okay this has been bugging me for a while and I finally need to vent a little and also get some actual advice. been doing commercial drone work for about 14 months, mostly real estate and some construction progress documentation. the real estate stuff is fine, its pretty contained, you show up, fly the property, deliver the files, done.

but the construction clients are killing me. I quote for monthly site visits, specific deliverables, and somehow it always turns into can you also get this angle, can you come back thursday we poured the foundation, oh and can you make a little video for our instagram. none of this was in the original agreement and im not sure how to push back without losing the client because they're one of my bigger accounts right now.

do you guys use contracts that specifically spell out like how many revision requests or extra visits are included? or do you just kind of eat the extra work to keep people happy? I feel like im leaving money on the table but also dont want to be that annoying vendor who nickel and dimes every little thing

contracts. seriously, just contracts. I know it sounds obvious but I flew without a proper service agreement for my first year and it cost me so much time. now every client gets a one page document that says exactly what they're getting ? number of flights, deliverable formats, turnaround time, and what counts as an additional request. I use a simple change order process where if they want something outside scope I just send them a quick note saying hey this wasnt in our original agreement, heres what it would cost, do you want to add it on. most reasonable clients actually respect that, and the ones who get weird about it are usually the ones who were going to be a pain anyway.

for what its worth I also added a clause about reasonable additional requests being billed at my day rate divided into hourly increments and I have almost never had a client argue about it once they see it in writing upfront. its the surprise of being charged that annoys people, not the charge itself usually.

the instagram video thing would drive me insane lol. thats a whole different skill set and takes real time to edit. I think you just gotta be honest with them, frame it as you want to do good work for them so you need to scope it properly so nothing falls through the cracks. most people respond well to that vs feeling like youre just trying to charge them more. but yeah definitely get something in writing even if its just an email summary of what you agreed to, covers you both