Before anything else, what this thread is and isn't.

This is not an invitation to post scan jobs here. Please don't reply with work you're hiring for, and please don't treat the template below as a form to fill out in this thread.

This is guidance for elsewhere. When you go to post a job in a Facebook group, on LinkedIn, in a Discord, or anywhere else operators gather, this is what a complete post looks like.

If you're looking to hire a capture specialist, contact me directly and I'll help you find the right person in the WGAN community. Email, phone, or private message, all three are at the bottom of this post.


Short version: post the rate, post the square footage, and say who you are. Everything below is elaboration on those three.

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WHY THIS EXISTS

Job posts in the 3D capture groups keep going out in roughly this shape:

"Looking for a photographer in [city, state]. Need it fast. Bulk order, limited budget, but a decent rate if handled as bulk. Can't cover travel. Roughly 16 locations, flat fee, reasonable deadline. Each one takes about 2hrs depending on your pace, I can knock them out in about 1hr 20min. DM me."

Count what's missing: square footage, firm dates, deliverables, model ownership, payment terms, and the rate itself.

Note also that the poster's own capture speed is being offered as the benchmark for your pay, and that "limited budget" and "decent rate" are doing opposite jobs in the same paragraph.

This is not a callout post. Most of us have written something close to this, including me. It's the default format because nobody ever published a better one.




Here's the case for a better one:

→ Some of us pad the bid to cover what wasn't disclosed, and price ourselves out of work we'd have been glad to do

→ Some of us underbid because we can't see what we're walking into. Experience does not reliably protect against this, see the next section

→ Clients get a meaningless spread of numbers and no way to compare

→ The rate floor drifts down every time someone accepts a fee before learning the square footage



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THE MULTI-SITE TRAP

Worth its own section, because it's the one that got me.

On a recent 100+ site program for a national brand, the per-location number looked doable. Not ideal, but doable. Multiplied across a hundred sites, the total looked genuinely good, and that total is where I stopped thinking.

By the end I could name exactly which questions I'd failed to ask up front. The client wasn't hiding anything. I just didn't ask, because a big number at the end had already sold me on the small one in front of it.

Price the site, not the program. If the per-location rate doesn't work on its own, volume doesn't fix it, volume multiplies it. A hundred marginal jobs is a hundred marginal jobs, and you'll be doing them in month four when the novelty is gone.

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REQUIRED FIELDS

A post missing any of these is incomplete.

1. WHO'S POSTING. Name, company, and your role: end client, subcontracting photographer, or broker/reseller. Anonymous DM-only asks are how people get burned.

2. LOCATION(S). City and state for every site, or the metro plus radius. Two cities 50+ miles apart is two different jobs with two different costs.

3. DATES. Actual start and completion dates, not "reasonable deadline." Note whether scheduling is fixed or flexible.

4. SCOPE PER LOCATION. Approximate square footage (a band is fine, 2,000 to 5,000), number of floors, occupied or vacant, interior only or exterior included.

5. USE CASE. Insurance, facilities, AEC/construction progress, retail, MLS listing, franchise rollout. This drives capture density, tagging, and cleanup expectations.

6. DELIVERABLES. Model only? Schematic floor plan? Tags placed? Stills extracted? Point cloud or E57? Blurring or redaction of faces, plates, and sensitive documents?

7. MODEL OWNERSHIP AND HOSTING. Who owns it, whose account it lives in, who pays hosting, and how the transfer happens.

8. PAY, AS A NUMBER. Per scanned sq ft, per location, or day rate. If it's a bulk rate, state the total and show the per-location math.

9. PAYMENT TERMS. Net 15, net 30, or on delivery. Method. Whether a deposit or partial payment after the first batch is available.

10. TRAVEL AND SITE ACCESS. Who covers mileage, whether travel is baked into the flat fee, and how access works: lockbox, on-site contact, appointment windows.

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RECOMMENDED

→ Insurance requirements up front (COI, limits, additional insured) rather than sprung after acceptance

→ Whether a written contract and 1099 are involved

→ Reshoot policy: who eats the cost if a scan fails QC or a site is inaccessible on arrival

→ Equipment requirements, honestly assessed. Some jobs genuinely need Pro3 accuracy, many posts say Pro3 out of habit

→ Whether the job is exclusive or posted across multiple groups

→ Expected turnaround after capture: upload, processing, delivery

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RED FLAGS

→ Rate described with adjectives instead of digits

→ The poster's own capture speed used as the benchmark for your pay

→ "The rate is locked" stated before scope is disclosed

→ No travel budget combined with a 50+ mile radius

→ Square footage withheld until after you express interest

→ Payment contingent on the poster getting paid by their client

→ Deliverables that expand after the fee is agreed

→ A program total presented without the per-site breakdown

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COPY-PASTE TEMPLATE

LOCATION(S):

DATES:

SITES:
Count:
Approx. sq ft each:
Floors:
Occupied / vacant:

USE CASE:

DELIVERABLES:

EQUIPMENT REQUIRED:

MODEL OWNERSHIP / HOSTING:

RATE:
$______ per scanned sq ft / per location / per day
(multi-site: state the per-location figure, not just the total)

TRAVEL:
included / reimbursed at $____ per mile / not covered

PAYMENT TERMS:

INSURANCE REQUIRED:

POSTED BY:
Name:
Company:
Role (end client / sub / reseller):

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One request to anyone posting work: put the rate in the post. Requiring a DM for the number isn't discretion, it's a search for the one person who hasn't done the math yet. A rate that can't survive being posted publicly is telling you something before anyone replies.

One request to anyone bidding: get the square footage before you agree to a fee, and run the per-site math before the total gets a vote. It is the number that decides whether the job is a good week or a month of working for free.

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This standard is free to use, fork, adapt, or pin in any group. We'd rather see it adopted than credited.

What did we miss? Reply with fields you'd add or remove and we'll revise.