been doing commercial drone work part time for maybe eight months now, mostly real estate and some construction progress stuff for a local developer. business is actually going okay but i think im massively undercharging and i dont know how to fix it without losing the clients i already have

right now im charging $175 for a standard real estate shoot which includes like 15-20 edited photos and a short video walkthrough. that takes me probably 3 hours total when you count travel, the actual flight, and editing. so im making like $58 an hour before you take out gas, software subscriptions, wear on the equipment, insurance... its not great

ive looked at what other guys in my area charge and some are at $300+ for basically the same thing. but im scared if i just raise my prices the agents ill drop me for whoever is cheapest. has anyone actually gone through raising rates on existing clients and how did you handle it? did you lose people over it

yeah this is the classic trap honestly. I did the same thing - priced low to get clients and then felt stuck. what I did was raise rates slowly over a few months, like told my regulars I was adjusting pricing at the start of the new year, gave them a heads up maybe 6 weeks out. lost one client out of maybe eight and honestly that client was always kind of a pain anyway so no real loss

the thing is agents who care only about the lowest price are not the clients you want long term. the ones who stick around when you raise rates are the ones who actually value the work, and those are way better to work with. $175 for what you're describing is genuinely too low, your math on the hourly is right and thats before depreciation on your bird

im kind of in the same boat so following this thread. im still pretty new to the commercial side but even i can tell $175 with video included is like... not enough. one of the guys in my local flying club charges $250 just for photos no video and he stays busy so clearly the market can handle higher rates in most areas

i guess my question piggy backing on yours is how do you even find those better clients in the first place, like the ones who arent just looking for the cheapest option on craigslist or whatever