Costs
Part of How to sequence a family photograph project from triage to storage
Photo Archives Cost: Factors, Not Price Quotes
Photo archives cost depends on size, copying method, and storage target; learn how these choices shape a project without a flat price list.
What to take away
- Photo archives cost depends on the project; this page publishes no prices. Supply and lab prices move, and a stale figure is worse than none.
- To compare two quotes, divide each total by the number of items covered. This gives a per-item figure, not a complete measure of scope.
- Enclosure size drives more of the total than enclosure quality. Oversizing is the common overspend.
- Cold storage has a running cost, and the colder the target, the higher it goes.
Why there are no numbers here
Quoting a dollar figure for a sleeve or a scan would date this page within a season and would be a guess besides, since nothing was priced for it. What does not date is the structure of the cost, which is what follows.
The four variables
- Count.Established before anything else. A collection of 400 prints and one of 4,000 are different projects, not the same project at different speeds.
- Size mix.Enclosures are priced by dimension. A collection that is mostly one size costs far less to house than one spread across six.
- Copy method.Whether you scan yourself, send items out, or do both for different tiers.
- Storage target.Room, cool or cold, each with a different equipment and energy bill.
Where cold storage costs sit
Cooling is the one storage decision with a monthly bill, so it pays to know what it buys.
The Canadian Conservation Institute's account of incorrect temperature as an agent of deterioration puts it bluntly. Normal room temperatures are much too high for long-term preservation of unstable human-made materials, especially those carrying images, sound, and text.
For most collections, only those archive materials need any thought about temperature at all.
That sentence decides a budget. It notes that many products made from the mid-nineteenth century onward, especially paper, photographic materials, rubber and many plastics, chemically self-destruct within a single human lifetime. Electronic records, from analog tape to digital discs, belong on the same list.
It also notes the opposite: most materials in a mixed collection are low-sensitivity and have already lasted centuries.
So cool the small fraction that needs it and leave the rest at room temperature.
Turning a lab quote into a per-item figure
Ask any supplier or lab for four things: the unit, the minimum, what preparation is included, and the reshoot policy. Compare quotes covering the same work, then divide each total by the number of items covered to get a per-item figure.
| Line to request | Why it matters |
|---|
What to Ask a Lab
- Price per item at your actual volume
- Minimum order or setup fee
- Preparation included or excluded
- Reshoot and rejection terms
- Three copies, two media types, one offsite
For each quote, record:
- Unit:
- Ask the lab to define what one billable unit covers.
- Minimum:
- Ask whether a minimum charge or minimum order applies.
- Preparation included:
- Ask which preparation tasks are included rather than billed separately.
- Reshoot policy:
- Ask whether a reshoot is included and under what conditions.
Costs people forget arrive after scanning. The University of Michigan Library's digital archiving guidance on storage lists media it does not recommend for long-term storage and says why.
USB flash drives, because the rewrite and erase cycle affects durability and their size makes them easy to lose. Recordable optical discs, because the data is written to a dye layer that deteriorates and because optical drives are no longer standard hardware.
Its backup rule is the ongoing cost in one line. Three copies, since the central computer counts as only one. Two different types of storage media, rather than trusting the endurance of one. One copy in another location, such as a relative's house in another state, against a fire.
Price that as a subscription, because that is what it is.
A sane spending order
Conditions first, because they are cheap and protect everything. Enclosures for the at-risk material second. Copying third, in batches. Cold storage last, and only for what the earlier steps identified as fragile.
Our plan for a photograph collection covers the sorting that produces the count, and the piece on learning the work and judging a lab covers how to check what comes back.
