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Drones in Real Estate: Pricing and Contracts

Marlene Lebel

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How does anyone charge for drone photography and videography services in real estate? Does anyone have a pricing menu sample? Also, how about contracts for these services - anyone with samples? OMG, I plastered LinkedIn offering these services before I thought about how I should charge and I'm getting inquiries. HELP!
 
This link might help some:
What do you Charge for Drone Service

Good afternoon Marlene. With all due respect, you're getting your cart WAY ahead of your horse on this one. You need to have all of your ducks in a row and have them well trained before offering anything at all. It's better to start slow and show your professionalism than to jump the gun and look unprofessional. Just my opinion there.

What is your skill/experience level and what kind of finished product do you offer?
How long does it take for you to shoot an average Real Estate shoot? How much time do you spend traveling to & from the jobsite?
How much time do you spend on average in Post Production for each project?
How much does it "COST" you to operate your business each month?
How much do you need to make per hour to stay in business?
How much would it cost you to replace your equipment should you have a failure and have to replace the complete aircraft today?

Those questions will "help" you to know how much to charge. To make it even more complex it really depends on what your local competition saturation is as well as what the local market will support.

You need a detailed and comprehensive Business Plan to help guide you for start-up and the first 3-5 years of running a new business.
 
This link might help some:
What do you Charge for Drone Service

Good afternoon Marlene. With all due respect, you're getting your cart WAY ahead of your horse on this one. You need to have all of your ducks in a row and have them well trained before offering anything at all. It's better to start slow and show your professionalism than to jump the gun and look unprofessional. Just my opinion there.

What is your skill/experience level and what kind of finished product do you offer?
How long does it take for you to shoot an average Real Estate shoot? How much time do you spend traveling to & from the jobsite?
How much time do you spend on average in Post Production for each project?
How much does it "COST" you to operate your business each month?
How much do you need to make per hour to stay in business?
How much would it cost you to replace your equipment should you have a failure and have to replace the complete aircraft today?

Those questions will "help" you to know how much to charge. To make it even more complex it really depends on what your local competition saturation is as well as what the local market will support.

You need a detailed and comprehensive Business Plan to help guide you for start-up and the first 3-5 years of running a new business.
Thanks. Ive been a professional photographer for 12 years, so while I’m new to drones, I’m not new to photography and videography.
 
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Thanks. Ive been a professional photographer for 12 years, so while I’m new to drones, I’m not new to photography and videography.

You'll do well in this endeavor then. Photography skills are a LOT harder than flying skills.

Just treat your sUAS as another camera & tripod (with LONG extensions legs) and factor that into your current photography business. If you're really good you can name your price more or less.
 
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How does anyone charge for drone photography and videography services in real estate? Does anyone have a pricing menu sample? Also, how about contracts for these services - anyone with samples? OMG, I plastered LinkedIn offering these services before I thought about how I should charge and I'm getting inquiries. HELP!
What market are you in? We hear from our clients all across the US and have gotten very different feedback based on their location. The areas with the more expensive homes obviously make better targets for your service - and if this is an add on to your existing services you will really have an advantage over other people without an existing client base.
 
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Take no offense please, I'm extremely interested in how you marketed your business utilizing LinkedIn and what type of return you're getting? If you'd rather message me privately that is fine! Thank you.
I 1st added all my chamber of commerce contacts, then kept adding others, particularly in real estate, if they had more than 100 of the same connections as me. Then I simply started direct messaging them. Just started in my little town & got a coupe of inquiries about my pricing.
 
You'll do well in this endeavor then. Photography skills are a LOT harder than flying skills.

Just treat your sUAS as another camera & tripod (with LONG extensions legs) and factor that into your current photography business. If you're really good you can name your price more or less.
That's how I was looking at it. I'm the only photographer in my county with a CPP from PPA, and now have my commercial sUAS pilot license.
 
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This is what I have learned so far:
1. Divide the prices in: more than 3,000 sqf and less ( depends on your area, see what size starts to give you more work)
2. You may offer the following:
  1. High Quality Aerial stills, starts at let's say $140.
  2. Add Interior-exterior (HDR quality) pictures, add $100
  3. Branded and unbranded property show, add $80
  4. Add aerial video over the property, let's say $120 more
  5. Offer a bundle special price for all services.
3. If more than 3,000 sqf, or if you need to commute, need to adjust price.

Hope it helps
 
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Here is my suggestion.

Get in front of a large real estate company, go to their office, and do a lunch and learn.

Make sure you prep for the presentation and a Q&A. The individual realtor may not have the funds to cover your cost but I am quite sure their the company has some marketing budget that can be directed to paying for your services.

Plus here is a bonus is once the individual realizes the benefit and no out-of-pocket for him/her, I am certain that you will be busy. Just make sure you do not undersell yourself.
 
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Just make sure you do not undersell yourself.

Solid advice @Outta Control but I do want to offer one bit of information that "almost" contradicts your last statement.

We picked up a new "Firm" last week in a neighboring town (I don't normally work in that county) and the way I picked it up was because someone with a new sUAS business (a friend of the firms co-owner) did a demonstration and got their business. Apparently he did an amazing job at the presentation and had some phenomenal pictures etc which really impressed them. When the firm gave him 4 jobs to do, none of them were up to the standards of the presentation. Apparently the new sUAS business was able to talk the talk but could not walk the walk. His finished product was unusable by the client and they even let him re-shoot one of them to try and improve. Again he came up way short and they literally deleted his finished product and cancelled any future business with him. Lucky for us, someone in their organization saw something we did for another client (it wasn't even a Real Estate client LOL) and reached out to us directly. Ironically our rates a significantly higher than our predecessor but we were able to deliver the goods and surpass expectations. That's the name of the game.

What I'm trying to get at is don't Fluff it Up! Don't make promises and claims you can't provide or you'll lose the client and possibly get a bad rep in the process. Like it or not Realtors are all about Socializing and Networking and remember, they talk and talk for a LIVING!
 
Solid advice @Outta Control but I do want to offer one bit of information that "almost" contradicts your last statement.

We picked up a new "Firm" last week in a neighboring town (I don't normally work in that county) and the way I picked it up was because someone with a new sUAS business (a friend of the firms co-owner) did a demonstration and got their business. Apparently he did an amazing job at the presentation and had some phenomenal pictures etc which really impressed them. When the firm gave him 4 jobs to do, none of them were up to the standards of the presentation. Apparently the new sUAS business was able to talk the talk but could not walk the walk. His finished product was unusable by the client and they even let him re-shoot one of them to try and improve. Again he came up way short and they literally deleted his finished product and cancelled any future business with him. Lucky for us, someone in their organization saw something we did for another client (it wasn't even a Real Estate client LOL) and reached out to us directly. Ironically our rates a significantly higher than our predecessor but we were able to deliver the goods and surpass expectations. That's the name of the game.

What I'm trying to get at is don't Fluff it Up! Don't make promises and claims you can't provide or you'll lose the client and possibly get a bad rep in the process. Like it or not Realtors are all about Socializing and Networking and remember, they talk and talk for a LIVING!


Totally agree BigAl and I should have elaborated on this. Possibly one good way to "walk the walk" is to do a demo and provide a POC on the operator's skills.
 
I think that is quality advice, if you're going to talk the talk, you better be able to put up or shut up. I often am worried I am going to tell the customer what's possible and then not be able to provide to that level based on my current level of training and setup. I am doing my best to be clear to my clients what my abilities are by showing them prior work. If it's something that I've never done before, I will be honest and say something along the lines of "while I've never done that specifically before, I am more then willing to give it my best effort and make sure that you're happy with the product."
 
How does anyone charge for drone photography and videography services in real estate? Does anyone have a pricing menu sample? Also, how about contracts for these services - anyone with samples? OMG, I plastered LinkedIn offering these services before I thought about how I should charge and I'm getting inquiries. HELP!

Hi. I do a lot of drone videos for realtors and have found the way prices work is as some people mentioned here, it depends on the area.

My wife is a realtor so of course I do all her listings for free. Which is great because I can hone my skills and I always have a repeat costumer.

But venturing out to do work for other realtors was a bit of a challenge in my area. It’s a small town that has aspirations to be a big town. So people want to be “cool and hip” but they don’t want to pay for it.

I’ve gotten to the point, after two years and constantly talking to realtors about it, where I charge $200 for exterior videos of 1-2 minutes in length for property less than five acres. Anything over 5 acres I negotiate. When I talk to drone pilots in other areas of the state they charge $400 for the same video I would do. Some even get $1,500 for a 1-2 minute video but they are shooting in areas that have $800k and up homes.

Last year NAR did a survey and found the national average for drone work in real estate was $500 per job.

Anyway, hope that helps bb
 
That's how I was looking at it. I'm the only photographer in my county with a CPP from PPA, and now have my commercial sUAS pilot license.

I glad you brought up this topic. It's exactly the market I'm aiming at. I still need to get through the FAA license procedure but I'm not sure where to start. I have a feeling it's going to be a nightmare. How did you go about it? I've been involved in photography in some form or another for about 40 years. I'm enjoying my P3P but would like to be able to use it to make some income. I'm starting from zero here and soaking up information like a sponge. As another member stated it's best to have your ducks in a row.
 
If I may be so bold to request if any of the business minded professional UAS pilots here would care to share some basic video projects they have been personally involved with, how great that would be.
I was thinking, now that we've covered some of the conventional methods suggested to acquire a client base for such business endeavors, it would certainly be most enlightening to see some actual video material which may stand to represent a high quality presentation that may be suitable to a prospective client.

Best Regards,
 
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