Photographer Client Onboarding Kit

You can shoot. The part that eats your week is everything around the shooting.

The inquiry that sat for three days because you didn't know how to answer "how much?" without sounding apologetic. The client who showed up in a bright red logo tee because nobody told her not to. The gallery you delivered late. The review you never got around to asking for.

None of that is a photography problem. It's a words problem — and words are the part nobody teaches you.

This kit is every message a portrait client hears from you, already written. Six files, professionally worded, ready to put your name on.

WHAT'S INSIDE

• CLIENT WELCOME GUIDE (9 pages) — What to send the moment a booking is confirmed. The full timeline week by week, a real what-to-wear section (coordinate don't match, texture over pattern, why thin stripes shimmer on camera), how to handle kids and pets, what session day actually looks like, ten honest FAQs, and a plain-English policy summary.

• PRE-SESSION QUESTIONNAIRE (8 pages) — Six parts, with separate sections for families and children, couples and engagements, and business or branding clients. It asks the questions that change how you shoot: which child takes twenty minutes to warm up, which partner needed convincing, whether the headshot needs a square crop or a wide one.

• 12 EMAIL SCRIPTS (14 pages) — First inquiry reply · price-guide follow-up · booking confirmed · the planning email · balance due · one week out · the weather call · thank you with a sneak peek · gallery delivery · review request · the client who went quiet (a two-touch sequence) · raising your prices. Each one comes with two subject lines, and a short note explaining why it is worded that way — so you can rewrite it in your own voice without breaking what makes it work.

• PRICE GUIDE TEMPLATE (7 pages) — A three-tier session guide with add-ons, print and album options, and booking terms. The last page is for you, not your client: how to work out a floor price from your real hours, what belongs in each tier, and why the middle one should be the obvious choice.

• BOOKING TRACKER (spreadsheet, 4 tabs) — 150 rows, real formulas, and a dashboard that fills itself in. Booked revenue, collected, still owed, booking rate, and a "Needs your attention" panel that flags the unsigned contract, the questionnaire nobody sent back and the overdue gallery — before the client notices. Works in Google Sheets and Excel.

• START HERE (PDF) — Fifteen-minute setup, a table of the seventeen placeholders to replace first with an example of what to put in each, and a complete index of all 119 placeholders in the kit showing which file each one lives in.

WHY THE WORDS ARE THE PRODUCT

Most photography template shops sell you a pretty layout with lorem-ipsum energy inside it. The layout here is clean and stays out of the way — the value is the text. Every sentence was written for a working portrait photographer, not adapted from a generic small-business pack. It talks about golden hour, moiré on thin stripes, the five minutes of chaos at the start of every family session, and why you should never hand over your RAW files.

EASY TO MAKE YOURS

Everything you need to change is in [TEAL BRACKETS], colored so you can spot the ones you missed. Find and Replace, add your logo, export to PDF. The README walks you through the seventeen to replace first, with an example of what to put in each, and its last page indexes all 119 so you can check nothing was missed before you hit send. Nothing is locked, nothing needs a subscription, and there is no software to learn.

WORKS WITH

Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages (.docx) · Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) · any PDF reader. Instant digital download. No subscription, no login, yours forever.

WHO THIS IS FOR

Family, newborn, couples, senior and branding photographers — anyone running a portrait business solo. Especially useful in your first two years, when you already know how to shoot and are quietly making all of this up as you go.