Charging for Extra Photo Edits: Turn the Request Into a Line Item

"Extra edits" covers at least four different requests. Each one needs its own unit, or your price list will not survive the first client who asks.

The unit is the part clients understand. A price per extra image is easy to accept. "Retouching is extra" with no unit invites a debate about every photo.

Write the included amount for each row into the package itself: how many finished images, what level of retouching, how many rounds of changes. Anything not written there is a conversation, and conversations are where discounts happen.

This page publishes no market rate for extra edits, because there is no reliable one to quote. What a finished image is worth depends on your genre, your market and how long your edit takes.

A rate you can defend comes from your own numbers:

• Time one ordinary edit, from opening the file to exporting it, over a whole job.
• Multiply that time by what an hour of your working time has to earn.
• Add the admin: the quote, the invoice and the second delivery all take time too.

Then choose a shape. The shape matters as much as the number, because it decides how the client feels about saying yes.

Your gallery costs belong in a different line of your pricing. On clientgallery.io the plan is flat, so it does not grow with extra images. How to account for it is in how to price photo delivery into your packages.

Every gallery on clientgallery.io has a welcome note. The studio writes it on the gallery page, and the client sees it when they open the gallery.

That is where the included count belongs. It is next to the photos, at the moment the client starts choosing.

A welcome note that prevents most extra-edit disputes reads like this:

"Hi Marie. Your package includes 30 finished images and one round of small changes. Pick your favourites and send them when you are done. If you pick more than 30, I will edit your top 30 first and send you a price for the rest, per image. No surprises either way."

Three things make it work. The number is stated once, plainly. The rule for the overflow is stated before it happens. And the price for extras is described as a choice the client makes later, not a penalty.

clientgallery.io does not email your client. The studio sends the gallery link itself, and the gallery page offers ready-to-copy messages for that. Repeat the included count in the message that carries the link, so the client sees it twice.

The count should never be your estimate. It should be what the client chose, in their own gallery, with a number you can both see.

What the client does depends on when the gallery was created. Older galleries open on the classic gallery page. Galleries created since the review room launched on 25 September 2026 open in the review room.

In both cases you get an email when the picks are sent, and in the review room again on every re-send. The subject names the client, the number of picks and the gallery. For a classic gallery, the body also splits the picks into loved and starred.

On the classic studio gallery page, a sent gallery shows the same split: how many were loved and how many starred. Before sending, it shows how many picks the client has made so far.

There is no setting that caps the number of picks. The client can choose more than the package includes, and that is by design here: the overflow is the list you quote from.

Once the client has sent their picks, the classic studio gallery page shows an Export picks (.txt) button. It downloads a plain text file of filenames, one per line. The newer Studio v2 screens have no text export; there, the Lightroom plugin described below is the way to get the list.

Loves are listed first and stars follow. The file has no label for which is which, so on a classic gallery use the two counts from the email to find where the loves end.

That list is your quote. The arithmetic is short:

Paste the extra filenames into the quote itself. The client can see exactly which photos they are paying for, and nobody has to remember which frame was which.

If you work in Lightroom Classic, the two-way plugin brings the picks back into your catalog instead, and the extras are already selected when you start editing. The details are in getting client picks back into Lightroom.

Keep the bill where the photos are. Two gallery fields help, and neither one processes a payment on its own.

• Invoice. Upload a PDF invoice to the gallery and the client gets a button to download it. There is one invoice slot per gallery, so uploading the extras invoice replaces the first one. Put both on one updated invoice, or send the earlier one separately.
• Payment link. Paste your own payment link and a pay button appears on the client's gallery. Leave it empty and there is no button.

The payment link is manual. Paying through it does not unlock or change anything in the gallery. When the client pays, you check the payment yourself and then deliver the extra images.

clientgallery.io takes no commission and runs no store, so what you charge for extras is entirely yours. For the wider question of holding delivery until an invoice clears, see how to get paid before delivering photos.

Revision rounds are the extra edit that slips through unpaid. The second round rarely announces itself. It arrives as "one more small thing".

The gallery can show where each round starts and ends:

• With comments switched on for the gallery, the client can leave a note on a photo and draw on it to point at what should change.
• On the classic page, the studio marks each note done and the client sees it struck through with a Retouched tag. The studio can also mark each photo retouched, and the client sees how many of their picks are retouched.
• In the review room, the studio sets each note to open, in progress or done, and the client can approve a change marked done.

Use that as your round boundary. When every note from the first list is done, the round is closed. New notes after that are the next round, and the next round is priced.

Say this in the welcome note too: "One round of changes is included. Leave all your notes before you tell me you are done."

Be clear about what clientgallery.io does not do here.

• It does not stop a client at the included count. There is no pick cap.
• It does not sell extra images through a cart or take payment itself.
• It does not unlock anything when a client pays.

If you want the gallery to enforce the limit, or to sell extra images to the client without you sending a quote, use a platform built around a store. That is a legitimate choice for studios whose income depends on in-gallery sales.

This method suits studios that would rather see the full list of what the client wanted, and quote the difference themselves.

This page cites no external figure, price or policy, so there is no outside source to list. It publishes no market rate for extra edits.

Every clientgallery.io product fact on it was checked in the product code on 30 September 2026: the welcome note shown on the client's gallery; the ready-to-copy client messages and the fact that the product does not email clients; the classic page's star and love picks and the lock on Send my picks; Reopen picking; the review room for galleries created since 25 September 2026, with one kind of selection that can be edited and sent again; the pick email on every send, with its loved and starred counts for classic galleries; the counts on the classic studio gallery page; the absence of any pick cap; the Export picks (.txt) file on the classic studio gallery page, with loves first and no level label, and no text export in Studio v2; the single invoice slot per gallery; the manual payment link; comments with drawing, done marks and the retouched count on the classic page; note statuses and client approval in the review room; no store and no commission.

The pricing shapes and welcome-note wording are editorial recommendations, not legal or financial advice.