What Real Estate Photography Costs in the Northwest Suburbs (2026)

Most photography sites in this market will not tell you a price. You fill out a form, you wait, someone calls you. That is fine if you have time. It is useless if you are trying to work out whether a listing can carry the cost before you take it.

So here is the whole thing: our package prices, what every piece costs on its own, how travel works, and the three things that actually change the number.

The packages

Pricing goes by home size, and every package covers every room. There is no photo count to pick. You get the number of photos it takes to show the whole house.

Base. Full-coverage photos, every room, 6 drone photos, floor plan, 1 virtual twilight.

Social. Everything in Base, vertical walkthrough video.

Plus. Everything in Social, basic cinematic video, 2 virtual twilights total.

Pro. Everything in Social, pro cinematic video, 2 virtual twilights total.

Photos delivered within 24 hours, video within 48.

Drone is in all four. It is not an upsell, and that is worth saying plainly because in this market it usually is.

What each piece costs on its own

If you only need part of it, you only pay for part of it.

Photo and drone. Full-coverage photos — $150 to $275, by home size. 6 drone photos — $95. 12 drone photos — $140. Floor plan — $95, or $115 for 3,000 sq ft and up.

Video. Vertical walkthrough — $110. Basic cinematic video — $195. Pro cinematic video — $350.

Enhancements. Virtual twilight — $20 each, 4 for $60. Virtual staging, whole shoot — $100, up to $200 for estate homes. AI declutter, whole shoot — $50, up to $100 for estate homes. Land and lot rendering — $150, or $200 with our ground and drone shoot.

Two of those are worth a comment.

A virtual twilight comes in every package, and two come in Plus and Pro. It's made from the daytime shoot, so there's no second trip and no waiting on the weather. Every digitally altered image is labeled, and you get the untouched original alongside it.

Virtual staging and AI declutter aren't priced per photo. Each one is a single flat fee for the whole shoot: $100 for staging and $50 for decluttering on most homes, a little more on large and estate homes. Stage every empty room or just one, the price is the same.

The packages are a real discount, not a rounding one

Add the individual prices up and compare. For a standard home (1,500–2,999 sq ft):

Base at $250 is $385 of individual services — full-coverage photos ($175), 6 drone ($95), floor plan ($95) and a virtual twilight ($20). You save $135.

Social at $300 is $495 of individual services. You save $195.

Plus at $350 is $710 of individual services. You save $360.

Pro at $500 is $865 of individual services. You save $365.

This matters when you are comparing quotes. A $500 package here and a $500 package somewhere else are usually not the same list of deliverables — check whether drone, floor plan and video are all actually in the other one.

The three things that change the number

1. Drive time. We are based in Mount Prospect and shoot across Chicagoland. Anything within about 45 minutes has no travel fee. Past that there is a travel fee depending on how far. Send us the address and we will give you the number before anything is booked.

2. Property size. Packages come in 4 home sizes, from under 1,500 sq ft up to 5,999 sq ft. A bigger house needs more photos and more time on site, so it costs more, and the table above shows exactly how much. Homes over 6,000 sq ft, acreage and extra buildings are quoted with the extra coverage included. A 7,500 square foot house is not a standard shoot.

3. What you actually need. A $900,000 listing with a feature nobody else on the street has is worth cinematic video. A $280,000 condo probably is not — it needs clean photos, a floor plan and speed. We would rather tell you that than sell you the top package.

What is not priced separately

Editing is included. Color correction, perspective correction, sky work on exteriors, lens profile and distortion fixes — that is part of producing the photo, not an add-on.

So is the second set of exteriors. Every listing gets a straight-on hero exterior for MLS and a second angle where the address plaque does not read, for social. Here is why.

What about the cheaper option

There are people in this market shooting listings for under $150. Sometimes that is the right call — a rental, a quick relist, a property where the photos genuinely do not have to do much work.

What you are usually giving up is turnaround and consistency. The listing-photo market’s real failure mode is not a bad photo, it is a shoot that comes back in four days when you needed it live on Tuesday, or a set where the kitchen is warm and the living room is blue because nobody color-matched the rooms to each other.

Our standard is 24 hours on photos. That is the number worth comparing on.

FAQ

How fast do you deliver photos and video?

Standard turnaround is 24 hours for photos and within 48 hours for video.

Do you charge a travel fee?

Not within about 45 minutes of Mount Prospect. Past that there is a travel fee scaled to the distance, and you will know it before you book.

Is drone included or extra?

Included in all four packages — six aerial photos. On its own it is $95.

Do I need to be at the shoot?

No. Most agents give us lockbox access and get the gallery the next morning.

Can I book just photos?

Yes. Full-coverage photos for a standard home on their own are $175. The packages exist because most listings need more than that and the bundle is cheaper, not because we will not shoot a smaller job.

How do I know which size my listing is?

Use the finished square footage from the listing or the county record. If you are not sure, send the address and we will tell you before anything is booked.

What if the house is not ready?

Tell us before we arrive and we will move it. A shoot in a house that is not staged costs you the same as one in a house that is, and the photos are worse. The thing that slows a shoot down is clutter, not square footage.

What areas do you cover?

Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Palatine, Schaumburg, Park Ridge, Lincolnshire, Riverside and the rest of Chicagoland, plus into Wisconsin for the right project.

Town guides: Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Schaumburg, Park Ridge, Crystal Lake, Elgin.

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