Month to download after the ready notice and then $10/month or you nuke that folder.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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I would update your contract terms to say access for 2 years, if not 30 days. What happens when you want to close your business? Will you write into your will a budget to keep the cloud storage accessible for perpetuity? It's fine to be generous now, but you need to CYA just in case things change.
I don't see a problem, but at some point it might be a hassle for you if you get a lot of clients, or the other thing is how long are you willing to put up with this service, in case you close?
I send dropbox links and I'm very clear that the link will be online for two weeks, any resending of a new link has an additional cost.
I like that idea. Once I sit and think about it more ima find a way to work that into my hustle
I'd make it a chargeable service to rent space on your server. Just be sure you have a good contract, and the reliability to fulfill the uptime/resilience expectations, which might make it too expensive.
You could go value-added with some search functionality and a nice viewing mode. I don't know if that kind of software exists, but that would be the line you'd need to cross for me to feel like a monthly/yearly fee makes sense.
You can also include a "order a drive" option.
It's a business opportunity for sure, but needs fleshing out.
I like that order a drive option for negotiating with new clients ima definitely work on fleshing the idea out more!
Make sure whatever you set up has a conveniet bulk download option. Else it might border on predatory practice if the only option for your client to save their copies locally is to download every one of them individually.
Apart from that I don't see any issues why you cpuldn't supplement your income by offering hosti g services to your clients, as long as you can guarantee their data is secure and confidential and it isn't too much of a hassle for you to manage that.
It does the issue is more so that one of my clients is older so now I have to wonder if I want to take the time to explain the process to him lol.
one of my clients is older
It's your business, nothing stopping you from offering this for free for just him or a case by case basis going forward.
Think of it as good customer service if you do that for the odd person. People remember shit like that and it’s not really going too far above and beyond.
I give cloud storage in perpetuity at no charge. Eventually I remove it after 6-8 months, then if they ever ask for it I throw it back up, and get to talk with them about any future projects they might have coming up :)
My contract states that I will host the photos for a minimum of 6 months from the date of photo delivery and that the photos can be deleted without notice after the 6 month period. I don't have a steady flow of clients since this is just a side thing for me, so typically the photos get deleted at some point when I decide to do spring cleaning on my storage. On average, I end up having the photos hosted around a year or so. This probably is not sustainable if I start getting a lot more clients, but for my current flow, this works well for me.
I like how you have that clause in your contract. Ill probably do that in my future contracts but instead of 6months for only a month amd anything more you pay me lol.
Delivery terms are an important part of the agreement. The contract should specify exactly how the images are to be delivered. If they're online, the minimum time should be specified exactly as people are point out. Other times it is a thumb drive included along with the prints.
For online delivery giving notice before they're gone and keeping an offline copy are commonplace, but not mandatory unless they're specified in the contract.
The contract is everything. Don't wing it because you cannot replace or redo a bad contract, and that's usually only discovered after someone takes the photographer to court; work with a lawyer comfortable in the field to help you make a good one.
I appreciate the advice
I give people 90 days to get what they want after that time I purge the folder.
However I do keep a copy on my local backup drive so for a fee I'll look in my archives to see if I still have copies... ;-)
Ima dp the same but after 30 days more than likely
You could tell them to confirm within like a week that they downloaded it and if they don’t remind them that you will start billing them.
do what the contract says.
High level of maintenance work for probably very little profit. No thanks.
What kinda cloud server are you using that you can allow X amount of customers to store hundreds of GB of photos there?! Plus: can they only download or also upload files?
I use one drive with 1tb of space. My 2 clients with the biggest files take up 550gb and Another client is pushing 100gb.
Although I can give clients the option to freely uplpad to my one drive I dont unless they want me to use a specific asset of theres. But i send them a link to a folder within my one drive and they can use that link to download the files I upload for them.
Okay. I thought you were already in the Terabytes with several dozens of clients.
Honestly as many have stated, I'd give them a 30 day period where they are allowed to download the files. Otherwise I've also seen the USB stick mod instead of coupled with the Download Link, functioning (I'd argue only below 128GB tho, because otherwise they get too expensive) and included for free, or a small fee with the photography package.
Limited download time + option to extend for another month (for a fee) seems best tho.
Just always make sure people can't upload files as that can actually lead to problems.
Why take on more liabilities? The 'profit' you would receive would be a pittance unless you are going for the 'gym membership' recurring subscription service.
You are only setting yourself up for headache in the long term with little benefit unless you have a large client list to make all the time, maintenance, etc worth it. But if you can get it so there is little effort on your part, getting an extra handful of dollars a year is still a handful of dollars I suppose.
You answered your own question.
I keep their online albums up for a few years, then send a message before clearing out.
Before "cloud drives" were a thing and CD-R and DVD-R were the only store media "back in the day," one of the contracts written between my service is that once the CD-R/DVD-R leaves my premises and upon the client's receipt, it is there sole responsibility.
If they lost it or would like replacements, it would be an additional cost.
Same, when I switched to using my FTP. As soon as the ZIP files leaves me, they take full responsibility in burning and backing them up themselves.
I put it on my cloud, send a link and say that for a minimum year it will be there, after that, it depends if the space will be overtaken by another client.
A year is very long time for clients to use the photos and forget about them.
A flash drive is cheap. You could deliver their photos on a drive and then you’re done.
Terms of delivery should be included in the contract. For personal clients I tell them that I prefer two separate physical media and a one-time digital transfer. I make it clear that the cost for physical media and shipping is part of the payment (they’ll need to pay more if they want more), and digital transfer is just a bonus so they can get them faster.
For digital transfer I ask them to provide me a link where I can upload the images to. This way, once the pictures are uploaded, it’s their problem, not mine.
Heh.. I store for my clients for free.
We might need to change that for the both of us
I would start by stating you offer free cloud storage (for now) so clients don't take it as a sure thing. It will be easier for you to charge for it later.
Yes, I would offer it as an extra.
I give my clients the photos as an download aswell. The thing is, I give them one month the access to the photos over the link, so if it’s expired they need to contact me again and pay for for it.
Don’t forget you will become responsible for the files once you start charging for their access. Not a huge risk if you’re using cloud storage like Dropbox, but still something to think about.