so this is kind of embarrassing but i got my part 107 about 4 months ago and ive been doing a few small jobs here and there for friends and family basically just covering my gas and maybe a little extra. but last week a local real estate agent reached out asking for photos and video of a listing, like a proper job with an invoice and everything, and i genuinely have no idea what to charge her.

the property is a mid sized house, nothing crazy, maybe 3500 sqft on about half an acre. she wants exterior stills, a short aerial video clip for the listing, and maybe a quick flyover of the neighborhood. probably 2-3 hours of my time including editing. ive looked at some stuff online but the range is all over the place, ive seen people say $150 and others saying $500 for basically the same thing and im just confused.

also do you guys send a contract for stuff like this or just invoice them after? i dont want to seem unprofessional but i also dont want to overcomplicate it for a first gig. any advice would be really appreciated

dont undersell yourself, thats the main thing. real estate is honestly one of the trickier markets because clients are used to paying rock bottom prices since there are so many people doing it now, but you still need to cover your time, equipment depreciation, insurance, software subscriptions, all that stuff that adds up way faster than people realize when they first start out.

for what you described i'd probably land somewhere around $250-350 depending on your market. if you're in a bigger metro you can push higher. rural area maybe not. the editing time is where people consistently underprice themselves so factor that in hard, like if you're spending 2 hours editing that's real time you're not spending on something else.

on the contract question - yes, always get something in writing even if it's just a simple one page thing with the deliverables, timeline, and payment terms. there are some decent free templates on AOPA's site and a few others floating around. it protects both of you and honestly makes you look more legit not less.

yeah i was in the exact same spot about a year ago. my first real estate job i charged $175 and spent like 4 hours editing because i kept second guessing everything and it was basically minimum wage lol. learned from that pretty quick.

one thing nobody told me early on - ask the agent if they have a preferred turnaround time before you quote. some of them want stuff back same day or next morning and that should cost more. rush delivery is a thing in this world and agents will pay for it especially if they're trying to get a listing up fast.