so ive been flying for about two years now, got my part 107 last spring and honestly i feel pretty comfortable in the air at this point. done a bunch of stuff just for fun, some real estate shots for a friend who needed help selling his house, a couple short clips for a local coffee shop that i basically did for free just to have something in my portfolio.

but now im at the point where i actually want this to be a thing. like a real income stream, not just a hobby that occasionally makes me fifty bucks. the problem is i have no idea how you actually break into it. do you cold call businesses? post on instagram? sign up for those platforms like dronebase or zeitview or whatever they're called now? i honestly cant tell if those platforms are worth it or just a race to the bottom on pricing.

anyone here who actually made the jump to doing this professionally have any advice? doesnt have to be full time, even part time consistent work would be a game changer for me right now.

the platforms are kind of a mixed bag honestly. i did dronebase for a while when i was starting out and it was fine for getting reps in but the pay is pretty rough once you factor in drive time and processing. like you might clear $80 on a job that took you half a day if you include everything. that said it does get you comfortable with real client expectations which is worth something early on.

what actually moved the needle for me was just telling everyone i knew what i was doing. sounds dumb but like three of my first real paying gigs came from someone who knew someone who needed aerial for a construction project or a wedding or whatever. local facebook groups for small businesses in your area can be surprisingly good too, people are always in there asking for recommendations. also dont sleep on reaching out to real estate photographers directly — a lot of them dont fly and would rather sub the aerial work out than lose the whole job to someone who does both.

im kind of in the same boat as you so not sure i have great advice but i signed up for a few of those platforms just to see and yeah the pay is not great. the one thing i will say is getting even one or two portfolio pieces that look really clean makes a huge difference when you show people your work. good luck, curious to see what others say here