What’s Included in a Photo Booth Rental?
Two photo booth quotes can land on almost the same number and describe two completely different nights. One covers an attendant, a print for every guest, and a gallery you can download for free. The other covers the booth, and everything else turns up later as a line item. The only way to tell them apart is to read the list behind the price, so that is what this article is for.
Here is what a photo booth rental should include, what tends to cost extra, and the questions that make any two quotes comparable, ours included.
The hours, and when the clock starts
Photo booths are rented in blocks of hours, and every company has a shortest booking it will take. Ours is three hours, and most events land on three or four.
The detail that matters more than the number is when those hours start. A booth takes time to unload, set up, and test, and some quotes quietly count that time against yours. With us your hours start when the booth opens to guests. We typically arrive around two hours before that, so that everything is up and tested before your first guest sees it, and packing down afterward is our time as well.
If your night has a gap in it, such as a cocktail hour in one room and a reception in another, ask what happens to the booth in between. Ours can stay in place with an attendant through the gap, which is an add-on called idle time, so that it is ready the moment the room opens rather than being packed down and brought back mid-event.
Extra hours are priced per booth and quoted with your event, so that you see the whole number before you commit to anything.
Who stays with the booth
Some rentals are dropped off and collected later, and some come with a person who stays for the whole booking. Both exist for a reason, so the point is knowing which one you are buying before the night rather than on it.
Every booth we run includes an attendant for the entire booking, and the Keychain Booth comes with two, because somebody has to assemble keychains while somebody else runs the booth. An attendant does a lot more than keep the printer fed. They walk guests through their first photo, suggest a pose when a group freezes, keep the line moving, and hand everyone their prints. Mostly they make people comfortable in front of a camera, so that the guests who try it once come back again and again through the night.
Prints: how many, what size, and who gets one
Unlimited prints is the phrase on nearly every quote, and it can mean two different things. Sometimes it means unlimited sessions with one print per session, which leaves a group of six deciding who gets to keep it. Sometimes it means a print for everyone in the frame. Ask which one you are getting.
With us it is the second. Six people in the photo means six prints, every time they step in, with no per-guest limit and no cap on the number of sessions.
Size is the other question. The 2×6 strip is the one everybody pictures, three frames down a strip of paper with the design along the bottom. The 4×6 is the larger single print that people frame. The Classic Booth prints the 2×6 strip, and on the Glam Booth, the AI Booth, and the Keychain Booth your guests choose the strip, the 4×6, or one of each at the booth, so that nobody is stuck with a size somebody else picked for them.
Prints should land in about ten seconds and come out dry enough to go straight into a pocket, which is what stops a line from forming when half the room decides to go at once.
A print designed for your event
There is a big difference between a template with your names typed into a box and a print designed around your event. Ask to see the design before the day, and ask whether it costs extra.
Ours is included on every booth. For a wedding it is your names, your date, and something that agrees with your invitations. For a company it is your logo, your event colors, and your sponsors. You approve it before anything goes on paper, and the start screen, which is the first thing every guest touches, carries your names or your logo too.
It is also worth asking for the photos without the design on them. We include both versions, and the plain set is the one your photographer will actually want.
The backdrop and the props
The backdrop is behind your guests in every photo from the night, so it is worth asking exactly which ones are included rather than assuming the one in the brochure is.
White and Black come with every booth we run. The Glam Booth, the AI photo booth, and the Keychain Booth include your pick of the whole collection at no extra charge, and the Classic Booth is built around White or Black, which is part of why it is the most affordable booth we run. Every backdrop is 7.5 feet square, so the space it takes does not change with your choice. You can see all of them on our backdrops page.
Props work the same way. Most of our booths come with a standard table of sequin hats, oversized sunglasses, and featherless boas, plus a premium sign collection chosen for your event. If you would rather have no props at all, say so and the table does not appear. The whole set is on our props page.
Digital copies and the gallery
A print is one copy. Ask what happens with the digital files, both on the night and afterward, because this is where extra charges tend to hide.
At our booths, guests send their photos to themselves by text, email, or QR code before they walk away. A strip arrives as the strip itself, a GIF of the three frames, and each photo on its own, all in one message. At weddings every photo uploads to a live gallery as it is taken, so that guests can pull them up on their phones during the reception.
Afterward you get an online gallery with face detection, so that a guest can find every photo of themselves in seconds instead of scrolling through hundreds. Downloads are free, nothing is watermarked, and nothing is sold back to you. The questions worth asking any company are whether downloads cost anything, whether the files carry a watermark, and whether you get the versions without the design.
Space, power, and paperwork
A booth needs more than a spare corner. Ours needs eight feet wide, eight feet deep, and eight feet high on level ground, and we run off battery packs, so there is no outlet to find and no cord taped across the floor. If you are not sure a spot works, send a photo of it and we will tell you before you promise it to anyone. The details are in our article on how much space a photo booth needs.
Venues often ask for a certificate of insurance. We carry liability insurance and issue a certificate naming your venue as additionally insured whenever one is wanted, and we handle it with the venue directly rather than routing it through you.
Travel belongs on the list too. There is no travel fee for Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Hershey, Gettysburg, or Baltimore. Philadelphia, and anywhere further out, is quoted per event, so just ask, and you will know the number before you are invested in the idea.
What usually costs extra
Every company has add-ons, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as they come with fixed prices rather than turning up on an invoice. Ours are the things a night might want rather than things it needs.
- The Roamer Booth. An attendant moves through cocktail hour with a camera, sending photos to guests’ phones as they mingle.
- Cocktail hour video messages. A microphone in front of your guests, so that you hear the toasts that never made it to the floor.
- A guest signing album. The guest book with the strips in it, and a sign that tells guests what to do.
- Idle time. For a booth that needs to stay set up and staffed between two parts of the night.
- A custom prop of your last name. Printed and cut to order, and signed by your guests as the night goes on.
Every one of them has a fixed price on our pricing page, and most bookings add none of them.
Five questions that make two quotes comparable
If you are holding two quotes that look alike, these five questions will usually show you the difference between them.
- When do the hours start, and does setup count against them?
- Is someone with the booth for the whole booking?
- Does everyone in the photo get a print, or is it one per session?
- Is the print design included, and do we see it before the day?
- Do gallery downloads cost anything, and are the files watermarked?
For a longer list, read what to ask before you book a photo booth company.
What it all costs with us
Everything in this article, apart from the add-ons, comes with every booth. For weddings, quinceañeras, and bar and bat mitzvahs, the Keychain Booth starts at $1,995, the AI Booth at $1,495, the Glam Booth at $1,195, and the Classic Booth at $995, each for three hours, and a Saturday in October costs the same as a Friday in March. Company events are designed around the night, starting with your headcount, your space, and your hours. The full breakdown is in how much a photo booth rental costs in Lancaster.
Tell us the date and what the night is for, and a person will send back a real number with everything it includes written out.
