luck. If you can get in, great—but don’t count on it too much.
Airbnb Experiences:
- Commission: 20%
- Effort to get clients: Zero – direct booking
- Clients: zero
- Profit: none
This option should technically be fine for photography gigs, but it’s not designed for it, so you won’t gain any clients there. I got just one lead from two years on this platform (and didn’t manage to respond because of a missed notification).
ProvedPro
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Commission: 7.5%
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Effort to get clients: Zero – direct booking
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Clients: 10 per month
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Profit: $4575
This one looks very promising. It’s kind of the best of both worlds—low commissions and direct bookings with no time wasted. Plus, it’s super supportive of collaborations with other creatives like models, make-up artists, stylists, etc. My portfolio there looks even better than my personal website, so I think I could even shut it down to save money and effort.
It's the newest platform out there and it’s just gaining momentum, so people have just started discovering it. That could actually be a good thing, because you can shine there and get to the top before it gets too crowded.
I just registered there myself, so the number of clients is my prediction. But from the simple and powerful search feature and fair pricing, I'm sure it'll reach these numbers or more very soon!
Final Thoughts
If you’re a freelance photographer trying to find photo jobs, back in the day you had just two options—social media and your own website. Now, new platforms like ProvedPro for all types of photography and Zola for weddings can bring you a lot more clients and plenty of exposure faster than you think. They can also help you to build your portfolio and collaborate with other artists.
Of course, not all platforms are the same, so your mileage may vary. You might do better on certain platforms depending on your personal approach and where you are on your career path. I wrote this guide so you would at least know what to expect and what to avoid. I hope my experience and findings helped you to make a more informed decision.
Stay away from the gimmicks, and don't be afraid to experiment a little. At the end of the day, you want platforms that work for you, not the other way around.
* All numbers above are calculated based on a $500 rate for an individual photoshoot and $2,500 for a wedding. These numbers will be different for everyone depending on skill, experience, location and year you are in, obviously. But they can give you a starting point for your own calculations.
Appendix. My calculations.
Monthly fee | Lead cost | Service commission | Commission from $2000 earnings | Hours to be afloat a month | Waste labor($50/h*) | Amount of clients/bookings/month | Earnings (for $500 individual/$2500 weddings) | Profit | |
FB groups | - | - | - | 0 | 40 | 2000 | 5 | 2500 | 495 |
Instagram.com | - | - | - | 0 | 40 | 2000 | 5 | 2500 | 495 |
Own website | $10-30 | - | - | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 50 | 49 |
Modelmanagement.com | 20 | - | - | 20 | 1 | 50 | 0 | 0 | -50 |
Onemodelplace.com | 80 | - | - | 80 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Weddingwire&Knot | 200 | - | - | 200 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 250 | 0 |
Zola.com | - | 15 | - | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | 1250 | 955 |
Thumbtack.com | - | 25 | - | 120 | 8 | 400 | 1 | 500 | 75 |
Modelmayhem.com | - | - | - | 0 | 1 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Airbnb.com | - | - | 20% | 400 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Groupon.com | - | - | 50%+25% | 1400 | 1 | 50 | 10 | 5000 | 1200 |
Fiverr.com | - | - | 20%+5.5% | 510 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 500 | 373 |
Snappr.com | - | - | 30%+50% | 1600 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 5000 | 1000 |
Upwork.com | - | - | 15% | 300 | 5 | 250 | 1 | 500 | 175 |
ProvedPro.com | - | - | 8% | 150 | 1 | 50 | 10 | 5000 | 4575 |