← All articles
The hidden cost of flat product photography at catalogue scale
Photoshoots feel cheap per-shot and expensive in aggregate. We break down the true cost of keeping a large catalogue visually current — and what 3D changes.
A single photoshoot is easy to approve. A thousand of them a year — reshoots for colourways, seasonal restyling, new-angle requests from merchandising — is a standing line item most teams never fully tally.
Where the money actually goes
- Studio time and crew, amortised across too few SKUs
- Reshoots whenever a variant or packaging changes
- Lead time that delays launches and promotions
Once a product exists as a digital twin, new angles, colourways and lifestyle scenes become a render away — not another booking. That's the structural shift: the marginal cost of a new image collapses.
