Paper has a price you can look up. Ink has a price. Press time has a price.
A person deciding which photograph earns a full page does not, and it is the largest single input in what you pay.
What the two to four days contain
Not “making it look nice”. A specific set of decisions, none of which software makes well:
Reading the material. Sixty photographs and five lines of context, understood before anything is placed.
Sequencing. Deciding the order the story runs in, which is usually not the order you sent them in.
Scale. One image across a spread, four in a grid. This is most of what separates a designed book from a filled template.
Writing. Turning your bullet points into captions that fit the page and sound like you.
Rejecting. Telling you a file is too small for the size it is placed at, or that a count does not fit the pages chosen. This happens before design starts and it is the step that prevents most disappointment.
Why it is not a line item
Because it is not optional, and pricing it separately would imply it is.
A service that charges design as an add-on is telling you the base product is a template. Here it is included at ₹499 and at ₹1,099, which is also why the price ladder is flatter than the page count suggests — five times the pages is not five times the design. Price by page count →
The comparison that makes it concrete
| Templated | Designed | |
|---|---|---|
| Who lays out the pages | You, or software | A designer |
| Time it costs you | An evening, often more | Twenty minutes of choosing |
| Time it costs us | None | Two to four days |
| Bad photo at full page | Printed as supplied | Flagged before printing |
| Price | Lower | ₹499–1,099, design included |
The evening is the real comparison. A cheaper templated book is not free — you pay for it in an evening of dragging images into boxes, and most people who have done it once do not do it again. Hand-designed against template photo books →
Why it cannot be rushed for money
A designer working faster produces a worse book, and the only way to genuinely accelerate one order is to delay another. That is why there is no rush fee. Can you pay more for faster delivery? →
What you can do to make it cheaper
Nothing about the fee — it is included either way. But you can make the two to four days produce a better result, which is the same thing as value:
Send more photographs than you need. Choices make the layout work.
Send the order you want them in. It saves a round of guessing.
Send five concrete specifics. Places, dates, a joke, something that went wrong. Without them the captions have nothing to be specific about. Do you write the captions for me? →
Frequently asked
Is design included in the price? Yes, at every size. There is no separate design fee and no template tier.
How long does design take? Two to four days, after your material arrives and before the proof reaches you.
Why is design not charged separately? Because it is not optional. Charging for it separately would mean the base product was a template.
Can I pay for more design time? No. Revisions are already included, which is the same thing without a fee attached.
How do I get the most out of it? Send more photographs than you need, in the order you want them, with five concrete specifics for the captions.
Part of our guide to what a photo magazine costs. See also: who actually designs the book and the design proof.
Design included: Photo magazines from ₹499 · Custom Magazine