so ive been doing commercial work for about two years now and this keeps happening and i dont really know how to handle it gracefully. job is done, deliverables sent over, client is happy... and then a week later i get a message asking if i can come back and grab a couple more angles they forgot to mention. sometimes its a totally different day, different lighting, i have to re-fly the whole location basically.

i started out just doing it for free because i wanted good reviews and repeat business but now it's becoming a pattern with certain clients and i feel like im being taken advantage of a little. do you guys charge for this? do you just build a buffer into your original quote? i've thought about offering a 'revision flight' add-on in the contract but i dont want to come off as nickel and diming people before the job even starts

yeah this is just part of the job unfortunately, at least until you get your contracts tightened up. what i did after running into this exact thing was add a line that says something like 'deliverables as agreed upon in the project brief, additional flights or footage requests billed at hourly rate.' i send a brief before every job now that the client has to sign off on and that document is basically my protection. it feels awkward the first few times you enforce it but clients actually respect it more than you'd think, it makes you look professional not petty.

the free reshoot thing is a trap. i did it twice and both those clients came back asking for more free stuff. once you set that precedent its hard to walk back.

honestly i just charge a half day rate for anything that requires me to go back out. fuel, time, battery wear, its not free for me to show up somewhere. i explain it nicely and most clients totally get it. the ones who push back on that are usually the ones you dont want anyway lol