Fair Pricing Policy

A polite message regarding our processes and pricing

We pride ourselves in offering a service which goes above and beyond what you might usually expect. We lead with a can-do attitude where nothing is too much trouble and there's not a lot we haven't seen before. And we love nothing more than delighting our customers in an otherwise world of 'computer says no'. But to keep providing this service we need to respect the time these processes can take our dedicated staff. We have always provided clear and up-front pricing and go to great lengths to avoid any nasty surprises with billing. Our standard service will always include many bells and whistles you might not get at competitors. But for some things, when they take a disproportionate amount of time, we might need to charge extra for these. Here's some information to explain it. It's mostly common sense and 99% of customers understand. But we feel it's right to be transparent and upfront in case you are affected in any way. As ever, if unsure, please ask!

"The meaning of life is to find your purpose. The purpose of life is to give it away."
Pablo Picasso
Over zealous batching

Most old photos we possess are usually in some kind of batch. Often it's the original developer pouch with the 24 or 36 exposures. Sometimes it's a random pile. It could be a box or even an old Woolworths carrier bag. And it makes sense to keep those photos in those batches. So we will digitise them, save the scans from that batch to a folder with an appropriate name and we'll repack the originals as we found them. But occasionally, we receive hundreds of batches of photos with only a few photos in them. As you can imagine, the time it takes to scan 1000 photos packed in a shoebox compared to 1000 photos in 643 envelopes – taking them out, creating a folder, naming the folder, replacing the photos, getting the next envelope, moppingour brow – is considerable. We can do it if you want, but we might need to charge for the additional work.

Potential surcharge: £3.00 per folder

Overly meticulous sorting

We don't require any sorting of your photos into size or shape or age order prior to you sending them. We process them as loose prints, negatives, slides, albums or film/tape. But...if we receive 100 batches of mixed media, it means we have to open a batch, scan 20 photos, 18 slides, 2 VHS tapes and an album...before moving on to the next batch. So please try to keep each different media type together for optimal efficiency.

Potential surcharge: £18.00 per batch

Duplicates

Do it for your the others – be the photo hero of your family. The benefits are endless, literally. Those yet to be born will be thanking you for your foresight, diligence and awesomeness. The 'crown jewels', handed down saved forever.

If crucial to you, please remove duplicates before sending

Writing on the backs of photos

You probably have enough selfies built up over the last couple of years. How about your grandparents on a date? Or your parents' wedding? These are the special moments that, with your help, can continue to live on, forever.

Potential surcharge: backs count as billable scans

Illustrative photo scene showing how the Vintage Photo Lab scanning service transforms old print photos to digital.