How Much Does a Photo Booth Rental Cost? A 2026 Pricing Guide

You are quoting a client, or shopping around for a booth to hire, and the same question stops you cold: what is normal? Quote high and the room goes quiet. Quote low and you leave money on the table, or wonder if the cheap booth is cheap for a reason.

So here are real numbers. We looked at the booking data behind roughly 118,000 photo booth rentals on Check Cherry to see what these events actually cost, what the different booth types run, and how price moves with hours, travel, and season. No guesswork, just what people are really paying.

How much does a photo booth rental cost?

According to Check Cherry booking data from about 118,000 photo booth rentals, the typical event runs about $677, and the booth type is the biggest price lever: a classic open-air booth runs about $635 while a 360, glam, or mirror booth runs $830 to $950. Most rentals land between $475 and $999, and the top 10% clear about $1,550.

One number worth pulling out: the median (the middle of the pack) is $677, but the average is higher at about $889. That gap is normal. A handful of long, premium, add-on-loaded events pull the average up, while the typical booking sits lower. Strip a rental down to just the base package and the middle sits around $700, before travel, prints, and extras get added on. And these numbers are current, not stale: the typical photo booth rental has held around $675 every year since 2024, so the market has barely moved.

Which type of photo booth costs the most?

This is where the price really moves. An open-air booth and a mirror booth are both "photo booths" on paper, but they are not close on price. Here is what each format typically totals, using the classic open-air booth as the baseline everyone knows.

What does a 360 photo booth cost?

The 360 booth is the format clients ask for by name right now. On Check Cherry, the typical 360 rental totals about $830, roughly $195 more than a classic open-air booth. The slow-motion video, the spinning arm, and the extra setup and staffing all justify the premium, and clients booking a 360 usually already expect to pay more for it. If you are building or scaling one, our stage-by-stage guide to growing a 360 photo booth business walks through pricing it as you go.

How much does a photo booth cost per hour?

Photo booths price by the hour, so the length of the rental is the second big lever after booth type. Here is what rentals typically total as the hours climb.

The jump from a short rental to a full evening roughly doubles the total. That is worth remembering when a client asks you to "just add an hour": each added hour carries real value, so price it, do not give it away. One caveat: this price-by-the-hour pattern applies to attended booths, where a staffer is on site the whole time. A drop-off (unattended) booth is priced closer to a flat day rate, which we break down below.

How much does a photo booth cost for a wedding vs. corporate vs. a party?

The occasion matters too, though occasion is recorded on only about a third of bookings, so this reflects the events where it was logged. Here is what each type typically totals.

Corporate and wedding photo booths run about $210 to $270 higher (roughly 30% to 40% more) than a birthday or personal party, with corporate the priciest. Those clients book longer events, add more extras, and are less price-sensitive.

What drives the price?

Two levers do most of the work, and two more fill in the rest:

• Booth type. A 360, glam, or mirror booth commands $200 to $315 more than an open-air setup. This is the single biggest factor.
• Hours. More time on site means more value. A 5-hour rental runs roughly double a 2-hour one.
• Travel. About 1 in 4 rentals (23.5%) include a travel fee for events outside the free zone.
• Add-ons. Prints, custom backdrops, scrapbooks, and props are the fastest way to lift a booking after the client has already said yes.

On travel specifically: nearly a quarter of rentals carry a travel fee, so decide up front how far your price includes and what you charge past it. A booking tool that calculates the fee automatically saves you doing mileage math on every quote. For the full breakdown, see our beginner's guide to charging travel fees. For add-ons, the most popular backdrops are a good place to start building an upsell menu.

Attended vs. drop-off (unattended) booths

Whether you staff the booth is a real price lever. An attended booth, where you or an attendant runs it all night, has a median around $700. A drop-off (unattended) booth you deliver, set up, and pick up later runs a median around $450, roughly $250 (about a third) cheaper, because there is no on-site attendant. Drop-off is the subset identifiable by name, so treat about $450 as the clean drop-off figure.

The interesting part is how each one scales with hours. Attended pricing climbs steeply as the event runs longer, from about $487 at 2 hours up to $1,113 at 5 or more. Drop-off is nearly flat, from about $372 at 2 hours to $524 at 5 or more. It is priced like a day rate, not by the hour.

The reason is cost. An unattended booth is committed to that one booking for the whole event no matter how long it runs, so extra hours cost you almost nothing. An attended booth means real staff hours, and a long event can block you from taking a second booking that day, so those hours have to be priced in.

Deposits and getting paid

How you collect matters as much as what you charge. When a photo booth company charges a percentage deposit, 30% is typical. But most companies (about 77%) skip the percentage and charge a flat deposit amount instead, a fixed number like $150 or $200 that is simpler for the client to understand and easy to keep consistent across every booking. Either way, take a deposit to hold the date. It is what turns an interested lead into a committed one.

When to charge more: your busiest months

Demand is not flat across the year, and your pricing does not have to be either. Photo booth events peak twice: in May (about 13% of the year's events) and again in December (about 12%). That is when the parties actually happen, not when people book them. That December spike is unusual. Most event verticals go quiet in winter, but holiday parties are huge for photo booths. January is the slowest month for events, under 5%.

What to do with that: May and December are your most valuable inventory, so they are the right place to hold firm on price and add a small peak-date premium. When a Saturday in December is one of only a handful you can physically work, discounting it makes no sense. Save any flexibility for the slow January and February dates, where a lower price actually fills an empty calendar.

Putting it together

If you are setting your first price, start where most of the market sits: a classic open-air booth for a few hours lands near $635, and the typical all-in rental runs about $677. From there, price your premium formats $200 to $315 higher, charge for every hour, set a travel fee for events outside your free zone, and hold your rates on peak May and December dates. That is a starting recipe, not a rule. Watch what books, and adjust.