Aerial as its own line, or baked into the media price?

We learned this on the trades side with roof documentation. The second something is included, it's free in the customer's head and it's also invisible. If aerial lives inside your $625 you'll never hear about it again, good or bad. If it's $185 on its own line, the client either tells you it was worth it or tells you to drop it, and either answer helps you price the next one.

Separate line, and I've run it both ways across five years of shoots. Bundled, my average invoice went up about 12% and my complaints went up more than that, because the people who didn't want aerial felt charged for it and the people who did want it assumed reflights were free.

Flint, what bundling really hides is weather. A reflight is another drive, another hour on site, another battery rotation, and when it sits inside a flat number the client sincerely believes it costs me nothing. My contract now says first reflight included, second one billed.

Question before I vote. When agents call you, do they ask for drone specifically, or do they ask for "the whole listing package" and leave it to you? Because if they're not asking for it by name, a line item is just a thing for them to delete.

Beacon, in my calls so far it's split. Newer agents ask for the package. Land people ask for aerial by name and barely care about interiors.

I'm writing pricing this month and I've landed on tiers by lot size. Under a quarter acre, no aerial unless asked. Quarter to two acres, optional add. Over two acres it's in the base price because there isn't a listing without it. Hollow is going to tell me the rural version looks different.

I'd never sign bundled. I order media on turnovers, call it 40 units a year, and aerial does nothing for a two bedroom townhouse where the buyer is a renter looking at floor plans. Line item so I can decline it and keep my media spend per unit where my owners expect it.

Does the certification actually hold prices up? Everyone I know owns a drone that shoots decent 4K.

Plumb, the certificate is Part 107, the FAA remote pilot certificate you need to fly commercially in the US. It's a knowledge test covering airspace, weather, and the operating rules, plus recurrent training after that, and requirements change, so confirm the current ones with the FAA rather than trusting a forum post. I'm studying for it now.

The cert doesn't hold prices up on its own. It screens out people who won't do paperwork or carry insurance, which is a smaller filter than people here hope. Separate point on flint's question: quoting one flat media number makes you sound like a photographer who keeps a drone in the trunk. If you want land and development clients, aerial being priced as its own service is part of how you look like an aerial provider.

Weather is the whole reason we line-item. Two pilots, and last spring we lost 14 planned shoot days to wind and ceilings. Under bundled pricing every one of those cost me a full second trip at zero revenue. Now the aerial line says one reflight included, additional reflights $95. Nobody has ever argued with the $95.

This reads like the difference between a flat servicing fee and a fee schedule. Flat is easier to sign and much worse to argue about six months later, because there's no line to point at. Am I over-reading it or is that the actual split here?

Cobalt, 14 lost days is what I keep catching on. Can this be run alongside other work at all, or does weather mean you have to hold whole days open?

Everyone's talking price. What does one shoot actually cost the pilot to do, drive and edit included? I have no reference point for whether $185 is fat or thin.

Read the thread twice. Thatch says bundling hides weather, cobalt says the same thing with day counts attached, and lantern's tiers seem to solve both if the tier spells out reflights. So my question is narrower than the poll: does a reflight count as a new shoot or a continuation of the first one? That single definition seems to decide who eats the bad weather.

Lantern, here's the rural version. 40 acres with an older manufactured home on it, low price point, buyer is coming for the dirt and the road frontage. The aerial is the listing. I'd price aerial as the product and sell the ground stills as the cheap add-on, and I've seen sellers here get that backwards and wonder why the flyer did nothing.

Starting from nothing, so the tier idea confuses me. How does the pilot know the lot size before quoting, does the agent tell them or do they look it up on the county site first?

Ember, county parcel map, takes 30 seconds, that part is easy.

My contribution is a scar. Got billed twice on the same parcel because the first flight came back hazy and the agreement said per flight. Read the words "per flight" before you sign anything. I voted bundled with a reflight written in, because I'd rather pay a flat number than argue about haze.