Shoot the listing photos in this order, then test the extra frames on four listings
A shot order for the core listing set, and a labeled four-listing test protocol with the record sheet to run it, before you pay for more images.
Corrected: this is version 2. See the corrections page.
A larger photo set is not automatically a better listing. Extra frames cost production time, and the honest question is whether they change what buyers do. This note gives the order we would shoot in and a protocol for testing the extra frames on your own listings.
It is a protocol, not a result. We have not run it yet, and when we do, we will publish the record sheet with the counts.
The shot order
Shoot the core set first, in this order, so the frames a buyer sees on the first screen are finished before anything optional:
- the front exterior in daylight, square to the house, with the approach visible
- the main living space, from the corner that shows the room's shape and its light
- the kitchen, including the work surface and the storage
- the primary bedroom, then the primary bathroom
- the one feature the seller would name first, whatever it is
Then stop and review the core set on a phone screen, because that is where we assume a buyer's first look happens. If a core frame does not answer an obvious question about its room, reshoot it before adding anything.
Only after that do we decide on the extended set: secondary bedrooms, the yard, the garage, detail shots and twilight exteriors. The extended set is what the test below is for.
The four-listing protocol
Label this as a test in your own notes from the start, so nobody later reads it as a finding.
- Choose four listings in the same asking-price band and property type, going live within the same month if you can.
- Shoot the core set for all four.
- Add the extended set to two of them, chosen before any results exist: alternate by the order the listings go live, rather than picking the homes you like.
- Publish each listing with the full set it will keep, and do not add frames midway.
- Fill in the record sheet at the end of the first and second weeks live.
Four listings is a small sample. Treat the result as directional rather than causal, because the property, the price and the week can matter as much as the photo count. If the extended pair does not look clearly different on inquiries and showings, the extra frames have not yet earned their production time.
The record sheet
Keep one row per listing per check-in, in a spreadsheet with these columns:
- listing reference: your internal id, never the street address in a shared file
- asking-price band
- property type
- set: core or extended
- core frame count
- extended frame count, zero for the core pair
- production minutes, shooting plus editing
- date the listing went live
- check-in: end of week one or end of week two
- portal views at check-in, with the portal named
- saves at check-in
- inquiries at check-in
- showings booked at check-in
- anything else that changed: price, status, an open house
Write dates in full and counts as whole numbers. Keep each portal's views in its own column, because view counts from different portals may not be comparable.
Reading the result
Compare the extended pair with the core pair on inquiries and showings first, and on views second. Divide production minutes by inquiries for each listing to see what the extra frames cost per inquiry. If one listing stands apart because of its price or location, say so and run the protocol again on the next four, rather than averaging the oddity away.
When the counts are in, you have a record your team can check instead of an argument about taste. Shoot the core set first, and pay for more frames only when your own sheet shows a difference you can explain.
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