been lurking here a while but finally made an account to ask this. theres a bunch of these platforms now that connect drone pilots with clients - dronebase, workmarket, whatever else - and i keep seeing mixed things about them. some people say they're worth signing up for to fill gaps between your own clients, other people say the pay is terrible and the clients are a nightmare.

i did two jobs through one of them last year and honestly it was fine, nothing amazing, the pay was mediocre but it got me some experience shooting something other than my friends backyard. just wondering if anyone here relies on these platforms as like a regular income stream or if its really just a side hustle thing at best. also curious if there are platforms people think are actually better than others cause i dont want to waste time signing up for all of them

i used dronebase for maybe six months pretty actively and my honest take is it depends a lot on where you live. in a major metro area there's actually decent volume and you can string together enough jobs to matter. i'm in a smaller city and it dried up fast after the first few months, maybe one job every couple weeks which just isnt worth keeping up with.

the pay per job is what it is, not great but not embarrassing either. the real value early on is building a portfolio of different job types without having to hustle for every single client yourself. i got a roofing inspection gig through them that led to me reaching out to that company directly and now i do work for them outside the platform. so sometimes it's a stepping stone more than a long term income thing.

these platforms take a pretty big cut and train clients to expect low prices which then makes it harder to charge real rates when you go direct. i get why people use them when starting out but id be careful about getting too dependent on them, you're kind of building someone elses business more than your own. just my two cents, plenty of people disagree