i keep seeing ads for these platforms that connect drone pilots with clients — dronebase, skyward, that kind of thing — and i genuinely cant tell if theyre worth bothering with or just a race to the bottom on price. registered on one a while back and got a couple small jobs but the payout felt pretty weak for what they were asking.

one job was a standard real estate shoot, paid like $80 something after the platform took their cut, and i drove 45 minutes each way for it. the client also wanted extra edits after the fact which wasnt in the original brief. so that was kind of a lesson learned i guess. but i also know a guy locally who says he does ok with them when things are slow, uses them as filler between his regular clients.

just wondering what other peoples experience has been, whether its worth staying active on those platforms or if youre better off just grinding your own client relationships from the start

those platforms are basically fine for when you're just starting out and need to build a portfolio but yeah the economics are pretty bad once you actually sit down and do the math on your time. $80 minus gas minus wear on equipment minus the hour of editing... its not great. the clients who come through those apps are also sometimes more demanding becuase they think they got a deal so they treat it like a premium service anyway.

i used them for maybe 6 months when i was getting started and then slowly built up direct relationships with a couple real estate agencies and a construction company and never really looked back. the direct client work pays way better and there's way less friction on the job itself. worth using the platforms to get your reps in but id treat them like a stepping stone not a business model

the extra edits thing kills me, i had the exact same situation. nothing in the original job scope then suddenly they want a video walkthrough added and act surprised when you say thats going to cost more. started putting really explicit scope language in my confirmations after that and it helped a lot, most clients are fine once expectations are clear from the start