Today’s contribution comes from Josh Boughner, who turned his birthday present drone into a money-making machine.
Hooked after his first paid drone-flying gigs, Josh now runs SoldByAir.com, the largest real estate drone network in the US. The site has over 1000 registered pilots (at least one pilot in every state), and connects those drone operators with jobs across the country.
Take it away, Josh!
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I’m one of those tech guys who loves his toys. My wife realizes this, so for one of my previous birthdays she bought me a drone.
Nick’s Notes: Nice wife! Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are usually equipped with a camera to take photos or video. They look like miniature futuristic helicopters and you fly them via remote control.
A few weeks later a realtor in the family asked me to take aerial photos of a property they had for sale. And they were going to pay me.
Make money flying a toy?
I was in!
When you consider the costs, starting a drone business is cheap. Why not put a drone to work and make some extra cash? Drones are a perfect fit for a fun and profitable side hustle.
What Are Some Ways to Make Money With a Drone?
Real Estate Photos & Video
The first place most drone pilots try to drum up work is in the real estate market. It’s easy and familiar.
Realtors need attractive photos to help market properties online, and drones can provide an elevated vantage point to show off different features of a house or property.
Personally I prefer doing real estate because I love seeing amazing properties. Not every house needs drone photos, but high end listings purchase drone photos more often.
There have been times where I get to a shoot and no one is there but me and I have to stop and just stare at the house in amazement.
There are these incredible mansions I didn’t even know existed near where I live. I love it.
Roof Inspections
It costs money for insurance companies to send someone up on a ladder. Drones are often much cheaper.
These jobs can be quick and easy. They often come in large quantities and then dry up quickly directly after large storms.
Stock Photography/Video
If you like traveling and documenting amazing sights you can try your hand at selling stock photos/video.
You’ll have to amass quite a bit of footage before you can expect to see much from sales but if you are good there are a number of websites where you can list your work.
Get Creative and Technical
Drones are so new that there are many industries still learning how to utilize them. If you are creative there is the potential to find or create your own niche. Some industries using drones are more technical than others. Cell tower inspection, thermal imagery, high end video productions are a few examples.
Once your name gets out in your area you will get requests for drone jobs that don’t really have a specific category. I did a job for a contractor who was bidding on a job to create a walking trail.
The job was basically to fly the drone down a few miles of a potential walking path and take video of it that they could show to the potential client. It was relatively easy work, and jobs like this are a ton of fun as they help to keep things interesting.
Other Potential Ways to Make Money with a Drone
- Aerial reconnaissance and surveillance
- Delivery and disaster relief
- YouTube
- Hotel and resort ads / videos
- Wedding videos
- Structural or building inspection
- Agricultural or environmental inspection
- Marketing at events (think low-flying billboards)
How Much Money Can You Make With Your Drone?
The amount you charge is really up to you. This is a new and exciting market so nothing is set in stone.
If you go into some of the more complex verticals like cell tower inspection or thermal imagery you can charge a lot more for your services. However, working in the higher dollar areas require technical knowledge, more expensive gear and quite often having connections to people in those industries.
Since the real estate industry is where most people start, let me use that as an example.
Pricing is generally in the range of $75-200 for drone photos, though it varies based on local market conditions. For real estate video you can charge more.
I’ve found it’s difficult to charge extra just because it’s an expensive house, but you can charge extra for houses on large plots of land. Acreage simply takes more time to fly with a drone.
Most drone pilots start out on the lower end of pricing and increase their rates as their skill level increases and they build their portfolio.
For example, I did my very first job for $50. At the time I thought it was awesome.
I quickly realized I wasn’t charging enough, so I added $25 to my price.
When no one complained, I added $25 again. I did that and raised my prices until I started hearing people say they had other cheaper options.
I didn’t go back down to the cheaper guys’ prices, but I had now found a fair market price to set my fees for my area.
The Costs of Starting a Drone Business
Starting a drone business is relatively cheap. All in, you are looking at around $1500-$2000 to have a minimum viable drone business up and running.
If you hustle and push hard you can have that paid off quickly (we were profitable in a few months).
The startup costs include:
- The drone (duh)
- Extra batteries (have at least 3 total)
- ND filters for videography
- Photo and video editing software
- An FAA drone pilot’s license (seriously!)
Which Drone is Best?
You can get a high quality drone for less than $1,500.
There are many drones on the market, but the best are all made by DJI. They dominate the drone market for good reason as they always seem to be a step ahead of the competition.
The exact drone you buy really depends on the type of work you plan to use it for.
For entry level drones you can use professionally, look at the Phantom 4 Pro and the Mavic Pro Platinum.
The Phantom has the better camera but the Mavic is much quieter while in the air. Each have their place. I give the slight edge to the Phantom as the camera is a pretty significant jump up (+8 megapixels).
Photo and Video Editing Software
Drones have become fairly advanced very quickly. They have automated flight patterns and are extremely steady in the air. Flying the drone and taking pictures/video is one of the easiest parts of the job.
Still, you are going to want to familiarize yourself with photo and video editing software. You don’t have to be an expert at Photoshop but you will want to learn the basics.
Some valuable techniques/topics to study up on include:
- Sky Replacements
- HDR Photography
- Color Correction
- The Magic Eraser and Clone Stamp tool
On the video front, you can use something like iMovie before upgrading to Adobe Premiere or After Effects. Practice on your own videos first to learn how the software works.
Because the cost of entry is so low, there is competition in the field. Post production is something that can set you apart from the kid down the street.
Your Drone License: FAA Part 107
In order to make money with a drone you are required to be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
To get licensed you have to pass a test that seems more geared towards general aviation then it does to drones.
Don’t be intimidated by the test — it’s not very difficult and has a 92% pass rate. The FAA provides all the study material you’ll need, and there are many study guides and training classes available for those who need some extra help.
The test itself costs $150 and is good for 2 years. I personally studied for about two weeks and passed it easily.
Where to Find Drone Pilot Jobs
Now that you’ve got your drone, it’s time to re-coup your initial investment and start making some money.
So how do you find the work?
Luckily there are websites you can join that specialize in drone pilot jobs. They will usually take a percentage of the payment in exchange for sending you the job.
These marketplaces include:
- SoldbyAir.com (my site)
- Dronebase.com
- DroneJobs.org (appears to be offline)
- VideoToOrder.com
If you just want to fly and not deal with cold calling or finding customers, these sites may be right for you.
If you prefer to be a little more proactive, you can reach out to realtors, their agencies, or insurance companies themselves to offer your services.
Nick’s Notes: This is freelancing and we’ve seen tons of creative ways people have marketed their freelance services.
Advertising in local Facebook groups can help. Try to think of places where the customers are and go there. There are various real estate gatherings that can get you in front of realtors. Think outside the box.
I’ve also been known to stop at open houses from time to time.
Before You Fly – Verify the Legal Requirements
As with everything else, there are laws you have to abide by when flying drones.
Are you near any airports? Airmap is a cool little app to show you what the local airspace is like. Busy airports require authorization to fly nearby. There is a process the FAA is implementing to speed up authorization requests but for the time being legally flying jobs near airports can be very difficult.
It’s also illegal to fly drones in national parks.
State laws and local ordinances vary. While the FAA has ultimate authority over the skies, they seem to avoid getting involved in drone disputes at local or state levels so it’s best to follow your local and state laws even if they seem more restrictive than what the FAA has on the books.
Your First Paying Drone Job
Planning is key to a successful shoot.
Make sure to schedule when there’s no rain or strong winds in the forecast. Be sure your batteries are charged and don’t forget the SD card.
A common mistake new pilots make is to fly too high. If you are flying real estate the goal is to sell the house, not show off the roof.
Keep the entire house in the frame of the photos and provide a variety of photos showing off different angles and key points of interest for the property. Show off the location of the property relative to areas of interest such as golf courses, shopping centers, waterways or similar.
Over time you will want to come up with a repeatable process. Plan to take the same set of photos at every shoot to speed up the work. When I first started, I might spend 45 minutes to an hour at a property. Now I am in and out in 15 minutes if there’s no one there to talk to.
Are You Spying on My Daughter?
The media has painted drones as scary spying devices. Some people think drones are awesome technology and will talk your ear off asking questions the entire time you fly. Others are paranoid about them.
If you do enough jobs you will eventually get someone asking you, “Hey are you spying on my daughter?”
They’re usually half joking/half serious.
Be friendly; let them know why you are there and you shouldn’t have any problems.
I remember one particular occasion vividly. I was on a weekend shoot and brought my son with me, since he likes drones too. It was a vacant large plot of farmland so I assumed that we wouldn’t run into anybody.
I was wrong.
Just as we’d finished and were packing up, a guy in his minivan comes driving down down the lane with his hand out the window recording us on his cell phone.
He starts the conversation by saying. “You are lucky I didn’t have my shotgun handy or I would have shot that thing out of the sky!”
Calmly I pointed to the realtor sign on the plot of land and explained to him that we were just there to get photos of the farmland for sale. I showed him one of the photos and he calmed down dramatically. He even asked if he could fly the drone!
Post Production
Drone video is obviously more complex than photography but it doesn’t have to be hard.
The general rule of thumb is to keep your videos short — hardly anyone watches videos online for longer than a minute.
Take short clips and splice them together. Any jerky movements should be edited out.
Drone video can be sold to a variety of customers. Not only do realtors want video of the house being listed, but they sometimes want video of the town that the house is in they can re-use in future listings. You can charge a premium for reusable video.
Businesses like drone videos for commercials or Facebook ads. We’ve even have people request aerial video of private parties/events.
Video is less forgiving than photos as you can’t just photoshop objects out of it. Make sure to get much more footage than you think you’ll need as it’s much easier and quicker to cut out a bad clip then it is to fix it.
Track your Mileage
Drone work is much like other ‘gig’ work. Once you have a steady stream of customers you’ll be driving around from job to job.
Save yourself a headache in the future and get a process in place for tracking your mileage. I recommend MileIQ. Even though it has an annual subscription it quickly pays for itself in tax savings.
In Conclusion
There are days when I’m out flying my drone at a customer site and I think to myself, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid for this!”
It is extremely fun and pretty exciting to be involved in a cutting edge field. To be fair there’s not really enough work yet to easily make it a full time gig, which is actually a great thing for those looking for a cool side hustle!
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For more info, be sure to check Josh out at SoldByAir.com.
Pin it for later:
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Stock photo by Dmitry Kalinovsky via Shutterstock
This gig sounds really cool! You didn’t exactly mention where you need to go to get the drone flying license which would be nice to include for those who are interested in getting started in the drone business.
Another cool thing you can use drones for is to record sports events, especially fast sports like boat racing, mountain biking, skiing and other similar sports. You can get some incredible shots by using a drone!
I been a 107.00 Remote pilot for two years I am looking for some work on the side please respond back at (uasdronepilot@icloud.com). I have 20 years of Experience from planes & helicopters & Drones.
Just be careful to not give everyone the idea that this is the only value of drones as a business. This is an example of a photography business utilizing a drone. Let’s also point out that taking the part 107, passing and then flying a drone for a commercial reason is as like your child passing the written drivers test and then handing them the keys to the Porsche…neither is very responsible. Take the drone business serious and make sure your customers see the value or you will tarnishing your company and an entire industry in an already ultra sensitive topic. Many professional are maximizing drones to help companies please respect it.
Excellent article, and a fascinating field of side hustles and/or full time businesses involved with drones. Fast paced, fast growing, cool opportunities.
One thing I’d like to point out . Josh’s last tip, tracking your mileage, is not just for drone operators. Almost every sidehustle and blogging and podcasting themselves involve more driving hither and yon than the average person considers over the course of a year.
Every trip to the post office, bank, office supply store, meeting people for an interview at a coffee shop, etc. involves business mileage, which, in 2018, is gong to be worth 54.5 cents a mile. This is a direct deduction on your Schedule C, in other words even if you use the standard deduction for your taxes, each and every business mile counts.
The recommended tracking solution looks like a good bet, but whatever solution suits your needs, track those miles. It’s easy to rack up 1000 or 1200 miles in a year, and that’s $500 or $600 directly off your tax bill.
I once say a guy flying a drone in a strip mall lot. It was pretty cool. I was thinking I could perhaps buy one and see how well it would work for improving my “YouTube video marketing SEO,” and improve “YouTube video traffic.” Never thought of using a drone for the purposes you mentioned, Nick. That is a good idea for having a “stock photography and stock video side hustle.”
nerdrone.com is a new site that just launched, it doesn’t charge any fees to get listed, and allows people to publicly list their drone service and figure out payment on their own. Seems like an alternative. It doesn’t seem like many people are using but thought I would mention it.
I was just thinking about a drone the other day because I need one for my YouTube channel. They’re excellent to have because people want to see videos on YouTube from a certain angle. And when there’s something special going on somewhere where you can directly access, one can always use a drone to record videos and upload online for the world to see. It also makes a great medium for improving SEO and “side hustle millionaire” potential.
Make sure your registered with a remote pilot recreational 333 if you don’t you will get fined from 27,00 to 250,000. For each flight you flew they are cracking down on pilots are not certified and they can track drones now. I is best to be insured with a minimum of $2 million.
I’m just telling you that so that you know not to be a downer I just try to help out the drone Community because we are all in it together.
I have read about 333 vs 107 and they appear to be independent. Your response says you have to have a 333 that does not appear to be true since a 107 one with some restrictions
What a great site. I like the part about respecting your customer and those around you so you don’t tarnish the industry.
Going to go study for my Part 107.
Great article. Thanks
Can I get any drone jobs with a DJI phantom 3 standard? Or would I have to upgrade? It has 1080p HD capabilities. If I can my feet in the game with this drone as I already own it that would be great? Any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Very nice read. I’m a senior looking for a fun hobby and make some beer money on the side. I bought each of my three sons drones for Christmas a couple years ago and I’m thinking reclaiming two of them because they don’t use them. The third is high in a tree with no access.
Loren.. The third is high in a tree with no access? But you have two more drones :D You could make a rescue net attached to your two drones and fly them up there and get that other drone :D
My first drone had a mind of it’s own. It got caught in the wind and left on it’s own. I found it 1/2 mile away, still flashing it’s lights after two weeks. It was hanging off a limb about 75-80 feet high. Using my 22 rifle, and after about 25 shots, I was able to break the limb, and the drone came tumbling down without a scratch. Where there’s a will…there’s a way!! DG
Hey you can write off the drone on your taxes also along with the mileage to get to the job site.
If you’re capturing drone footage in countries with no drone law limitations, or few, and who don’t fall under 107, and you are selling your drone footage (from such places) on the regular stock sites, do you still need the 107 cert?
Yes, if you are selling a photo from a drone you must have a part 107.
I’ve had no idea what it was I really wanted to do I’m a 48 yr man and that’s sad LOL . I own my own patent on an idea that dint really pan out for me and have been trying to come up with something I love and of coarse that wouldn’t cost me a lot to get started.
Your my F.N. hero IM A 48 YR CHILD WHEN IT COMES TO MY DRONE LOL . I have been flying drones for years now and am pretty good . “:LIGHT BULB”
Thank you so much.
Have you written any other updated articles on capturing work from the other industries currently using drones?