What is the dollar range for a typical service / project

Discussion
1

I want to thank Harrison, the team and community for a great forum on an exciting technology.

I am in the process of looking into LiDAR mapping as a business. I understand there are several factors that go into the pricing for the services and projects. I am unable to find a quality answer for what might be the typical range to charge for these types of services.

What dollar range / window are we looking at for a typical project based on some standard factor, acer, hours, etc.?

2

The answer to your question has many nuances…

  1. Who are you marketing this too… and what are the typical deliverables for this community? What resources do you need to employ to achieve these outputs?
  2. Travel/logistics… its easy to calculate this, adds to your overhead.
  3. Additional training and certification.

It depends on your economic area too on what the market will bear; what I can charge at home does not mean the same rate (greater or less) will apply outside of my home area.

Where are you from?

3

Obviously it depends on your location but in general project fees are determined by two main factors: the project scope and the project schedule. Generally you want to establish a “floor” price. The lowest you’ll price a job of any size. This could be $5-$10k for “survey grade topo” jobs. Your floor may be 25 or 50 if you’re in a hot market with limited resources. I can just say from personal experience that the lowest lidar job I’ve bid is around $6,000 US for 9 acres. The scan size was still 20+ acres and I was able to deliver the client the final files 1 day after the flight using Rock Cloud. There are all kinds of lidar jobs, some people will only need field data, no processing, and small sites. Those are just business decisions you need to make. On the large end, I’ve done nearly 100k worth of lidar in one day. This wasn’t because I was ripping off a client, it was because I was able to do so many projects in one day with Rock Cloud! You have to make sure to value your expertise, your investment, and your AVAILABILITY! I can’t tell y’all how many times I won a bid and was the sole bidder just because no one else was interested. We are working on hundred millon dollar jobs or higher, don’t think your lidar job is $500 and a free bottled water!

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4

Spot on Daniel!!
You said it right… you need to leverage your data and make the most of what you have.
These are the ultimate tools!

We need to remember the community we have and who we are… $500 and a bottle water does NOT cut it.

Don’t under value the industry by working too cheap.

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5

Thank you gentleman. This is exactly what I was looking for. I am very encouraged.

It was difficult to obtain some data on the dollars earned for the services, high-end equipment and skills involved as I research the ROI. As I plan to move into this exciting technology, and career, I generally go all out and not cut corners.

Thanks you all again.

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