The Hidden Cost of Shipping in Volume Photography
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by Jack Counts III - NowCandid Project Manager
A photography business recently switched to NowCandid from another volume photography platform...
During the transition, they shared some details about how their previous software handled shipping and fees.
I knew different platforms approached this stuff differently. But seeing the mechanics laid out was one of those "wait… what?" moments.
In the setup they described, the photographer didn’t set the shipping charge. They didn’t keep that shipping money. But the amount charged for shipping still increased the percentage-based fees coming out of their payout.
Which is honestly kind of wild to me.
Let me break down why:
- The shipping & handling amount could be set outside the photographer's control.
- The photographer would not generate any additional revenue on this shipping charge, which may be marked up.
- The photographer would pay ecommerce, payment processing, and potentially sales tax on the collected shipping.
That can add up to some significant % in additional costs that photographers might not otherwise notice.
Hearing about this hard-to-notice cost got me thinking about shipping in the volume photography space.
What does that shipping charge actually cost the photographer?
Some volume photography platforms use lab-set shipping rates for orders delivered directly to customers. GotPhoto’s documentation (help.gotphoto.com/en/support), for example, says its direct-shipping charges are determined by the lab and automatically added at checkout.
Then there’s a separate question: Does that shipping charge also increase the fees coming out of the photographer’s payout?
PhotoDay’s published standard pricing (support.photoday.io/en/articles) applies its 10% ecommerce fee to the total order, including products, shipping, and tax. Its reporting guide (support.photoday.io/en/articles) says customer-paid shipping goes directly to the lab. (PhotoDay’s pricing page currently says the fee applies to the sub-total before tax and shipping, so this may have changed. Either way, other platforms may still charge fees on collected shipping.)
Let’s use a hypothetical order as an example with $50 in photo products plus $10 shipping. The customer pays $60 before tax.
A 10% ecommerce fee on the $50 in products would be $5. But because that fee also applies to shipping, the photographer pays $6 in total ecommerce fees instead of $5 (before accounting for any additional ecommerce fees on collected sales tax).
That extra dollar might not sound like much. But it means the ecommerce fee consumes 12% of the photographer’s product sales, even though the photographer doesn’t keep any shipping revenue.
That’s an additional two percentage points of product revenue going toward ecommerce fees because of shipping.
Here’s how that changes across a $5–$20 shipping range:
| Customer's shipping charge | 10% ecommerce fee on shipping alone | Total ecommerce fee on products + shipping | Effective fee as a share of $50 in product sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5 | $0.50 | $5.50 | 11% |
| $10 | $1.00 | $6.00 | 12% |
| $15 | $1.50 | $6.50 | 13% |
| $20 | $2.00 | $7.00 | 14% |
Illustrative calculations assume $50 in product sales and a 10% ecommerce fee applied to products plus shipping. They exclude payment processing, sales tax, and fulfillment costs.
Payment processing adds another layer. Under PhotoDay’s published 2.9% processing rate, that $10 shipping charge generates another $0.29 in fees. Combined with the $1 ecommerce fee, that’s $1.29 attributable to shipping alone, equivalent to 2.58% of the $50 in product sales. The fixed $0.30 transaction fee is separate; it isn’t an additional charge caused by shipping, so we don't need to include that in this math we're doing to determine additional cost.
Across 1,000 orders like this, that adds up to $1,000 in ecommerce fees plus $290 in processing fees attributable to shipping.
To be clear, charging processing on shipping isn’t the problem by itself. I understand why processing a larger payment costs more, and I’m not assuming shipping revenue is all profit for the lab, since packaging, handling, and postage need to be covered. The problem is that it’s one more fee applied to a number the photographer doesn’t control. The lab or platform sets the shipping charge, and if that charge runs high, the photographer still pays a percentage on every dollar of it.
But an ecommerce commission on shipping money the photographer doesn’t benefit from or have a significant say in? That does not sit right with me.
To be fair, PhotoDay does let photographers offer free economy shipping as a promo (support.photoday.io/en/articles), and its reporting guide (support.photoday.io/en/articles) says that when you do, the shipping cost is deducted from your payout. That takes the charge off the customer’s plate, but the photographer still isn’t the one setting it. The amount comes from the lab’s shipping rates on the price sheet, and those may be customer-facing rates with markup built in, not what it actually costs to get the package out the door.
Perhaps this could be fixed based on which third-party lab you decide to use through your volume photography software of choice, though I am not currently aware of any such options. (NowCandid has its own integrated photo lab so... not something our users need to worry about. 💅)
High shipping costs can put the whole order at risk
The photography business I talked with also shared with me how costs related to expensive-to-ship items were entirely passed on to end customers during checkout.
Say someone picks out a $70 product, then discovers shipping adds another $20. Their purchase just became almost 29% more expensive, before tax.
Maybe they’re fine with that. Maybe that’s the moment they close the tab.
Baymard Institute’s checkout research (baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment) lists high extra costs, including shipping, taxes, and fees, as the top reason shoppers give for abandoning checkout, cited by 40% of respondents. That’s general ecommerce research, not a photography-specific rate, but it’s a pretty compelling reason to pay attention to the shipping line.
And the actual fulfillment expense doesn’t necessarily have to appear entirely in that line.
Consider two hypothetical ways to price the same purchase:
| Price breakdown | Higher shipping | Lower shipping |
|---|---|---|
| Product price | $70 | $85 |
| Shipping | $20 | $5 |
| Total before tax | $90 | $90 |
Hypothetical pricing example. Both options total $90 before tax; the difference is how the price is divided between the product and shipping.
Same total. Different presentation.
There’s research suggesting that distinction matters. A 2026 study in PLOS ONE (journals.plos.org/plosone) found a preference for free shipping even when the total purchase price stayed constant. It was a small study, but it gives us a reasonable question to test: Would customers respond better if more of the fulfillment cost were included in the product price and less appeared as shipping?
While there is more testing we at NowCandid could do in this space to provide a more concrete answer to this question, we’ve recently seen abandoned carts come in at about 3% of the orders placed. In other words, for every 100 orders, only about 3 shoppers added something to their cart and never checked out - so we seem to be doing something right. 😎
How NowCandid gives photographers more control
With NowCandid, photographers can set their customer-facing shipping prices (nowcandid.com/blogs), rather than simply passing through a lab-set charge. They can also price shipping above the underlying cost to create additional margin.
But having the opportunity to profit from shipping doesn’t mean you should always charge more for it.
You can keep shipping very inexpensive and account for more of the fulfillment expense in your product pricing instead. That’s especially useful when you’d rather not put a large delivery charge in front of someone buying a more expensive item.
We also don’t calculate our ecommerce or payment-processing percentages on collected sales tax (nowcandid.com/blogs). Collecting tax and charging additional fees on those tax dollars are two separate things.
It’s about more than cheaper shipping
Looking back at that conversation, the part that bothered me wasn’t simply the shipping price. It was how little control the photographer had over a charge that affected both their profit and their customer’s experience.
On one side, shipping can increase the fees coming out of your payout. On the other, it can make a purchase feel more expensive at the exact moment someone is deciding whether to complete it.
That deserves more consideration than “that’s just what the lab charges.”
And addressing it doesn’t necessarily mean giving up margin. In our $90 example, we didn’t lower the customer’s total—we moved more of the price into the product and less into shipping. Whether that presentation works better for your customers is worth testing, but you need the flexibility to try it first.
That’s what I’d encourage photographers to look at when comparing volume photography software: Who sets the shipping price? Who receives that money? What additional fees does it generate? And can you change it when it isn’t working for your business?
The advertised ecommerce % fee only tells part of that story.
I don’t think every photographer needs the same shipping strategy. Some may want a reasonable margin on shipping. Others may prefer a higher product price and a very low shipping charge. That flexibility is what we want to provide with NowCandid.
Shipping is part of your pricing. You should get a say in it.
Thank you for attending my TED talk 🙏
Jack Counts III
NowCandid Project Manager
NOTE: Platform examples reflect published policies and standard rates reviewed September 25, 2026. Terms can vary by lab, plan, promotion, or agreement. Order examples are illustrative, not reported studio results.
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