so ive been doing monthly progress mapping for a mid-size construction company for about 8 months now and i started with DroneDeploy because it was easier to get going fast but im starting to wonder if im leaving accuracy on the table by not switching to Pix4D. the client is starting to ask about cut/fill calculations and volume measurements and honestly DD does it but i dont fully trust the numbers, like i ran the same flight through both trials and got slightly different volumes and now im not sure which one to believe

my setup is a Mavic 3 Enterprise with the RTK module so the GSD should be fine, im flying at around 80m with 75/75 overlap. the issue isnt the flight planning really its more about what happens after. does Pix4D actually give meaningfully better outputs for earthworks type stuff or is it more of a workflow preference thing at this point

pix4d for anything where numbers actually matter, full stop. DD is great for quick deliverables and clients who just want to see a pretty orthomosaic but when someone is making decisions about how much dirt to move based on your volumes you really want the control that pix4d gives you. you can dig into the quality report, tweak the point cloud densification, manually place GCPs with more precision. DD kind of hides all that from you which is fine until its not.

that said if youre on the RTK module and youre careful with your checkpoints the gap has gotten smaller. i still trust pix4d more for earthworks though, been burned once by DD volumes on a highway project and once was enough

honestly the volume discrepancy you're seeing is probably more about how each platform defines the base surface than actual processing differences. like are you using the same base plane method in both? DD defaults to that triangulated lowest point thing and pix4d lets you pick your method. might be comparing apples to oranges a bit