okay so this has been frustrating me for a while and i finally need to vent and also maybe get some actual advice. i do mostly real estate work, been doing it for about a year since i went legit with the business. the agents are mostly fine but i keep running into this thing where i quote a job, show up, do the work, and then they ask for like extra stuff after the fact. stuff like oh can you just do one more pass around the back, or hey can you get a quick shot of the pool from this angle, or can you add a twilight edit even though that was never discussed.

a couple times ive just done it because i didnt want to be difficult but now i feel like i trained them to expect that. how do you guys handle scope creep with clients? do you have a really detailed contract that spells everything out or do you just deal with it case by case. im using a pretty basic agreement right now that honestly probably doesnt cover enough.

also slightly related ? anyone have a contract template they actually like? ive looked at a few online but they all feel either way too complicated or too vague to be useful

yeah scope creep is real and you're right that you probably did train them a little by saying yes all the time. not your fault though, it's a hard line to hold especially when you're still building relationships with clients.

the way i handle it now is everything goes in the quote document before the shoot. i list exactly what's included ? number of images, whether video is included, turnaround time, number of revision rounds, all of it. and then i have a line that says anything outside this scope will be billed at X per additional item. most clients dont push back on it at all, they just want to know what theyre getting. the ones who do push back are usually the ones you dont want anyway.

for contracts i honestly just built my own over time based on stuff i found online and tweaked it after every situation that caught me off guard. its not pretty but its mine and i know every line of it. there's also a guy on YouTube who does drone business content and i think he has a template for like 20 bucks or something, might be worth looking at just as a starting point.

the twilight edit thing happens to me constantly lol. i just started adding it as an upsell option right in my initial email so they see the price upfront and either add it on or dont. removes the awkward conversation later. probably not solving your whole contract problem but that specific thing became way less weird once i put a number on it from the start