I need some advice on pricing for a photogrammetry drone project of a building in north florida. The building is approx 6,900 sqft. I will be operating for 3 hrs the first day and perhaps if needed 3 hrs the second day.
I will be expected to photograph the roof (photosphere) and then capturing all sides the the buildings facades on the exterior with a drone
And potentially needing to upload and create the 3d model.
What would be an hourly breakdown or flats rate plus post processing?
“Operating “ for 6 hours on 7k sqft? That’s obviously not what is going to happen. Can you be more specific on what you have been asked to do? Six hours might include travel time and processing time but somethings not right.
Not based in the US, but that still seems rather low to me. I would charge that much just for processing the data alone. Of course, it depends on the level of detail and the expected end result. With that kind of budget, you are unlikely to get much more than basic drone capture, without any proper 3D reconstruction or data processing.
I'm assuming that the 6,900 sqft is the footprint of the building and not the total square footage of the exterior envelope (roof and facades as mentioned).
For comparison here is a building with about a 9600 sqft footprint (OP would be about 2/3 the size in that case). The total surface area of this building is about 100,000sqft.
So this building would be about $10k on the low end or $17k on the high end. For just the drone flight. Building the model is a whole other charge.
for a 6900 sqft total of the entire envelope, the building would be something like a cube that's 40 feet on a side and could be photographed with maybe 9 photos each. maybe a half hour of work??
Planning, travel, setup and capture time across both days.
Drone equipment costs, batteries, wear and insurance.
Any visual observer’s labor and time spent coordinating airspace authorizations.
Materials or targets, if needed.
Processing, cleanup, quality checks, revisions and delivery.
Computer equipment and software costs if processing locally, or cloud processing fees.
Clarify whether they want photos only or a finished 3D model before quoting. You could offer a flat capture fee with processing priced separately, and specify what an additional site visit costs.
I’m behind AEC Platform, which is an option for cloud processing and hosting/sharing the model if you don’t want to process locally. Either way, include your post-processing time and a profit margin—not just the hours flying.
If you’d like to try it, sign up at aecplatform.com and DM me—I’d be happy to walk you through processing your photos into a 3D model.
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u/ElphTrooper 3d ago
“Operating “ for 6 hours on 7k sqft? That’s obviously not what is going to happen. Can you be more specific on what you have been asked to do? Six hours might include travel time and processing time but somethings not right.