What is the cost of Amazon product photography? | Omi.so

Amazon product photography cost breakdown 

On the face of it, $500 - $700 might sound like a high price tag for a few Amazon product photos. After all, Amazon’s image criteria is so prescriptive that little art direction is required here — the main photo must be white background photography. 

However, when you add up the expenses required to execute a piece of Amazon product imagery, it’s easy to see how photographers can easily get to this number.

But what makes Amazon product photography costs different from regular, common-or-garden  product photography costs? 

Why amazon product photography gets expensive

Amazon advises that sellers publish at least six images and one video for every product they list on the marketplace. Though that sounds simple enough, here’s why that can quickly require more budget than expected. 

You need to meet strict image requirements, risking costly re-shoots if missed 

In most cases, you won’t be able to just reuse product photos you’ve taken for your website on Amazon listings. The marketplace has a long list of image specifications, especially about the main image — the image of your listing which will appear on the SERP (search engine results page). 

To find which requirements are relevant to your product, you’ll need to check in the Product category section of their Product image requirements. Just to give you a taste of the specificity, however, if you’re selling footwear, your main image must be of a single shoe, facing left, at a 45-degree angle. Yikes! 

There’s always a danger that you may realize your final product transgresses one of Amazon’s rules once the shoot is long over and the listing is published. This would call for a re-shoot — an unexpected expense. 

There’s more than basic product photos to add, meaning multiple shoots 

For a competitive product listing, meeting Amazon’s minimum requirements won’t cut it anymore. Successful sellers advertise their products using the whole range of file formats and visuals that the platform supports. 

For example, you can now submit a 360-degree product image, which allows users to zoom in on your product and view it from every surface. Creating these with traditional photography methods is time-consuming and requires specialist equipment, as well as expertise. Asking your product photographer to create this will almost certainly increase your spend. 

You need to beat direct competitors 

Whatever you sell on Amazon, you can bet that ten other sellers offer the same thing. In order to maximize your conversions, your product photographs have to look more trustworthy, attractive, and inspiring than any other products that appear for the same search term. 

You need to talk to your product photographer and workshop ways to beat the competition, whether that’s a more attractive lifestyle shoot, or a slicker product video, or the previously mentioned 360-degree image. It’s a hard choice: the more elaborate the set-up, the more you’ll pay… but the more likely your product will stand out in the search results. 

And, sometimes, you just don’t know what’s going to resonate with users until you try things out in the wild — meaning you might have to pay for shots you end up replacing, leading to additional re-shoots to try new ideas. Even when images perform well, in an ideal world, if you’d A/B test different versions of them to optimize your listings. That would require multiple shoots — which would clearly add up!  

Use Virtual Photography to lower your Amazon product photography costs  

If you’re flinching internally at the cost of Amazon product photography, Virtual Product Photography is a brilliant alternative to explore. With Omi, your product is turned into a 3D model, or Digital Twin, which you then use to create photorealistic images and videos in a Virtual Photo Studio.

This process is particularly well-suited to Amazon images, because:

• Avoid re-shoot costs when you miss requirements. Suddenly realized your image breaks one of Amazon’s image requirements? Render a new version that doesn’t (in mere minutes.) 

• Respond quickly when competitors up their image game. With customizable backgrounds and a library of 6,000+ props, you can easily create a more attractive image than your competitors.

With Omi, there’s >300 templates to use as a starting point for your product images. They’ll never be boring!

Cosmetic brand Misencil used a handful of the props in Omi's 6,000+ strong asset library and crafted an evocative, summery scene around their product.

• Create listings for new products without starting the image creation process from scratch. Save your Virtual Photo Studio settings so you can re-shoot other products in your line without the expense or time wastage of starting from the beginning. 

• Add video into the mix at little extra cost. Product videos increase eCommerce conversion rates by up to 80%, but they’re usually expensive. With 3D visualization tools, the cost of video plummets, and the ROI increases substantially.

Gamel Helmets quickly refreshed the visuals for their entire product range using Omi.

• A/B test versions of your product images without paying extra. You can make unlimited variations of your product images and see what shoppers (and Amazon’s algorithm!) respond to the best.

And the trump card? Omi is up to 20x cheaper than traditional product photoshoots. 

A brief afterword 

If you’re selling products on Amazon, you need to be investing in high quality images to stay competitive and to perform. The market is crowded, and users make purchase decisions based on your product’s first impression.

However, you don’t need to shell out $500 apiece to have your products professionally photographed. With a Virtual Photography Tool like Omi, you can create images that are just as high quality, at a fraction of the cost — and with the flexibility and creative freedom you need to really succeed as an Amazon seller.

Toothbrush brand, MyVariations used Omi to create quality product images that boosted both brand image and sales.