FTP upload fee

[Patrick Ortman]

Economies of scale. The typical small post house probably doesn’t have dedicated staff and resources (really fat Internet pipes, a few dedicated machines, etc) to do this at the same price as DG. For us, we end up doing this a LOT. So, I have a MacMini setup just for transfers. But we still charge something, depending on file size, etc.

Isn’t it funny how this is one of the few businesses where there’s a question about charging clients for a service? My dentist charges a lot for X-Rays, even though they only take about 5 minutes and use up about $5 worth of materials per X-Ray.

Yet, we wonder about charging for our time and resources when transferring huge files, or making safety backups of footage and client files, or if we should even charge anything for rendering these beautiful things we make for our clients. It may be my cold speaking today, but this is insane and has to stop.

You’re in business to stay in business, and hopefully to make a profit. You have to somehow charge for overhead, like Internet, machine rooms, electricity, equipment & upgrades, etc. Constantly not charging for your overhead and services will put you out of business.

I know, we talk about this a lot. But we need to.

P

ps: $350-$450, depending on how much babysitting and setup you need to do, if it needs to be redone because it didn’t go through the first time, etc. Hope that helps.

———————
http://www.patrickortman.com
Web and Video Design

[Malcolm Matusky]

Send them a drive, let them pay for it, and they can upload the file themselves, or they can pay you per hour of “machine time”

Malcolm
http://www.malcolmproductions.com

[Neil Hurwitz]

So a 18 hour job gets requested late on a Friday, Monday
morning delivery is no good and you ask if this is a billable service??
You just gotta love this business !!!
What you should have done was say the only way to get this on Saturday
morning would be for me to load this on a drive and buy a ticket
on the next flight and delivery it in person or I can bring the drive
over to you and you can figure out how to get it to the 3rd party.
This is a rediculous request if the client isn’t willing to pay for it.
End of Story.

Neil Hurwitz

[Steve Kownacki]

Not to belabor the issue, I feel these discussions provide insight for all the readers for future situations.

I see you’re in Alaska which could be an issue, but aside from price, we (all on the forum) are not just video people, but solution providers. If a client really needs it, I can get to the airport in 30 minutes by the 9:30PM cutoff and toss packages over the fence to FedEx and they’d have it Saturday. This costs a bundle. I will do what it takes.

But you are right in the negotiation of the price. Stuff like this is factored on the actual manhours needed, machine time, is the machine barred from making any other money, time of day the request is made, when they need it, but most importantly: what does that client mean to me in the future.

I think the numbers floating around now are a “5% client retention can mean 65-125% increase in profit.” That’s HUGE. Finding new work is tough. Keep ’em happy; if $100 of time now means $10K in 3 months… no brainer.

Steve