For a long time, I thought the best real estate photographers were the ones who did everything themselves.
I wore it like a badge of honor.
I edited all my own photos. I edited all my own videos, delivered every project, handled all the client communication, did the marketing, built my website, managed my social media—if somebody needed something, it came through me.
The problem was that I eventually hit a ceiling.
Not because I couldn’t get more clients, but because I couldn’t handle any more work.
There were plenty of weeks where I’d spend the entire day shooting homes, come home and edit photos until late at night, spend way too long editing videos, answer emails and text messages, and somehow still try to make YouTube content.
Eventually, everything suffered.
The photos weren’t as good.
The videos weren’t as good.
I wasn’t building a company anymore—I was maintaining a workload.
Every time I tried outsourcing something, though, it felt like I was losing control. My patience was limited. Why wasn’t it exactly how I wanted it? Why couldn’t anyone do it like me?
Eventually I realized I wasn’t losing control.
I was gaining freedom.
And to be honest, most clients don’t even know the difference between me doing something myself and someone on my team doing it. They care about getting a great final product on time.
So if you’re trying to grow your real estate photography business without working every single night, here’s everything I outsource, what I still do myself, and the order I’d recommend outsourcing if I had to start over today.
1. Photo Editing
The first thing I outsourced was photo editing.
I started with overseas editors, and over time I experimented with all kinds of different solutions. I’ve used independent editors, my own Lightroom presets, Fotello, Giraffe360, and plenty of other tools along the way. The options today are honestly pretty limitless.
That said, I don’t think new photographers should outsource immediately.
One mistake I see all the time is photographers outsourcing before they actually understand editing themselves.
I even made an entire YouTube video about this because I think editing is one of the most valuable skills you can learn early on.
Learning to edit taught me what good editing actually looks like. It taught me color, consistency, how to spot bad verticals, and ultimately how to create my own style. It’s also the reason I was eventually able to create Lightroom presets that people actually use and buy. That became one of my biggest pieces of content, and none of that would have happened if I had outsourced everything from day one.
I’m really glad I learned it.
Honestly, it took me years to feel like I truly understood editing.
But I’m equally glad I stopped doing every single edit myself.
You simply can’t photograph five homes in a day, come home, edit every image, deliver them the next morning, and repeat that process forever without going crazy. At some point you’ll realize you’re spending more time behind a computer than behind your camera.
Once I understood the process, I realized there wasn’t a ton of value in me personally pressing every button.
If a client specifically wants me to edit every image myself, that’s totally fine—but they’re going to pay more for that.
Otherwise, I’d rather spend that time growing my business.
If you’re looking for editors, join the real estate photography Facebook groups. Seriously. There are so many talented editors in there. You’ll also find them on Instagram and WhatsApp. They’re everywhere.
As far as pricing goes, I typically see photo editing anywhere from $0.50 to $1.50 per image. Interior design and architectural photography usually costs more because those edits require much more attention to detail. AI editing is generally cheaper, which is why platforms like Fotello have become so popular.
If you’re already using Giraffe360, the editing is included with the monthly subscription, which is one of the more unique things about their platform. Instead of paying another company to edit your photos, it’s already built into the workflow.
At the end of the day, the goal isn’t finding the cheapest editor.
The goal is buying your time back.
2. Video Editing
God… I fought this one hard.
This is the one I regret waiting on because I convinced myself nobody could edit the way I wanted, and at the time I thought that mattered a lot.
To be fair, there’s still some truth to that.
There are certain projects—especially bigger creative projects—that I still enjoy editing myself. But looking back, a lot of my resistance was ego.
At one point I was spending three to five hours editing a single listing video.
Something that should have taken two days would stretch into three, four, sometimes even five days because I insisted on doing every part of it myself.
If you’re shooting three or four listing videos every week, that’s basically a part-time job just editing videos.
I remember sitting in front of my computer one night thinking…
“Why am I doing this?”
I’d already photographed the property.
I’d already met with the client.
I’d already done the hard part.
Why was I spending every evening editing real estate videos?
The second I outsourced video editing, I got huge chunks of my life back.
Unfortunately, some of the damage had already been done.
I honestly believe I lost clients because I didn’t outsource sooner. Turnaround times became longer than they should have, and I became the bottleneck inside my own business.
Today I typically spend $40 to $120 per video edit, whether it’s a short social media reel or a longer luxury property video. Most of the videos I outsource cost me around $50, and it’s some of the best money I spend.
I’d rather spend fifty dollars than another four hours staring at a timeline.
I found video editors the same way I found photo editors.
Some came through referrals.
Some reached out to me directly.
If you’re putting yourself out there online, you’d be surprised how many talented people want to work with you.
3. Floor Plans, Virtual Staging & Property Enhancements
Honestly, this is where outsourcing can get a little complicated.
Outsourcing helps you scale, but it can also destroy your margins if you’re not careful. Every time you add another vendor, you’re adding another cost, another invoice, another subscription, and another workflow to manage. I think a lot of photographers underestimate how quickly that adds up.
Let’s say you photograph a vacant listing and the agent wants professional photos, a floor plan, virtual staging, and a virtual tour.
Five years ago, that might have meant sending files to three or four different companies. One company handled the floor plans, another did the virtual staging, another hosted the virtual tour, and you were left trying to keep track of all of it.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve really enjoyed working with Giraffe360, who also sponsors this channel. Instead of juggling multiple vendors, all of those deliverables come from a single capture and live inside the same ecosystem. Your floor plans, virtual staging, editing, hosting, and other deliverables are all connected, which makes the entire workflow dramatically simpler.
Instead of constantly adding more tools and more vendors, you’re actually simplifying your business while giving clients everything they’re asking for.
I’ll be straight with you though…
If you don’t already know how to create great images, no platform is going to fix that.
Photography still comes first.
Learning composition, lighting, camera settings, and how to create beautiful images is still your job.
What platforms like Giraffe360 do incredibly well is create predictability. From the floor plans to the hosting to the virtual staging, your clients know exactly what they’re going to get every single time.
As your business grows, that consistency becomes incredibly valuable.
The goal isn’t to learn how to create floor plans, become a virtual staging expert, learn tour hosting, and master every new AI tool that comes out.
The goal is building a workflow that’s efficient, repeatable, and profitable.
One thing I really appreciate about Giraffe360 is that they’re constantly adding new features. Between the AI Kitchen, virtual staging, floor plans, editing, hosting, and everything else they’re building, they’re staying on top of the technology so I don’t have to spend my time learning how to do every individual service myself.
When I need one of those deliverables, I know it’s covered.
That allows me to stay focused on what actually grows my business.
4. Admin Work
What’s funny is editing isn’t always the thing that takes over your business.
It’s everything else.
Scheduling shoots.
Managing your calendar.
Answering emails.
Texting clients.
Data entry.
Uploading files.
Delivering galleries.
Updating your CRM.
None of those things take very long individually, but together they can quietly consume hours every single week.
This is where a good virtual assistant can make a huge difference.
I know a lot of photographers who swear by virtual assistants, and I’ve had plenty of people reach out offering those services over the years.
Personally, I haven’t outsourced much of my administrative work yet.
Not because I don’t believe in it, but because I actually enjoy parts of it. Scheduling shoots is exciting because it means new work is coming in. Talking with clients helps build relationships, and I still like having that connection.
That said, if my business got significantly busier, this is probably one of the first areas I’d expand.
Whether that’s a virtual assistant, an office manager, or even a dedicated assistant, eventually there comes a point where your time is better spent growing the business than answering emails.
There’s nothing wrong with handling your own admin in the beginning.
Just recognize when it starts becoming the thing that’s keeping you from moving forward.
5. Marketing & Lead Generation
For the first four months of this year, I decided to really lean into outsourcing my marketing.
I hired a virtual assistant for about twelve hours a week. Three days a week, four hours a day.
Marketing today doesn’t always have to be some revolutionary strategy.
Sometimes it’s just doing the boring work consistently.
Liking posts.
Leaving comments.
Following potential clients.
Sending emails.
Making phone calls.
Sending text messages.
A lot of my own marketing comes from YouTube and content creation. I’m trying to make videos that help photographers, drive people to my website, and naturally bring in clients.
But there’s another side to marketing that’s just daily outreach.
So that’s what we focused on.
We tried cold calling.
Cold texting.
Cold emailing.
Warm emailing.
Instagram outreach.
Commenting.
Following.
Messaging.
We experimented with a little bit of everything.
And if I’m being completely honest…
I don’t know if we got a single client directly because of it.
That was disappointing.
I kept wondering if we were doing something wrong.
At the same time, it’s really difficult to measure branding.
Did those comments help?
Did someone eventually book me because they kept seeing my name?
Did the extra engagement help people trust my business?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
That’s the frustrating thing about marketing.
Not everything shows up in a spreadsheet.
Even though I can’t point to a direct return on investment, I actually liked the engagement we were building, and I would absolutely consider hiring another virtual assistant in the future.
Because sometimes business growth is just hundreds of small, boring tasks happening consistently.
As the business owner, you don’t necessarily have to be the one doing every one of them.
6. Content Creation
This is another area that surprised me because content creation starts out feeling like marketing, but eventually it becomes its own business.
Think about everything that goes into one YouTube video.
You film it.
You edit it.
You design a thumbnail.
Then you cut it into Shorts.
Then you post those Shorts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.
Then you answer comments.
Then you write blog posts.
Then you send emails to your list.
Then you do it all over again.
At some point I realized I wasn’t just running a real estate photography business anymore.
I was building a production company on top of my photography business.
There are parts of that process I never want to outsource.
I want to be the one coming up with the ideas.
I want to be on camera.
I want to build my personal brand because that’s what people are connecting with.
That part is me.
The production side of it, though, doesn’t necessarily have to be.
You don’t have to become a full-time video editor just to market yourself.
Honestly, there’s a specialist for almost every piece of the process.
In my ideal world, I’d have someone helping me with editing, someone helping repurpose content, someone helping with posting, and maybe eventually someone helping me capture B-roll when I need it.
I’ve already experimented with outsourcing some of my YouTube editing because the channel is growing. I’m working with sponsors now, I’m getting close to 6,000 subscribers, and I feel like the momentum keeps building.
Some of those edits worked.
Some of them didn’t.
Maybe it’s still a little bit of ego on my part, but it just didn’t quite capture the way I naturally edit my own videos. To be fair, I also wasn’t paying for highly cinematic edits. These were mostly talking-head videos, and for where I was at, it didn’t quite feel worth it.
That said, I absolutely see myself outsourcing more of the production pipeline moving forward.
The editing.
The posting.
The blog posts.
Repurposing content across every platform.
Those are the repetitive tasks.
I want to spend my time creating ideas, telling stories, and building my brand—not uploading the same video six different times.
7. The Photography Itself
This is where I think a lot of photographers get uncomfortable.
Most photographers don’t actually want to build a business.
They want to be photographers.
And honestly…
There’s nothing wrong with that.
I love shooting.
I really do.
I don’t necessarily love shooting the same cookie-cutter house every single day, but give me a beautiful morning, a coffee, a stunning mid-century modern home in Los Angeles, plenty of time to work, and a client who’s paying me appropriately…
That’s a pretty great day.
If that’s the life you want, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
You don’t have to build a team.
You don’t have to become the next giant media company.
You can simply keep getting better, keep raising your prices, and eventually charge five, six, even seven thousand dollars for a shoot if your work justifies it.
Do a couple of those every week while creating content and living your life.
That’s an incredible business.
But…
If your goal is building a company instead of simply creating yourself a great job, eventually the company has to work without you.
That’s where associate photographers, subcontractors, and second shooters come in.
The biggest real estate photography companies aren’t built around one photographer.
They’re built around systems.
They’re built around marketing.
They’re built around teams.
Eventually the owner isn’t photographing every property anymore.
They’re building the business.
Personally, my favorite model is growing until you’re too busy, then bringing on photographers you genuinely know and trust.
Pay them well.
Take care of them.
I’ve seen companies pay photographers 50%, 60%, even 70% of the shoot.
I’ve also seen companies pay 15%.
I’ve seen hourly employees.
I’ve seen full-time staff photographers.
There isn’t one right way to do it.
I just know the companies I loved working for were the ones that trusted me and paid me fairly.
Because when someone treats you well, you naturally treat their clients like they’re your own.
That’s the kind of company I’d want to build someday.
If I Had to Start Over Tomorrow
If I had to rebuild my entire business from scratch tomorrow, this is exactly how I’d do it.
First, I’d learn photo editing myself.
Then I’d outsource it.
Next, I’d learn video editing.
Then I’d outsource that too.
While all of that’s happening, I’m not trying to become an expert in floor plans, virtual staging, AI enhancements, and every new service agents start asking for.
I’m using something like Giraffe360 to handle all of that in one place and letting them stay on top of the newest technology while I stay focused on photography and serving my clients.
As my business grows and my schedule fills up, I’d start outsourcing admin work.
Then marketing and lead generation.
Eventually I’d build systems around content creation.
And once I reached the point where I physically couldn’t shoot every property myself, that’s when I’d start bringing on associate photographers.
That’s the exact order I’d follow all over again.
What I Still Keep My Hands On
Even though I outsource more today than I ever have before, there are still things I don’t want to hand off.
Relationships.
Strategy.
The vision.
The brand.
The direction of the company.
Those things are still mine.
Everything else is negotiable.
Final Thoughts
The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the last few years is that outsourcing isn’t about becoming lazy.
It’s about creating enough space to do your best work.
For years I thought working harder would grow my business.
In reality, I had become the bottleneck.
Learning every part of the business made me a better photographer.
Outsourcing those same parts has made me a better business owner.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, don’t immediately ask yourself how you can work more.
Instead, ask yourself one simple question:
What’s the first thing I can let go of?
That one decision might completely change your business.
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