there are like three or four of these platforms now where clients post jobs and pilots bid on them or get matched up. dronebase, zeitview, that kind of thing. ive signed up for a couple of them but havent gotten much out of it, mostly just low paying inspection missions that dont seem worth the drive when you factor everything in.

just wondering if anyone has had actual success with these or if they're kind of a race to the bottom situation. feels like the pay per mission is pretty fixed and not great but maybe im missing something about how to use them effectively. one guy at my local club swore by zeitview for utility inspection work but he also has a thermal setup which i dont have so maybe thats the difference

your friend is right that thermal makes a huge differance on those platforms, especially for the utility and solar work. without it youre mostly looking at the basic roof and real estate capture missions and those do tend to pay pretty flat rates. i did dronebase for a while when i was starting out and it was fine for getting experience and filling slow weeks but i never thought of it as real income, more like beer money with some flight hours attached.

the better play imo is using those platforms to get a feel for commercial work and then going direct to the clients in your area. a roofing company or solar installer would rather pay you more than the platform if you build the relationship directly, and you keep all of it instead of them taking their cut

zeitview is decent if you stay on top of the mission notifications and have flexibility in your schedule, the issue is the good ones get claimed fast. i've had months where i grabbed like 6 or 7 missions and months where there was basically nothing near me. not reliable enough to count on but not totally useless either. also their QC review process can be kind of annoying when you're first starting, they were pretty nitpicky about my deliverables the first few times before i figured out exactly what they wanted