Charging $300 for an extra hour reads fine right up until the culling and editing hours it generates, the gear wear, and any second-shooter payout come out of it. This free calculator finds real net profit for one add-on, then lets you compare two or three options by what they actually pay per hour of your own time — not their headline price.
Price one add-on
Your add-on inputs above are saved locally in this browser so you don't retype them next time. A shareable link puts the same numbers in the URL fragment — nothing is uploaded. Your comparison rows below are never saved.
Profit for this add-on
$0.00
Gross revenue
Your labor cost (at target rate)
Second shooter + goods cost
Total cost
Profit margin
Break-even price
This is a planning floor from the numbers you typed, not an audited statement. It does not do tax planning, business-entity formation, or contract review, and it does not replace a signed client contract, your own liability or gear insurance, or your accountant.
Compare add-ons
For each add-on option, run it through the calculator above with that option's numbers and enter the resulting net profit and effective hourly rate here. Blank or zero rows are ignored. Nothing you type here is saved or uploaded — refreshing the page clears it.
Add-on
Net profit ($)
Effective hourly rate ($/hr)
Add-ons compared
Best add-on
Worst add-on
Spread between them
Private by default
Everything on this page runs in your browser and nothing is ever uploaded. Your add-on inputs (time, second-shooter and gear costs, price) are saved locally on this device so you don't retype them next time — Reset to defaults clears them, and Copy shareable link puts them in a URL fragment your browser never sends anywhere. Your comparison rows are a different promise: they are never saved anywhere, and closing or refreshing the tab clears them. There is no account. We count only anonymous local feature events (addon-priced, addons-compared, link-copied, reset) so we can tell whether the calculator gets used — no add-on names, prices, or figures are recorded, and Do Not Track / Global Privacy Control turn it off automatically.
Add-on looks fine on paper — is it actually worth it?
A $450 second-shooter add-on can pay less than the extra hour it took to charge for it, once the culling, editing, and subcontractor fee are netted out. Is a second shooter worth it? works through the arithmetic on a real underpriced add-on next to a solid one.
Common questions
Why does a flat add-on price not tell me whether it's worth offering?
Because the flat price is usually set by comparing to what other studios charge, not by counting what the add-on actually costs. Culling and editing an extra hour of coverage, or a second shooter's entire take, routinely runs to one to two times the shoot hours that produced it -- time that never shows up on an invoice the way a subcontractor payment does, but is just as real.
Does this tool write my client contract or tell me what to charge?
No. This calculator only prices your own add-on economics from numbers you supply. It does not do tax planning, business-entity formation, or contract review, and it does not replace a signed client contract, your own liability or gear insurance, or your accountant.
Why does my own time count as a cost when no cash actually changes hands?
Because your target hourly rate is what you have decided your time is worth, and an add-on that pays less than that rate is quietly cutting your own pay to take it. Counting only cash costs like a second shooter's fee or an album vendor's bill -- and not your own culling and editing hours -- is the most common way an add-on's real profit gets overstated.
Does anything about my add-on or comparison rows get uploaded?
No. Every field on this page runs in your browser only. Nothing is sent to a server, there is no account, and the add-on rows you type into the comparison table are never saved anywhere -- they exist only in the page while it is open. The add-on inputs above are different: those are saved locally on this device, so you don't retype them, and a shareable link can carry them to another device. Usage counting only tallies anonymous feature events, and you can turn it off with the button above.