How much to charge the customer?

[denyer00]

Hi guys,

Would i the possible to gain an insight on a pricing structure for a small UAV company.
I am looking at getting in the business in Scandinavia and would like to obviously do some research.
Obviously every market is different but as a rough guideline what would be a realistic cost for my services.

I intend to offer services to both the private and commercial markets if that helps.

Cheers

Danny

 

[SleepyC]

Most photography services go by day rates. And will usually only break that rate into half day rate and full day rate.

Now that rate can change by what equipment you take out.

If someone asks me to bring out a Phantom 3 Pro and shoot some shots I may charge $1200 for the day rate and $750 for the half dat rate.
If they want me to pull out a larger X8 with a two man operation and Fly a GH4 or A7 I would charge $2800 for the day and $1600 for the half rate. If they want a LARGE rig and a 2 man set up to fly a Red or Arri then were talking $5500 a day or $3500 for half.

The RED's and Arri's require additional insurance and set up time and incur more risk so the fee goes up.

But realistically your fee had to be sustainable in your area. I live in Ohio where my rates are at the high end. In california, some of those guys get $25,000 a day to fly reds, so it's really the market in your area that will determine you price.

Just remember this... your lowest quote just became your new rate. If you start out on the highness, provide good work, you will get a high end reputation.

i turn down a lot of work because the client says "Well I don;t have a huge budget" I usually reply, "Then you can't afford me".

 

[matwelli]

Im going thru exactly the same issue over here, about to get into doing a bit of aerial photography and trying to work out the price to charge. one thing I did do, is work out a cost per flight for my Phantom P3P , worked on 450 flights on the frame (150 hours) 300 flights per battery and 20 flights per set of props......just to be on the safe side....works out to $7.60 NZD per 20 min flight (about $5.13 USD).

The actual on-site and flying time is only 1 part, i cant believe how long the editing afterwards can take...on the smaller real estate jobs I am thinking of offering 2 different packages, one where the customer gets a finished product, and for the price conscious (the pricate seller) teh option of just paying me for the raw footage ?

 

[Carapau]

You need to work out your costs of doing business. This is the key to it. Work out the wages, insurance, equipment costs (R&D, replacing kit as it becomes obsolete etc), licensing, marketing budget, office costs and everything else and then divide that by the number of days you would expect to fly. That is your base costs and then you need to add on your profit margin. By doing this you will end up with the correct amount to charge.

In short I reckon that if you were in the UK then you probably need to be charging a minimum of £1000 per day. Now you may break that up ie if you can get 4 jobs in a day (working for an estate agent for example), then you could charge £250 per job.

 

[Stacky]

Im going thru exactly the same issue over here, about to get into doing a bit of aerial photography and trying to work out the price to charge. one thing I did do, is work out a cost per flight for my Phantom P3P , worked on 450 flights on the frame (150 hours) 300 flights per battery and 20 flights per set of props......just to be on the safe side....works out to $7.60 NZD per 20 min flight (about $5.13 USD).

The actual on-site and flying time is only 1 part, i cant believe how long the editing afterwards can take...on the smaller real estate jobs I am thinking of offering 2 different packages, one where the customer gets a finished product, and for the price conscious (the pricate seller) teh option of just paying me for the raw footage ?

Mat, hope you and the family are well, merry Xmas etc!. One thing to remember if offering a 2nd package is that you end up giving away income. I know some have really small budgets but something I have learned in 25 years of being in business is that those who want the cheapest possible deal are also the ones who are the worst at paying and the most demanding on the end product. If they dont want to pay the proper rate then they probably dont have the money for it.

 

[matwelli]

@Stacky ! long time man !
Same to you, hope all is well with you and yours and merry xmas as well.
Valid points on the guys looking for the cheap deal.

@Carapau - its funny, i did a spreadsheet to work it out that way. looked at an income i was happy with,loaded all my expected expenses on top (including a replacement drone and liability insurance laptop,phone and car) ,worked out how many flying days per year ( figured 1/3 of the year 121 days, or is that to many ?) and 4 jobs in total per day ( 1 hr on-site, 1 hr post production) and came up with 319 plus tax per job

However, I certainly hope i get better at post production......time consuming.

Maybe 4 jobs per day is unrealistic ? as @Stacky will be up against, for alot of work over here we need to log the flight on airshare, ring up the control tower before and after each flight, plus get permission for every property we fly over as part of the job.

Maybe my figures are way off, is 1 out of 3 days flyable unrealistic ? is an hour onsite and and hour offsite for real estate too hopeful ?

 

[violetwolf]

IMO very optimistic. 2 jobs per day would tax you... Travel time between jobs alone.. One in the morning one for the afternoon would be about all I'd shoot for.

 

[matwelli]

@violetwolf thats good feedback, i guess it would depend how big the travel distances were and how well it was all organized, is 1/3 of the days being flyable a realistic estimation ? Can quickly see where some above are talking about charging whole or half days, which supports 2 jobs max per day thinking.

 

[Carapau]

You can always crank it up so assume 2 jobs a day for the first 6 months/year etc. Depends how deep you want to get into it. Always remember that what you plan for and what you will get are often worlds apart!

121 days a year filming may or may not be too many- largely depends on the weather in your neck of the woods. Also remember that it takes time to get each client and admin time to process each client so getting 4 jobs a day may require more marketing budget and admin costs.

 

[violetwolf]

What he said ^ With emphasis on the amount of time spent on customer relations and business administration. These things will take up at least half of your daily input. And these are non-billable hours. Hence my input regarding two jobs a day. You will be shocked at how much unpaid time goes into a business.

 

[matwelli]

^^very good information...I was hoping that the mundane stuff (billing, admin, production, marketing) could happen on the other 2/3 of the year thats not flyable

 

[denyer00]

Thanks for the input. I'm currently waiting for all my permits etc to be finalised and then I will be up and running.

 

[John Doecliff]

This is a good topic. Lets say you got a half day job. what does that equate to in actual air time? If someone paid for a half day would they expect you to show up with enough batteries for 4 hours of flight? That's a lot of batteries. Granted you can charge batteries in the field but they have to be monitored. I suppose you discuss it with the client and plan the shots but what's a reasonable amount of batteries to show up to a job with?