Pricing Mapping Jobs

It seems like the most important thing is to know your customer, what the application is and what there ability to pay is. If you are doing mining or construction work, there is a lot of money around so you can charge more. Real estate probably would be able to bare a bit less and then individuals never really like to pay for anything... Farms and ranches are always interesting because they want pricing by the acre.

Whatever you end up doing, keep in mind that your time is worth money and that the cost of the Maps Made Easy processing is likely a small fraction of what you will actually be able to charge.

We will keep this open for a bit to see if anyone else wants to chime in.

Ive wondered the same thing and I'll share what I've done. For a camera GPS workflow (no GCPs) I do a $125 "set up fee" and $25/acre with a minimum of $100. The per acre price goes down for larger projects. GCP projects have a $250 set up fee plus the cost of surveying the GCPs (done by others) Recently quoted a 185 acre job for a local survey company, (they're doing the ground control and processing, I'm only doing the flying)  I quoted them $3500 and no one batted an eye.  I will need to do quite a bit of permission gathering, legal wrangling, and entity notifying for this job and I figured I'm including that in the price.  Ive done a few jobs that just get negotiated to an even number like $500 due to not knowing exactly how big the map will end up being. Good luck, please share your experiences as I'd like to stay competitive. 

Hi Matt, 

Thanks so much for the response, I truly do appreciate it! That was very informative and a great place to start, which is exactly what I was looking for. Could you shoot me an Email at: ( darren@torontoskycam.com ) so we can keep in touch? 

Also, Maps Made Easy should look into developing a video series covering all the applications of this technology, as there are many!

It would be helpful if they could advise general pricing strategies for various circumstances as well, even though its very situational. A place to start, and real world application would greatly benefit pilots, and the maps made easy business as a whole.

I thought about charging $200 per hr with a 2 hr minimum! That's within a 50 mile radius of my home. Anything over that is charged .50 per mile. Most jobs can be done within 2 to 4 hrs. I have only done 2 so far and charged a flat rate of $500. I now know that I could have gotten a lot more. I also like the idea of charging per acre.

I will soon be offering mapping services to my aerial photography customers and am also interested in ideas for pricing. I hope some others might add some new information here.

Thanks.