How To Calculate Makeup Kit Fee

How to Calculate a Food Stylist'south Kit Fee

A kit fee is a flat rate your customer should pay you for use of your personal equipment. Just how much should you ask for?

No thing the size of a product, from a modest photoshoot to a feature film, crew members are expected to prove up with the necessary tools to practise their jobs to the all-time of their power.

Equally a food stylist, those tools could exist simple tools that you lot don't worry too much nearly needing to replace, like a half dozen-dollar pair of kitchen tweezers, paintbrushes, or mounting putty. On the other side are tools that are more of a flex with a price tag to match such every bit a knife or, a kitchen torch for sear marks and toasting meringue or a heat gun to melt cheese and butter. Which is where your kit fee comes in.

Put simply, a kit fee is a flat rate of supplementary compensation your client should pay yous for apply of your personal equipment or property. Whatever your hourly/twenty-four hours rate for a project, that cash is meant to go into your pocket to pay for your valuable time and unrivaled expertise. Cash spent on rentals and nutrient that'south not going in your own fridge are meant to pay for exactly that. A kit fee, if you choose to charge i (and you should!), offsets the cost of personal materials yous use on the job so that you're non wearing down your belongings for free in social club to get your job done effectively.

At that place is a downside to keep in mind though. Since production is essentially choosing to rent out your equipment if annihilation breaks on set, it's on yous equally production is no longer responsible for broken, stolen, nor lost items, and so don't accidentally go out anything behind!

So how to decide what to charge? A go-to base rate for a kit fee is about $50 USD per week. Nonetheless, if yous're rolling in loftier niche equipment and that dollar corporeality doesn't seem sufficient, here'due south an easy rule of thumb:

Assume that 100 shoot days should pay dorsum the cost of the majority of the equipment in your kit earlier information technology begins to deteriorate and needs replacing. Y'all tin adjust that depending on the fragility of the items in your kit depending on your faith in the warranties. To calculate a day rate for your kit, negating the less fun expendables like spray bottles, tooth pics, or cheap brushes, add up the price of all the specialty items, then simply divide the total cost by shoot days. Then a kit worth about $half dozen,500/100 shot days = $65 a 24-hour interval fee. This step will ensure you lot're non haemorrhage unperceived costs!

While kit fees are classified separately from actual income, they are still taxable and any 1099-MISC volition reflect them equally passive income. Best practice to ensure everything is clear come April is to keep (and upload to Lili!) all the receipts for every detail you listing on your kit fee!

Written past

Lisa Paradise

Lisa Paradise is a food journalist, freelance recipe writer, and baker living in Brooklyn, NY. Lisa has worked with publications such as Nutrient Network, Insider Food, Buzzfeed, and Nickelodeon.