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What does your content actually cost?

There are three ways to get leasing-season content: book vendors one at a time, build a team in-house, or hand it to one partner. Here's what each costs in a year, side by side.

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Resident smiling at her phone in a hammock at Dakota Ranch, from a Studio + Commerce lifestyle shoot

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We've filled in the national numbers from this page. Change anything to match your portfolio. Results update as you type.

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  • One-off vendors

    vendor and licensing fees

    About $46,500

  • In-house team

    one four-person team, before talent, travel and locations

    $435,000+

  • Studio + Commerce

    starting price per property*

    From $40,000

Studio + Commerce comes in about $6,500 below one-off vendors and at least $395,000 below an in-house team.

*Talent usage by channel, cast size, and other casting needs can increase scope. See how we got these numbers

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Same deliverables. Three very different years.

Each option below is priced for the same thing: one property's leasing-season content. A brand film, lifestyle and amenity stills, vertical short-form for social, aerials and talent.

One-off vendors

About $46,500 a year

in vendor and licensing fees, before anyone's time

What's included

  • Listing photographer, 1 day
  • Lifestyle photographer, 2 days
  • Video crew, 3 days: camera, second camera, producer
  • Freelance creative director, 3 days, plus concept fee
  • Drone operator, half day
  • Talent through an agency, 5 models over 2 days
  • Hair, makeup and wardrobe
  • Edit and color, 8 days
  • Retouching, 150 images
  • Pre-production producing, 3 days
  • Licensing for 3 years of web, social and print (estimated)

What's not: ownership. After 3 years, or for new uses, you license it again. Video licensing isn't counted here either. And someone to run it: nine vendors means nine quotes, nine contracts, nine invoices and nine calendars, and that work usually lands on your leasing team. Each vendor shoots to their own brief, so the photos, video and aerials rarely look like one brand.

In-house team

$435,000+ a year

for a four-person production team

What's included

  • Creative director, producer, photo and video shooter, editor
  • Salaries: $355,620 at national medians
  • Payroll taxes and employer health insurance
  • Camera, lens, lighting, drone and edit kit, replaced every 3 years
  • Editing, review, music and storage software

What's not: talent, travel, locations, recruiting (about $5,500 a hire), and cover when someone leaves mid-season.

Studio + Commerce

$40,000*

one leasing-season production, one invoice

What's included

  • Creative direction and concept, built around your leasing calendar
  • Producing, casting, locations and call sheets
  • Director, camera team and on-set social capture
  • Talent casting and booking
  • Brand film, retouched stills and vertical short-form, ready for January 15
  • Edit, color and retouching
  • Travel to your property
  • You own the content. No licensing fees.

Why it wins: about $6,500 less than booking vendors one by one, you own it outright, and it's less than a tenth of an in-house team. One brief, one crew, one look, no licensing fees, and your leasing team never chases a vendor.

*Starting price for one property: a leasing-season production over 3 shoot days, including creative direction, producing, crew, talent casting and booking for up to 5 models, travel within the continental US, edit, color and retouching. FPV fly-throughs and listing photography are quoted separately. Final scope and price are confirmed in writing for each property.

"Can you also run our Instagram?" is four jobs.

Running social well takes a copywriter, a content director, a social media manager and a community manager. Most properties hand all four to a leasing team that's already touring, renewing and answering the phone.

Four part-time hires

$175,000+ a year

RoleWhat they doPart-time salary
CopywriterCaptions, hooks, campaign lines$38,455
Content directorPlans what to post and when, around the leasing calendar$55,707
Social media managerSchedules, publishes, reports$35,628
Community managerReplies to DMs and comments, turns them into tours$32,804

$162,594 in salaries for 20 hours a week each, plus employer payroll taxes and scheduling and design software.

Studio + Commerce social

From $3,500 a month*

What's included

  • All four roles, on one team that already knows your property
  • Content planned around your leasing calendar, not the posting calendar
  • Posting, community management and monthly reporting
  • Add quarterly on-property capture days so your feed never goes stale

Your leasing team goes back to leasing.

*Growth tier, per property, billed monthly, with a three-month minimum. Capture days quoted per property.

2027 budgets are being written now.

Put one number in yours instead of nine vendors or four new hires. We'll scope it in 15 minutes.

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How we got these numbers

One-off vendors (about $46,500)

  • Day rates from real vendor quotes and invoices Studio + Commerce received for student housing and multifamily shoots in September and October 2026.
  • Retouching: 150 images at $10 each (Imagen).
  • Drone: a half day at $150 to $400 an hour (The Drone U).
  • Licensing for 3 years of web, social and print: 175% of the photographer's fee (Imagen) and 25% of the talent fee for print (The Right Fit). Video licensing isn't included, so this is a low estimate.

In-house production team ($435,000+)

  • Median US salaries, May 2025: art director $114,850 (BLS), producer $90,360 (BLS), camera operator $74,990 and editor $75,420 (BLS).
  • Plus 7.65% employer FICA (SSA), state unemployment tax (Patriot Software) and $7,885 per employee in health premiums (KFF 2025).
  • A $34,475 photo and video kit spread over 3 years, plus Adobe, Frame.io, Artlist and Dropbox.
  • Leaves out retirement, paid leave and recruiting. With full benefits (BLS ECEC), it's about $527,000.

Part-time social team ($175,000+)

  • Half of each national median salary, for 20 hours a week: copywriter $76,910 (BLS), content director $111,413 (PayScale), social media manager $71,256 (Glassdoor), community manager $65,607 (Indeed).
  • Plus 7.65% employer FICA (SSA). Health insurance isn't included.
  • The + covers state unemployment tax and software: Sprout Social, Canva, Adobe and Dropbox.

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