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 get any revenue from shipping charged to their end customer. 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.
It got me thinking about two sides of the same problem: what shipping costs the photographer, and what it can cost them when a customer decides not to buy.
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.
That raises a separate question: Does that shipping charge also increase the percentage-based 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.
Let’s use a hypothetical order: $50 in photo products plus $10 in shipping. The customer pays $60 before tax.
A 10% ecommerce fee on the products would be $5. Applying that same fee to the $10 shipping charge adds another $1, bringing the total ecommerce fee to $6.
That extra dollar might not sound like much. But it means the ecommerce fee consumes 12% of the photographer’s product sales, all while 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.
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, processing a larger payment costs more. That isn’t surprising. What I’m questioning is an arrangement where the photographer doesn’t set the shipping charge or keep that revenue, yet still pays percentage-based fees on it. The higher the charge, the more those fees take from the sale.
PhotoDay does let photographers offer free economy shipping as a promotion (support.photoday.io/en/articles). Its reporting guide (support.photoday.io/en/articles) explains that the shipping charge is then deducted from the photographer’s payout. That takes the charge off the customer’s plate, but the photographer still covers the lab-set amount.
And then there’s the shipping rate itself.
I’m looking at this from the print lab side, too. NowCandid charges photographers $1.80 to ship basic small-print orders, and that already includes our margin.
For comparison, Richmond Pro Lab lists $5.25 shipping through PhotoDay (richmondprolab.com/s/article) for qualifying orders under $10 in lab product cost. Against our $1.80 basic small-print rate, that’s a $3.45 difference per order, or $3,450 across 1,000 qualifying orders, before accounting for selling fees.
I’m not arguing that a lab shouldn’t make money. We do, too. What bothers me is that the photographer doesn’t get to set the shipping price or share in the shipping revenue, but still pays percentage-based fees when the customer covers that charge. And offering free shipping means absorbing the lab-set amount instead.
Either way, the photographer has limited control over a cost attached to their own sale.
High shipping costs can put the whole order at risk
The photography business I talked with also told me that costs for expensive-to-ship items were passed entirely on to end customers at 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. Or 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.
But covering fulfillment costs doesn’t mean every dollar has to appear in the shipping field. Consider two 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?
For some broader context, Baymard Institute’s compilation of 50 studies (baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment) puts average online shopping cart abandonment at roughly 70%. That’s about seven out of ten carts that never become completed purchases.
In our recent internal data, NowCandid has seen roughly 3 abandoned carts for every 100 completed orders. Only about 3%!
General online retail isn’t the same as volume photography, of course, and those numbers don’t prove that NowCandid’s focus on low shipping is responsible for the difference. But it’s an encouraging result! Giving your customers fewer reasons to reconsider at checkout is something we take seriously. 😎
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, what bothered me wasn’t simply that one shipping charge was higher than another. It was how little control the photographer had over something that affected both their profit and their customer’s experience.
Shipping has a real cost. So does running a lab. But how that cost is priced, presented, and used to calculate fees deserves a closer look.
When comparing volume photography software, I’d ask: Who sets the shipping price? Who receives that money? What fees are calculated on it? And can you change the offer your customer sees?
The advertised ecommerce percentage only tells part of the story.
There isn’t one perfect shipping strategy for every photography business. That’s exactly why I’d rather give photographers more room to choose their own.
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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