Why the eleventh photograph costs less, and the €100 that was always in the price
Our tariff is graduated: the first ten photographs are charged at €40 each and only the eleventh onward at €30 each. It is not “€30 each once you pass ten”, which is a different mechanic entirely and a broken one — under that phrasing, ordering an extra photograph would make the whole job cheaper. Written correctly, the tariff turns out to equal a fixed €100 plus €30 for every photograph on any job over ten. That fixed part is a build charge that was always there in the rate card, and this is the first time we have said so out loud.
Two ways to write the same discount, one of which is broken
Every tiered price is one of two mechanics. A graduated tariff charges each band at its own rate: the first ten units at one price, everything above at another, added together. An all-units discount applies the lower rate to the whole order once you cross the threshold. Both get described in a sales conversation as “it gets cheaper after ten”, and the difference only becomes visible at the boundary — where the all-units version breaks.
What we write instead
“€40 for each of the first ten photographs, €30 for each one after the tenth.” The unit noun comes first, then the threshold expressed in that unit. It is a slightly clumsier sentence and it is the only one that cannot be misread. The same phrasing rule governs the tapered floor-plan rate further down the pricing page: “€0.40 for each square metre after the first 150”, never “€0.40 above 150 m²”, because the second form would make a 151 m² plan cheaper than a 150 m² one for exactly the same reason.
The ladder
| Photographs | Capture price | Effective rate each |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | €160 | €40.00 |
| 6 | €240 | €40.00 |
| 8 | €320 | €40.00 |
| 10 | €400 | €40.00 |
| 11 | €430 | €39.09 |
| 12 | €460 | €38.33 |
| 14 | €520 | €37.14 |
| 16 | €580 | €36.25 |
| 20 | €700 | €35.00 |
Computed from the published rate card, not from any invoice. The effective rate is flat through the first ten, then falls, and never steps back up.
Two properties of that column are worth more than the numbers in it. Adding a photograph always adds exactly €30 once you are past the tenth, and never subtracts. And the effective rate falls monotonically — it never rises again as the job grows, so there is no size of building where you would be better off splitting the work into two jobs.
The €100 that was always there
Do the algebra on the graduated form and something falls out of it. For any job of ten photographs or more, the price is exactly €100 plus €30 for each photograph in the tour. Ten photographs: €100 plus ten lots of €30. Twenty: €100 plus twenty lots of €30. The two rates are equivalent to one rate and a fixed charge, and the fixed charge is €100.
We did not design it that way and then hide it. It emerged from setting two band rates, the way it does in any graduated tariff. But it is a genuine description of the work: some of a tour’s cost does not scale with how many photographs are in it. The trip, the set-up, deciding the route through the building, building the connection graph, the interface, the checking pass and the handover folder cost roughly the same on a twelve-station job as on a forty-station one. The €30 is the photograph. The €100 is the tour.
Below ten stations the identity stops holding, and that is deliberate too: on a small job the fixed work is proportionally much larger, which is why the rate does not start lower and why the floor is €160 rather than something smaller.
How to test any tiered quote you are given
- Ask for the price at the threshold and the price one unit above it. Ten and eleven, in our case.
- If the second number is smaller than the first, the tariff is all-units and it is broken. Say so — the supplier almost certainly did not intend it.
- If the second number is larger by exactly the second-band rate, it is graduated and it behaves.
- Then ask what the price is at one unit below the threshold, and check the effective rate has not gone up. A tariff can pass the first test and still have a step in it.
Why publish the €100 at all
Because it argues our own price down, and a rate card you can only understand by trusting us is not a published price. A buyer who knows the shape of the tariff can see that a job just over the threshold is where the deal is worst per photograph, and can decide to add the two positions they were unsure about instead of cutting them. That is a better tour and a better use of the money, and we would rather have that conversation than protect a piece of arithmetic anyone could have done. The rest of the rate card, extras included, is on pricing.
Sources, and when we last checked them
- Stripe — “Pricing models” documentation, on graduated against volume (all-units) tiering Checked August 2026 Cited for the terminology only. The rates in this post are our own.
Questions people ask
- Does adding another 360° photograph ever make a tour cheaper?
- No. Our tariff is graduated, so the first ten photographs are charged at €40 each and every one after the tenth adds exactly €30 to the total. The price never decreases when the count increases. The opposite behaviour comes from an all-units discount, where crossing a threshold reprices the whole order at the lower rate — a mechanic that can make eleven units cost less than ten.
- Is there a bulk discount on a big virtual tour?
- Yes, and it is built into the rate rather than negotiated. Every photograph after the tenth is €30 instead of €40, so the effective rate per photograph falls continuously as a tour grows: €40 each at ten, €37.14 each at fourteen, €35.00 each at twenty. There is no separate discount to ask for and no volume tier to qualify for.
- What does the €100 fixed part of the price pay for?
- The part of a tour that does not scale with the number of photographs: the visit set-up, deciding the route through the building, building the connection graph between panoramas, the interface, the checking pass and packaging the self-contained folder you are handed at the end. On any job of ten photographs or more, our tariff is exactly €100 plus €30 per photograph, which is where that figure comes from.
- Why is the minimum €160 rather than a lower number?
- Because the smallest tour we build is four stations and €160 is simply what four stations come to at €40 each. It is derived from the rate rather than set separately, so it cannot drift out of step with it. Below four positions the result is a set of 360° photographs rather than a walkthrough — a different product, priced differently.
