so ive been doing commercial work for about a year and a half now and i keep running into the same thing ? potential clients who see drone footage on youtube or whatever and think it costs like $150 to hire a licensed pilot for a full day shoot. had a guy last week ask me to do a real estate shoot, interior walkthrough with my mirrorless, exterior aerials, edited deliverables, the whole thing, for $200. like... my part 107 renewal alone costs more than that per year when you factor in the time studying and the test fee.

i dont want to be rude because you never know who knows who and real estate is a referral heavy industry but i also cant just keep underselling myself. do you all have a set script or something for handling these conversations or do you just send a rate sheet and let them ghost you

yeah this is honestly one of the most common things that comes up. what helped me was stopping trying to justify my rate and just presenting it confidently. the moment you start explaining why $X is fair, you've already lost a little ground. i have a simple one pager that lays out what's included ? the licensed pilot, liability insurance, post processing time, file delivery ? and i just send that. some clients get it immediately and some don't, and the ones who don't usually aren't the clients you want anyway.

real estate specifically is tricky because there are a ton of unlicensed people doing it cheap and undercutting everyone. i just try to focus on agents who've been burned by bad work before. they're the ones who actually value what you bring.

honestly i just started being really upfront from the first message. like i'll say something along the lines of 'my starting rate for real estate aerials is X, let me know if that works for your budget' and leave it there. if they push back i explain once what goes into it but i don't argue. lost a few jobs that way but the ones i kept were way less of a headache