Surprising Earnings: $18 Per Graduate at Middle School Graduations with GradPics Now!
By
Jack C.
on
May 9, 2024
|
8
minute read
Breaking New Ground at Middle School Graduations 🎓
Traditionally, high school and college graduations are where photographers using GradPics Now hit high sales marks, often achieving $20 per graduate or even soaring to $40-$50+. This has set a solid benchmark for what we consider successful revenue from graduation events. However, middle school graduations, also known as moving up ceremonies, have typically seen much lower sales figures—until now.
A Surprising Success Story 🌟
A GradPics Now user recently shattered our modest expectations by earning over $18 per graduate at a middle school graduation ceremony. Covering this event with the same vigor and strategy as higher education graduations, including the use of our Selfie Check-In feature, this photographer managed to turn what is often considered a less lucrative opportunity into a significant success. With more than 400 graduates participating, the total sales exceeded $7,200 for just this one middle school event. Impressive, right?
The Power of Immediate Engagement 📸
This remarkable achievement highlights an important lesson: the potential of middle school graduations as viable and profitable photography events. The success at this particular ceremony suggests that GradPics Now, especially with the implementation of Selfie Check-In, is exceptionally effective at capturing the moment and leveraging the emotions of proud parents. This immediate engagement allows photographers to capitalize on the celebratory atmosphere right then and there, boosting sales significantly.
Expanding Your Horizons 🌍
This case study serves as a powerful testament to the capabilities of GradPics Now across different educational levels. If you've primarily focused on high school or college graduations, it might be time to consider the untapped potential of middle school ceremonies. The combination of efficient technology and emotional moments can clearly yield fantastic results.
Get Prepared with Pre-Grad Chats 💬
Interested in exploring how you can maximize your success with middle school graduations? Schedule a pre-grad chat with Jack (https://calendly.com/nowcandid-training) to refine your strategy and ensure you're fully equipped to make the most of every graduation ceremony this season. We salute all graduation photographers making memorable moments last. Good luck this grad season, and here's to raising the bar even higher!
Big updates just dropped in NowCandid Capture App v4.20, and I’m here to walk you through all the exciting changes. Whether you’re on iPhone, iPad, or now even a Mac, this update makes capturing better, faster, and more flexible than ever.
🖥️ Now on Apple Silicon Macs!
Mac support has officially landed!
If you’ve got a Mac from 2020 or newer (Apple Silicon), you can now run the NowCandid Capture App directly on your computer. That means full access to camera tethering, live-uploading, Selfie Check-In Station, and more—all in the same app you already know and love on iOS and iPadOS.
Perfect for studio setups or hybrid workflows where a full keyboard and screen come in handy!
📷 Fujifilm Joins the Party
That’s right—Fujifilm cameras are now fully supported!
With this, all five major camera brands are compatible with NowCandid Capture & Upload:
• Canon
• Sony
• Nikon
• LUMIX
• Fujifilm
So, if you’re shooting sports, portraits, grads, or events on a Fuji body, you’re now cleared for lift-off. 🎉
🔮 Future-Proofed for Apple OS Updates
Capture App v4.20 includes early support for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26, so you’ll be all set once those updates roll out later this year. No last-minute patching or scrambling required.
🎨 Visual & Interface Upgrades
• Animated UI numbers (like image counts!) now update with fun, smooth transitions.
• New Shooting Page UI on iPhone gives more space to your camera feed.
• Sharpened icons throughout the app—crisper visuals everywhere.
• Phone keypad is now larger and easier to tap.
• PhotoTags popup got a cleaner layout.
• Updated splash screen messages: wittier, more emoji-filled, and faster-loading too!
📸 Photo Booth & Selfie Check-In Tweaks
• New Color Filters for Photo Booth: Try out Juno, Lark, Mayfair, Sierra, and Walden—just like your favorite photo apps.
• Photo Booth collage previews now live-update when filters or backgrounds change. What you see is actually what you get!
• Internal camera now runs at 60fps on the Shooting Page, Selfie Check-In Station, and Photo Booth Mode for smoother live-video feeds.
• Flash support added to Selfie Check-In: the screen will flash during the photo if your device decides it’s needed.
• "Close" button for Selfie Check-In Station is now only shown during the contact info step (to reduce some confusion users had).
🛠️ Performance & Power Gains
• Better battery life and CPU usage from under-the-hood improvements.
• General performance improvements to make the app snappier.
• iOS 18+ now supports dark mode icons and tinted app icon options for better theme matching on your device.
• The Lock button is now in the iPhone's shooting page wheel menu—it’s still there if you need it, just tidier.
With v4.20, the NowCandid Capture App is faster, more flexible, and ready for more workflows than ever—whether you’re on your phone, iPad, or a shiny new Mac. 🧃
⭐ Favorites for All-Image Gallery Links
Your subjects can now favorite images when viewing the All Images Gallery for an Event! Favorites will stick around between sessions on the same device and browser, and if the visitor logs in, they’ll sync across their devices too.
This opens up new workflows for action sports photographers and beyond. Want to promote the full gallery and let customers find their pics with JerseyJotter™ filters? Now they can build their own personal gallery of favorites, even if they didn’t check in or match through Face Matching. In general, this makes the All Images Gallery more shoppable for every type of Event.
🔧 Misc New Features & Tweaks
Some smaller updates this week—still useful!
📥 Press & Hold Downloads (Now with Backgrounds!) QuicPics users on mobile can now press and hold to download images with their selected background. Previously, this was only available through the cart and checkout.
🔢 JerseyJotter™ Filter Stats Update When filtering by number, color filter stats will now update dynamically to reflect how many images match both filters. It’s a smarter way to narrow things down.
🛡️ GalleryGuard™ in Photo Synthesis™ Galleries Retail visitors browsing their Photo Synthesis™ gallery via Quic.Pics are now protected by screenshot blocking, just like the standard retail site. 📵
💰 Sort by Purchased Images On the Manage Images page, you can now sort by “Purchased Images” to see what’s actually selling. Great for evaluating your top-performing shots!
🧠📸 Memory Mate is now a "Hybrid" product! We’ve updated how Memory Mate products behave on the retail site. They’ll now show up in both the Group and Individual product sections depending on what photo types are available in the gallery. Even better: when a customer clicks into the product gallery, Memory Mates will preview with either the group photo or individual photo already filled in—whichever one they had selected going in.
That’s everything for Now!
More improvements coming your way soon. Keep snapping, tagging, and selling—I'll be here making it smoother every step of the way.
Hey friends! It’s Candy, back again with updates on all things NowCandid.
This week? We’re talking backgrounds, jersey-spotting magic, and some serious product glow-ups. Let’s dig in! 🍬✨
🎨 Offer-Level Background Customization Is Here!
Now, you can set custom backgrounds at the Offer level!
• Pick from hundreds of preloaded background options
• Or upload your own (yep, your own!)
• Drag and drop to arrange their order just how you like
• Choose between 20 and 32 backgrounds to match your event’s vibe
• This background selection will set the choices for dynamic BGR images in Events using that Offer
Find it under "Image Backgrounds" when editing one of your custom offers!
🏀 JerseyJotter™ Got Even Smarter
Multiple jersey numbers at once? Don’t mind if I do! 🎯
Retail customers can now filter by more than one jersey number while browsing galleries—so if they’re hunting down that epic shot of #1 handing off to #23, they can actually find it. The more, the merrier!
JerseyJotter™ in action! Now able to filter down even more. Theme: Liquorice
✨ New & Improved Product Renders!
Our non-rendering products got a visual upgrade! Depending on the program or market, you’ll now see better sample graphics in the product gallery for:
• Spirit Noggins
• Spirit Sticks
• Canvas Wraps
• Wall Clings
• ...andeven statuettes and acrylic magnets when using standard images.
Graduations? Sports? Social vibes? We’ve got you covered with graphics that actually match the moment. Love that for us. 💅
Here are two examples of what we're talking about:
✨ Improving Live-Rendering for Statuettes
📸 Statuettes now render in the product gallery with a transparent acrylic base (ooh, classy) and an updated plate design.
🎯 And just in case you missed it: Acrylic Magnets and Statuettes now live-render when customers are viewing the product gallery for a background-removed image.
Theme: Pop Rocks - Watermarking: Off
🎆 In Case You Missed It: Pop Rocks Theme!
We dropped a new “Pop Rocks” retail theme right before the 4th of July—complete with fireworks, dark mode, and party vibes galore.
Use it for summer celebrations, school events, or whenever you feel like turning up the wow.
🛠️ Misc Fixes & Tweaks!
🖼️ Quic-Event Tweak: When not selling a Digital Download product in your Quic-Events, the free download will now be much higher resolution!
🤳 Selfie Check-In™: A sneaky bug was messing with Selfie Check-In™ on some phones, but I waved my magic wand and poof—fixed.
📅 Report Date Picker: You can now select dates earlier than July 2023 when setting date ranges for reports. A little overdue... but better late than never, right? 😅
When a long-time graduation photography business, which has asked to remain anonymous, decided to switch an event they’d covered for years to NowCandid’s platform, the results were impressive.
Despite a significant drop in graduates at this ceremony, this studio has outperformed last year’s total sales, thanks to smarter systems, easier check-ins, and a smoother experience for families.
🎓 The Challenge
Capturing a graduation is always a high-volume, high-pressure operation. For years, this photography business relied on pre-registration lists and manual image matching. But getting enough students to register ahead of time was always a hurdle—and every missed check-in meant lost revenue.
With parents and schools expecting a faster, more polished experience, the team knew they needed a better way to deliver.
✅ The Solution
This year, they went all in with NowCandid’s smart, automated workflow:
• Selfie Check-In™ for faster, more flexible student identification
• Automated galleries and image matching, cutting down post-event sorting time
• Mobile-optimized customer galleries with tiered pricing offers
• Real-time reporting and clearer communication with the school
And the big win? Selfie Check-In™ now gives graduates up to 60 days after the event to register their photo—capturing stragglers who might otherwise never see their images.
📊 The Results
Here’s how the numbers stack up compared to last year:
• NUMBER OF GRADUATES: -10%
• SALES PER PARTICIPANT: +39%
• ORDER AVERAGE: +29%
The graduation's 2025 sales over the past 45 days has already exceeded their 2024 sales over 365 days by 26%.
Meaning, their total sales are up 26% with plenty of time to increase going forward.
By giving families more time and an easier path to find their photos, the studio saw higher average order values, better sales per participant, and less manual work for their team—even with fewer students overall.
💬 What the Studio Noticed
• Time savings: Fewer employees needed to manage sign-ups on site.
• Lower labor costs: Less time chasing registrations, more focus on shooting.
• Less customer service: Fewer retail support calls, because NowCandid helps with those!
• Happier schools: Schools loved the modern process and the extra contact info for staying connected with new grads.
🎯 Their Biggest Wins
When asked what they’d tell another studio thinking about making the switch, the owner put it simply:
“What are you waiting for? We increased sales, lowered our labor costs, and made the process easier for everyone.”
They added that the extended Selfie Check-In™ window alone made a huge difference:
“Being able to register students up to 60 days after the event helped us capture sales we would have missed.”
Would they use this workflow again?
“100%.”
🚀 Wrap-Up
This photo business proves that growth isn’t always about shooting more photos or booking bigger crowds. Sometimes, it’s about working smarter—using tools that connect families with their memories faster and easier than ever.
👉 Ready to see what NowCandid™ can do for your next graduation event? Start here »
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