What Drone Filming Costs in West Sussex
Almost nobody publishes prices for this, which makes it hard to work out whether you are being quoted fairly. Here is what the market looks like in West Sussex and what sits behind each number.
The three ways it gets sold
Drone and video work is priced in one of three ways, and they are not comparable. A day rate buys you a pilot for a day and usually raw or lightly edited footage. A project film is a fixed price for one finished piece. A monthly retainer buys a steady stream of filming and editing, and sometimes the posting as well.
Directory sites quote the first kind, which is why you see ranges like £250 to £1,200 a day. That range is real but it is nearly meaningless, because it says nothing about what comes out the other end.
What a day rate actually gets you
The cheap end of a day rate is a pilot with a drone and no edit. You get files. Someone then has to turn them into something, and that someone is usually you, at nine in the evening.
The honest question to ask any quote is: what am I receiving, in what format, and who cuts it? If the answer is "the footage", budget for an editor on top or accept that it will sit on a hard drive.
What a project film costs
A single finished film of one project, one to two minutes, runs about £650 here. That covers the planning, the shoot, the edit, the grade and the revisions. It is the right buy if you have one job worth showing off and a website that needs something on the front of it.
It is the wrong buy if what you actually need is to be visible every week, because one film ages and a feed does not fill itself.
What a retainer costs, and why there is a minimum
Monthly retainers here are £950 for filming and editing, and £1,450 if the posting, captions and scheduling are handled too. Both have a three month minimum.
The minimum is not a sales tactic. The first month goes on setting up formats, working out which of your jobs are worth filming and fixing the profile people land on. Month two produces work. Month three is the first point at which the numbers mean anything. Stopping at one month buys you the setup and none of the benefit.
Why the cheapest quote is often the dearest
On a groundworks job the thing worth filming is the preparation, and it is buried by the end of the week. A cheap shoot booked for the day the job finishes cannot capture it at any price. The money is not in the flying, it is in turning up at the right times and knowing what matters on that trade.
That is also why I work mostly with builders, landscapers and showrooms rather than everybody. Knowing the job is most of it.
What to ask before you book anyone
Five questions worth asking, whoever you use.
1. What do I receive, and in what aspect ratio?
2. How many revisions are included?
3. Are you insured, and for how much?
4. What happens if the weather turns?
5. Who owns the footage afterwards, and can I use it in an advert?
For what it is worth, the answers here are: publish-ready files in the right ratio, revisions included, £5 million public liability, weather reschedules free, and you own it for the use we agree. All the prices are on one page.
