How to bill for services

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Happy New Year Pilots!!! Thank you for all the knowledge you impart here on a regular basis!

I have been providing construction and real estate mapping services for about a year now and typically charge $150 per onsite hour, which also includes post-processing and deliverables. A friend recently told me I'm not charging enough so I'd love to know how you guys structure your billing.

Thanks in advance!
 
Happy New Year Pilots!!! Thank you for all the knowledge you impart here on a regular basis!

I have been providing construction and real estate mapping services for about a year now and typically charge $150 per onsite hour, which also includes post-processing and deliverables. A friend recently told me I'm not charging enough so I'd love to know how you guys structure your billing.

Thanks in advance!
How much did you pay for that advice?
 
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Happy New Year Pilots!!! Thank you for all the knowledge you impart here on a regular basis!

I have been providing construction and real estate mapping services for about a year now and typically charge $150 per onsite hour, which also includes post-processing and deliverables. A friend recently told me I'm not charging enough so I'd love to know how you guys structure your billing.

Thanks in advance!
That’s more than I charge per aerial real estate job (pretty close though) but I’m in Berks County PA and the realtors won’t pay more. I see you’re in Florida so maybe you could charge more depending on the market. I include post processing too. Pics and video, no mapping.
 
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About what I expect I’ll pay here… 😏
OK I am assuming you mean zero. So here is my opinion. It is only my opinion as a retired accountant who has had a lot of small business clients come to me with the words "My friend tells me I can do this." or "My friend tells me I am not charging enough." or, "My friend tells me I'm charging too much." Each and every time that information comes from unqualified friends who really don't know anything about being in business. I just tell them the advice is only worth what they paid. Hopefully no one here will come down on me for this. All I can say is you are the one who is running the business. You know how much work you do and what your costs are. You also need to decide how much profit you have to make to stay in business. You use these criteria to set your pricing. In addition, you also need to know what the market (your competition) in your area is doing. If you undercut the competition too much, then they will be unfriendly and not help you out if and when you need it. If you charge substantially more, then you better be offering something extra good that isn't offered by your competition. As was mentioned earlier in the responses, different areas no doubt support different pricing levels. One thing I would do if I were to go into that business is go to several real estate offices in your are and talk to the Broker. You might get a much better picture of what the realtors are willing to pay for your services. Another indicator would be how much business you are getting. If you find you have more business than you can handle and your competition is struggling to find clients, then maybe an increase in your fees is in order. Another good place to inquire would be your accountant who may be willing to give you an idea of what others in your area are charging.

PS. There is no charge for this opinion and you are of course, free to put whatever value you choose on it. (LOL).
 
That’s more than I charge per aerial real estate job (pretty close though) but I’m in Berks County PA and the realtors won’t pay more. I see you’re in Florida so maybe you could charge more depending on the market. I include post processing too. Pics and video, no mapping.
Thanks for your response! I don't charge quite as much for real estate. I typically bundle drone with photography services so the price is in line with what other photographers charge. Florida is similar in that you can only charge what realtors will pay and they are typically paying out of pocket with no guarantee of a return on the investment.

Thanks again!
 
OK I am assuming you mean zero. So here is my opinion. It is only my opinion as a retired accountant who has had a lot of small business clients come to me with the words "My friend tells me I can do this." or "My friend tells me I am not charging enough." or, "My friend tells me I'm charging too much." Each and every time that information comes from unqualified friends who really don't know anything about being in business. I just tell them the advice is only worth what they paid. Hopefully no one here will come down on me for this. All I can say is you are the one who is running the business. You know how much work you do and what your costs are. You also need to decide how much profit you have to make to stay in business. You use these criteria to set your pricing. In addition, you also need to know what the market (your competition) in your area is doing. If you undercut the competition too much, then they will be unfriendly and not help you out if and when you need it. If you charge substantially more, then you better be offering something extra good that isn't offered by your competition. As was mentioned earlier in the responses, different areas no doubt support different pricing levels. One thing I would do if I were to go into that business is go to several real estate offices in your are and talk to the Broker. You might get a much better picture of what the realtors are willing to pay for your services. Another indicator would be how much business you are getting. If you find you have more business than you can handle and your competition is struggling to find clients, then maybe an increase in your fees is in order. Another good place to inquire would be your accountant who may be willing to give you an idea of what others in your area are charging.

PS. There is no charge for this opinion and you are of course, free to put whatever value you choose on it. (LOL).
Thank you, you are a wise man! I am having lunch in a couple of weeks with a contractor I am doing work for who also happens to be the president of the local commercial GC association. I'm hoping to get some better insight from him regarding what other companies are charging. I agree that unsolicited advice from friends is typically worth less than one pays, but I couldn't stop questioning whether or not he's right, hence the post.

Thanks for your input!
 
Thank you, you are a wise man! I am having lunch in a couple of weeks with a contractor I am doing work for who also happens to be the president of the local commercial GC association. I'm hoping to get some better insight from him regarding what other companies are charging. I agree that unsolicited advice from friends is typically worth less than one pays, but I couldn't stop questioning whether or not he's right, hence the post.

Thanks for your input!
You are very welcome. If my opinion helps, even a little, I am happy. It's always good to get second , third, twentieth opinions on advice. In the end, it is you who has to make the decision and it's best when the decision is an "informed" decision. Oh yes, thanks for the compliment. I've never considered myself to be a wise man, just extra careful, but I'll take wise also. Best of luck in your business. It sounds like you are going to be successful. Happy New Year.
 
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Happy New Year Pilots!!! Thank you for all the knowledge you impart here on a regular basis!

I have been providing construction and real estate mapping services for about a year now and typically charge $150 per onsite hour, which also includes post-processing and deliverables. A friend recently told me I'm not charging enough so I'd love to know how you guys structure your billing.

Thanks in advance!
For construction progress, I charge a $500 setup fee. This covers building the waypoint mission and then test flying and tweaking that mission onsite. This way if the client changes their mind, I'm still paid for my time.

From there, as of this writing, I'm charging $300-$400 per job (up to 10 acres, but most jobs are about 5 acres). Next job my prices are going up. I do two flights per construction job. I do a POI shot of the entire site and then a Nadir strafe shot for forensics. Once I have the 4K footage I run it through Adobe Premier Pro, do some minimal color correcting and exposure correcting (I don't use auto settings on the drone, so I ballpark exposure and white balance) and down-res it to 1080p. I put it up on the cloud and send a link to the client so they can download the footage. I then send an invoice to their accounting department. 30-60 days later a check shows up. I never see the client unless he just happens to spot me out on the jobsite and says hello. As of this writing I'm doing a job/week, which is netting about $1400/month residual income. It's not a lot of money but it's consistent income that I can count on for about 18 months per job. Plus, I get to use my Inspire 1. I prefer the Inspire 1 because to construction clients, it just looks like enterprise, professional equipment. I could probably get away with using a Mavic Pro if I wanted to. But I use the Inspire 1.

If you're interested, here's the last shot I did of a Santa Fe property September of last year.


Film...

I actually got my first break working in the film industry. While the money was good, the days were LONG and hard. We billed those days out at $5k/day. $2K was my share. My business partner got $2K and we paid our battery/data(Mod Repmoved}$500/day. The remaining $500 went for incidentals, expenses and consumables. We did that for about a year before getting tired of it. Once that industry went to RAW aerial footage, we decided to get out instead of investing in more equipment. They're very disorganized. Not my cup of tea.


Mapping...

Mapping is a whole different beast. Up to now I've been doing photogrammetry with my P4P, but recently got into LiDAR mapping (Matrice 300 with YellowScan Mapper+ combined with Sony A6000(?) camera. Mapping is really my bread and butter. Those incomes are doing very well. Obviously, invoices vary depending on the size of the job. These jobs bill out at $1K-$2K per day. I get 1-4 of these jobs per month. I'm not getting rich, but nobody is knocking on my door for money.


Traffic analysis...

Traffic analysis has been a good income, as well. For this kind of work I use my P4P. The work is very tedious, but the income is good. Because of the 4K files are very large, they have to be hand delivered to the client. These bill out @ $2K/day. I get 0-3 of these jobs per month.

Like you, I started off charging by the hour. But it's honestly hard to make a living that way. I billed out that way for a couple years before discovering other markets that paid better.

I have to be honest that I lucked into these other markets. I'll spare you the details, but these are markets that I never would've pursued. So now that you know these markets exist, you can pursue them in your home town.

One of the best pieces of advice I got was this. If you're not losing out on half your bids, you're bidding too low. The other awesome piece of advice I got was this. Sell value. Don't sell "cheap." I offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all my work. So far, after roughly 8 years of doing this, my delivery record is perfect. I've never left a client hanging. I've never been late with a delivery unless cleared with them ahead of time. This makes my service reliable, which makes it valuable. Sell that value.

Best of luck.

D
 
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Happy New Year Pilots!!! Thank you for all the knowledge you impart here on a regular basis!

I have been providing construction and real estate mapping services for about a year now and typically charge $150 per onsite hour, which also includes post-processing and deliverables. A friend recently told me I'm not charging enough so I'd love to know how you guys structure your billing.

Thanks in advance!
I work in Florida too. You are way undercharging yourself. $150 an hour is for low end real estate pricing. You should be at a minimum of $400-$500 per job say 30 acres or less. If you are doing it every month over the life of the job, you can give a little break. Remember is you charge too little, you are subconsciously telling people your services are not that valuable. You can always come down. As you gain confidence raise your prices more and more. And ask yourself, how much would it cost them to do this on their own? Pilot cert 107, insurance, equipment, experience, software, etc... You are way more valuable then you think. I have had some jobs where I made over $5000 in a day. Don't sell yourself short.
 
I work in Florida too. You are way undercharging yourself. $150 an hour is for low end real estate pricing. You should be at a minimum of $400-$500 per job say 30 acres or less. If you are doing it every month over the life of the job, you can give a little break. Remember is you charge too little, you are subconsciously telling people your services are not that valuable. You can always come down. As you gain confidence raise your prices more and more. And ask yourself, how much would it cost them to do this on their own? Pilot cert 107, insurance, equipment, experience, software, etc... You are way more valuable then you think. I have had some jobs where I made over $5000 in a day. Don't sell yourself short.
Bill, thank you for your reply and feedback. I guess that’s what I was thinking in posting the question, but just needed some confirmation. And I think I got it. I’m working on restructuring my pricing and charging an on-site fee and separate processing and deliverable fee. I like what @Harleydude said about charging a setup fee, it makes sense. So my thoughts are this:
-$500 setup fee
-$250/hour flight fee
-$200 for deliverables

Would love to get feedback if anyone wants to share. I’d also love to know what gear you guys are using.

Thanks again everyone!
 
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Bill, thank you for your reply and feedback. I guess that’s what I was thinking in posting the question, but just needed some confirmation. And I think I got it. I’m working on restructuring my pricing and charging an on-site fee and separate processing and deliverable fee. I like what @Harleydude said about charging a setup fee, it makes sense. So my thoughts are this:
-$500 setup fee
-$250/hour flight fee
-$200 for deliverables

Would love to get feedback if anyone wants to share. I’d also love to know what gear you guys are using.

Thanks again everyone!
Spot on. My setup fee is $500 for construction progress, with minimum charge being raised this year to $400 per shoot, which includes digital delivery.

D
 
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Bill, thank you for your reply and feedback. I guess that’s what I was thinking in posting the question, but just needed some confirmation. And I think I got it. I’m working on restructuring my pricing and charging an on-site fee and separate processing and deliverable fee. I like what @Harleydude said about charging a setup fee, it makes sense. So my thoughts are this:
-$500 setup fee
-$250/hour flight fee
-$200 for deliverables

Would love to get feedback if anyone wants to share. I’d also love to know what gear you guys are using.

Thanks again everyone!
Morning.

For your progression deliverables are you providing just photo and video or are you doing orthos? If you are doing orthos then are you processing them and if so with what? For photos and video I calculate that based on my hourly rate plus my processing rate and bill it as a total. My orthos are billed separately.

I have a few clients that I'm doing progression work for that I provide an ortho every other week. All relative accuracy (no GCP's and non RTK flight even though I have the capability) and I process them myself. Your pricing should include the cost of processing (time, equipment, and subscription fees if you are paying those). From my research those start at $650 per flight and go up from there. It was hard to get pricing from competitors here in Florida but that's what I was able to come up with.

Absolute accuracy orthos obviously prices are going to be a lot more because you are either having to involve a surveyor, or you have purchased an RTK capable drone with a ground station and set yourself up with a FPRN account to use with your NTRIP device.

To answer your other question for my construction progression work I fly the P4Pv2.0 but I also have an M210v2 RTK.

Available to answer any questions I can cause I know getting help here in Florida from other drone operators has been SUPER hard.
 
Morning.

For your progression deliverables are you providing just photo and video or are you doing orthos? If you are doing orthos then are you processing them and if so with what? For photos and video I calculate that based on my hourly rate plus my processing rate and bill it as a total. My orthos are billed separately.

I have a few clients that I'm doing progression work for that I provide an ortho every other week. All relative accuracy (no GCP's and non RTK flight even though I have the capability) and I process them myself. Your pricing should include the cost of processing (time, equipment, and subscription fees if you are paying those). From my research those start at $650 per flight and go up from there. It was hard to get pricing from competitors here in Florida but that's what I was able to come up with.

Absolute accuracy orthos obviously prices are going to be a lot more because you are either having to involve a surveyor, or you have purchased an RTK capable drone with a ground station and set yourself up with a FPRN account to use with your NTRIP device.

To answer your other question for my construction progression work I fly the P4Pv2.0 but I also have an M210v2 RTK.

Available to answer any questions I can cause I know getting help here in Florida from other drone operators has been SUPER hard.
Thanks for this response! I do provide orthos every week, flown using DroneDeploy app and processed on Maps Made Easy. I paid for a year of processing becuase they gave me a significant discount and it only cost $350 for up to 8GP per map processing. The results are "good enough" for this particular project but I am currently experimenting with Pix4D and DroneDeploy processing, both of which are significantly more expensive.

All that being said, I think your cost evaluation is on the mark. The cost structure I listed in my earlier post would come out to around that $650 per flight cost. I think providing orthos every week is overkill so I like the idea of doing that every other week.

I do have one question - how much extra do you charge for your RTK setup? Is that an upcharge or a completely separate pricing structure? Do you use GCP's as well as corrections?

Thanks again for your input!
 
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