Studio shoot vs. AI — cost per SKU compared.

The comparison in one line

Studio: €15 to €40 per SKU. AI with review gate: €1.70 to €3.30 per SKU. A factor of ten to twenty.

So the interesting question isn't "which is cheaper" — it's "when does that 20× factor justify the quality difference".

Studio — the full cost structure

Direct

• Photographer day rate: €800 to €1,400, covers 40 to 60 SKUs
• Studio rental: €150 to €400 per day
• Retouching: €8 to €20 per image
• Lands around €15 to €40 per SKU

Indirect (often overlooked)

• Product transport to the studio — packing, shipping, pickup
• Downtime in the warehouse: staff pulling and prepping the products
• Scheduling — typically 3 to 5 weeks of lead time at established studios
• Re-shoots for new SKUs: every re-shoot starts from a minimum half-day studio booking

Realistic total for 700 SKUs: €14,000 to €30,000, plus 4 to 8 weeks of project timeline.

AI path — the full cost structure

Direct

• Generation cost: about €0.30 per image, 2 images per SKU
• Review tool and infrastructure: included in the Otto pack
• Pack L at Otto: €1,199 covers up to 1,000 SKUs
• Works out to €1.70 per SKU in the pack model

Indirect

• Warehouse intake: about 30 to 45 seconds per SKU — so 6 to 9 hours total for 700 SKUs
• Operator review time: about 10 to 15 hours for 700 SKUs
• No product transport, no studio appointments, no external coordination

Realistic total for 700 SKUs: €1,199 pack plus ~20 internal person-hours (at €35/h internal cost = €700). Together €1,900. Project timeline: 10 working days.

Where the difference shows up

Where AI wins

• Consistency — 700 images in the exact same studio setup, no day-to-day lighting variance
• Scale — going from 700 to 1,400 SKUs doesn't double the cost because the infrastructure is constant
• Speed — 10 working days instead of 6 to 8 weeks
• Re-shoots — a single new SKU costs €1.70, not a studio half-day

Where studio wins

• Colour fidelity — for brands where the specific product colour is critical
• Fine detail — engravings, fine textures, specific surface finishes
• Human models — the moment a person has to be in the frame, studio is the only serious option
• Campaign imagery — narrative marketing shots, not catalog images

The hybrid is almost always the right answer

For 80 to 90% of the catalog: AI path. For the remaining 10 to 20% — where colour fidelity, fine detail, or human presence matters: a focused half-day studio session with exactly those problem SKUs.

Total cost of that hybrid for 700 SKUs: roughly €1,900 Otto pack plus €600 to €1,200 for the targeted studio half-day. Together €2,500 to €3,100.

Versus the pure studio path, that's a 75 to 85% saving with comparable output quality across the assortment.

What this calculation doesn't cover

This maths holds for catalog imagery: product on a neutral background plus a typical lifestyle scene. It doesn't hold for campaign imagery, editorial shoots, or testimonial-style photography. For those, studio time is still the right call — the comparison lives on a different axis.

The good news: 95% of B2B distribution work needs catalog imagery, not campaign imagery.