there are a bunch of these platforms now where you sign up as a pilot and they send you gigs. DroneBase was one of the big ones for a while, i think they got absorbed into someone else. Zeitview or whatever its called now. anyway ive been on a couple of these and the experience has been pretty mixed.

the jobs that come through are usually fine, nothing complicated, but the pay is honestly not exciting. like you show up, fly a grid pattern over a roof or a parking lot, upload the data and you get maybe $150-200 for something that took you two hours including drive time. and sometimes they want specific deliverables in a really tight window which is stressful when weather doesnt cooperate.

im not trying to talk anyone out of it, it was good for building up logged flight hours and getting used to different site conditions. but i feel like im hitting a ceiling with it. wondering if others have had different experiences or found ways to make those platforms actually worth your time

yeah Zeitview is what DroneBase turned into, they do a lot of insurance and solar work. the pay is what it is — its basically the Uber of drone work so you're not gonna get rich off it. that said i used it for almost a year early on and the consistency was genuinely helpful when i was trying to figure out if i could make this work as a business. got to fly all kinds of sites i wouldnt have found on my own.

the ceiling you're describing is real though. the way people seem to break out of it is either going direct to clients — like reaching out to solar installers or roofing companies yourself and cutting out the middleman — or specializing in something higher value like thermography. once you add an infrared cert to your profile the rates go up noticeably. not saying its easy but thats the path ive seen work

I had a pretty bad experience with one of the smaller ones (not Zeitview, some other platform i dont even remember the name of) where they just stopped paying out on time and customer support was basically nonexistent. ended up having to dispute charges. so id say do your research on whoever you sign up with, some of these platforms are way more legit than others