so ive been flying for about two years now, got my part 107 last spring, and honestly i do decent work — real estate, some construction progress stuff, helped out a buddy filming a short film last fall. people seem happy with the footage. my day job is in IT and its fine but its just... fine, you know?

ive been seriously thinking about trying to make drone work my main thing, or at least a solid side income. but every time i look it up online i get either "drone pilots earn six figures easily!!" garbage articles or doom and gloom about how the market is saturated. nobody seems to give a straight answer. figured id ask people who are actually doing it.

for context im in a mid-size metro area, not a huge city but not rural either. i already have the Mavic 3 and a Mini 4 Pro as backup. is this a viable thing or do i need to temper expectations big time

honest answer — it depends a lot on what niche you go after. real estate is crowded and the pay is honestly pretty rough in most markets, like you might get $150-200 a shoot and that sounds okay until you factor in travel, editing time, the occasional reshoot because the client changed their mind. where ive seen people actually build something sustainable is in more specialized stuff — cell tower inspection, infrastructure, agricultural, that kind of thing. the problem is those gigs often want specific sensors or software experience, not just good footage.

that said, the fact that youve already got construction progress work in your portfolio is actually more valuable than you might think. that segment is growing and clients tend to be repeat business which is the whole game. id lean into that hard before you think about going full time. build the recurring client base first, then make the jump. going freelance cold with no anchor clients is rough in any industry, drones included.

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but ive talked to a few people at local AUVSI meetups and the vibe i got was that the photographers who already had an established client base from ground photography transitioned way smoother than people starting fresh. one guy told me he basically just added drone to his existing real estate photography package and it was seamless. if you dont have that existing network it takes longer but people do make it work. the IT background might actually help if you ever get into the data processing side of things, like mapping or orthomosaics, that stuff tends to pay better from what ive seen