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UK Day Rates to Charge

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Hi all

as a newcomer to this line of work our NQE advised us to charge £600 a day for a solo pilot, does this sound reasonable?


Thanks
 
Hi all

as a newcomer to this line of work our NQE advised us to charge £600 a day for a solo pilot, does this sound reasonable?


Thanks
Have edited your thread title. Otherwise 'Charging' could easily be confused with charging batteries and will throw up spurious results for anyone using the search function.
 
so well out of London / M25 corridor then! It depends we spealize in mapping as opposed to video / photos - a lot depends on what you are offering. For example, we have full GNSS ground stations, different lines for image quality (i.e. mapping definition), and various processing packages to create the mapping data to allow 3d modelling, volume processing, etc, etc. Only 1/2 of what we do is UAV based, the the is the back office processing and the final reports, files, etc. We charge for a complete turn-key solution, as opposed to offering a pilot and a drone for x hours at £x.xx. Within that we incorporate ground safety checks, and pre-site surveys, weather checks, NOTAMS, etc. Depending on which NQE you passed with, they all seem to have a different opinion on charging. I think before we know a little more about what your doing, its difficult on offer an opinion.
 
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At the moment we are just offering a simple video and photographic package. We don't have a ground station or anything like that at the moment. Editing will be on top of the days shooting. Our NQE was flyby technologies.
 
Pricing depends on what your doing from shoot to shoot.

don't forget data processing and editing etc are all on top on what your doing
 
£600 sounds reasonable to me. Don't complicate things. Make things simple for the client. £600 is a pretty good rate, and gives you the freedom for time to do the the site survey, risk assesssment etc. It is time that you are charging for, not the gear you use. It's a good start point.

When it comes to editing you can charge more flexibly. Some charge per hour. Though as a long term producer I usually charge per half day for editing unless it is a revision, in which case I charge per hour. But I build in these charges in project quotes, so clients, based upon their budgets, get a set time of editing and a set number of edit revisions per project. Then anything above this is charged hourly.
 
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Hi. If got my first job for a local council, photographing a Cemetery to update their srone age records of who owns what and where etc etc.
There's a large Oak tree in the middle of the site so shall have to take about 6 - 8 shots and either provode them edited singularly or try to stitch them together. Removing the Oak is Post Production is not really an option as ice already asked a professional editor and he said it is sort of possible it incredibly hard to get result I need.
Anyway I'm thinking around the £350 mark includong Pre flight planning and all other paperwork etc and editing of images ready for client. What's do you guys think about it? I'd say about an hour on site. Plus the hastle of getting a NFZ unlocked by DJI as it's just within a large airport NFZ radius. It's Not in flight path or anywhere near it but I'll obviously notify ATC as and when needed.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Dave.
 
I’ve found you can out price yourself and in the end so sought advice from a long standing film/ video company.

They advised me to charge the following:

£180 per hour
£350 half day
£450 full day (top end has a bit of flex)

Bear in mind this was ‘shoot’only. Any editing is extra.

You’ll find that most companies won’t list their prices, and treat each job on its own merits.

I’ve quoted a simple 1hr photo shoot of a residential property at £99 and not won it. Depends on the customer, their expectations and if they know anyone who has a drone!!

Bit of a minefield. Base it on what you’d like to earn, don’t take the p*ss and you won’t go far wrong.

I’ve had a long standing client for years. Don’t charge them the earth..... and they keep coming back!
 
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Hi Heliraptor

Our pilot was advised by his NQE not to charge anything less than £650 for a full day for just the flying.

As you can see from our prices we have included editing in our prices . I charge a lower rate for editing as I take a little longer to do editing work as I am physically disabled and use a mouth control.

I am in the process of doing a website redesign so hopefully in the next couple of weeks the website should look a lot different.

Surely the full day should be almost double of what the half day is minus say £50-£100? If you can do 2 half day shoots in an average day you will be better off.

Considering you have got the bird to pay for as well as the insurance and qualification to pay off as well this is why our NQE said charge £650 for a full day of flying.

We bought the inspire 2 and have teamed up with an existing part-time drone company. together we are ticking over doing 2 to 4 jobs a month normally inspections or mapping but we might have a large client looking to do some videos with us.

I have noticed that a lot of companies have people with degrees in marketing or photography. I don't have anything like that do you think this matters?

My mate has an existing company doing handyman services so only has the weekends available to do drone work.
 
full day rates tend to be discounted against 2x half day rates. Same as a ½ day rate is often discounted against the hourly rate. The basic premise is to encourage the client to book the longer time slots. Also when you do an hourly job or ½ day job, the setup times (which are effectively non-productive time) for the shoots take up a lot of that time and you have to build that cost in. As you increase the time purchased, the setup (non-productive) time become proportionally less, so you can discount your rates a bit.

As an example, if a client where to ask me to produce some product and pack shots of a single bottle, it might take me two hours by the time I've set everything up, got the lighting right and taken the photos. If they had 7 bottles to shoot in hourly shoots, then it'd cost them 7x 2hrs if they did it over a few shoots. Now, once setup, i can get through the shots for 7 bottles in far less time - it wouldn't take 14hrs! So, the opportunity cost to them of going to half a day and giving me seven bottles to do in a single session is worth it. They could still give me everything, ask for hourly and take a risk I can do everything in 2hrs, or it might take 4hrs or 14hrs ;)...

Hourly rates push the risk onto the client - if the allocated time isn't enough for the project, they have to cough up more. It's a risk for them, do they try and be cheap and take the risk of one or two hours, or do they pay the little bit extra for the ½ day and reduce the risk, and maybe even go the full hog and buy in the day and be totally safe? By buying the ½ day or day rate, the client can 'lock in' the cost for a project and feel bit more certainty against cost and time over-runs. At the same time, it's off benefit to you as a business to have ½ or full day as you can allocate your time with greater certainty, knowing you (should) have that funding coming through.

The key (and difficult bit) is to making your hourly, ½ day and full day rates work sensibly without giving too much away i.e. making them enticing and worthwhile for both you and your clients.

The reality of pricing is what your local markets will support... it's great talking about this rate and that... but if you're wildly different to others in your area and can't offer any USP over and above theirs, you won't get the jobs.

Degrees in this & that don't matter too much other than adding (slightly more) credibility for some customers. If you're talking about supplying photos and video, then it's more about your actual skills and ability than about what you have on paper.... your actual photo and video portfolios will be what will bring customers in over time, and your professionalism and ability to deliver is what will keep them coming back. A degree in marketing would certainly help tho' as they know what buttons to push to attract punters, and how to reel them in once they're got in touch.

I think that all that makes sense... o_O .... now time to go get some work done ;) :D
 
Well heres an interesting one then I've signed up this year to fly crop monitoring Fixed wing SUA. They provide the Aircraft and all equipment apart from a laptop and transport (they do pay .45p mile ) I will get 200 a day. the day is around 5-7 hours long depending on site size. But as it slots around other work I have and theres no cost outlay for me well apart from a windows laptop (2nd hand one)
and getting my fixed wing pfco sorted out.
 
I tried very hard to get to one of the training days, was interested in the ebee and the fixed wing PfCO, but at the time other business was not allowing the time. How did you find the training?
Originally I was of yet same opinion as you, £200 per day and trained to get the fixed wing PfCO was tempting, but in the end I did not proceed. Would be interested in an update on how it works out.
 
They do not pay for the training towards the fixed wing pfco or training. That you have to pay for that but I sorted out my own fixedwing pfco as I have an x8 skwalker with a pixhawk.

They only train you on ebee and its software and then some up selling stuff as well.

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out, still awaiting an ebee though to fly.
 
How much time and effort is required to obtain the PfCO to cover fixed wing, is an update to your ops manual and a flight test?

Depends how you go about it.

2 ways one update ops manual and do a fixed wing flight test with an NQE and then submit to the CAA cost about 173 pounds plus NQE flight test cost.

2nd way add aircraft to ops manual - Use BMFA 'Plane A' to apply to the CAA directly cost 173 pounds
 
They do not pay for the training towards the fixed wing pfco or training. That you have to pay for that but I sorted out my own fixedwing pfco as I have an x8 skwalker with a pixhawk.

They only train you on ebee and its software and then some up selling stuff as well.

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out, still awaiting an ebee though to fly.
Have edited your thread title. Otherwise 'Charging' could easily be confused with charging batteries and will throw up spurious results for anyone using the search function.
I’ve found you can out price yourself and in the end so sought advice from a long standing film/ video company.

They advised me to charge the following:

£180 per hour
£350 half day
£450 full day (top end has a bit of flex)

Bear in mind this was ‘shoot’only. Any editing is extra.

You’ll find that most companies won’t list their prices, and treat each job on its own merits.

I’ve quoted a simple 1hr photo shoot of a residential property at £99 and not won it. Depends on the customer, their expectations and if they know anyone who has a drone!!

Bit of a minefield. Base it on what you’d like to earn, don’t take the p*ss and you won’t go far wrong.

I’ve had a long standing client for years. Don’t charge them the earth..... and they keep coming back!

I have read all these replies & I can't feeling many/most of you are too cheap. What about the time spent doing all the things you are obliged to do before & after. Site survey, risk analysis, weather reports, NOTAMS, log book completion, to name but a few? Or do you just not bother with all that? Then there is depreciation, fixed cost, variable cost! Roger W-E Inspire 1 pro, PfCO
 

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