so ive been flying for about two years now, got my part 107 last spring and ive been doing a few small jobs here and there for friends and local real estate agents. nothing crazy, maybe $200-300 a shoot. but lately ive been thinking about whether this could actually replace my day job or at least be a solid side income.

the problem is i genuinely cant tell if the market is saturated or not. every time i look online i see people saying drone pilots are in high demand but then i also see guys on reddit saying they cant find work at all. probably depends heavily on where you live i guess. im in a mid-size city in the midwest so not like NYC or LA where there seems to be way more commercial work floating around.

has anyone actually made the jump to full time freelance drone work? what kind of jobs are actually paying well right now? i mostly do photo/video but ive heard inspection work and mapping pays better, just havent gone down that road yet

yeah the real estate thing is kind of a race to the bottom honestly, at least around here. i did it for about a year and the agents always want to negotiate the price down and half of them dont even use the aerial shots in the final listing so it gets frustrating fast. the guys i know who are actually making decent money have moved into more specialized stuff - cell tower inspections, roofing, construction progress documentation. that work pays way better and there's less competition because you need to know what you're doing beyond just getting a clean shot.

mapping is also worth looking into if you're willing to learn the software side of things. pix4d, drone deploy, etc. the learning curve is real but companies that need accurate survey data will pay significantly more than a realtor. took me probably 6 months of doing it on the side before i felt confident enough to pitch it to clients. the midwest market is actually not bad for ag and construction stuff either so you might be in a decent spot depending on how rural you're willing to travel for jobs.

im kind of in the same boat as you so cant give you a ton of advice but what ive heard from a few people in my local flying club is that the pilots doing well usually have a niche. like one guy near me basically only does golf course photography and somehow stays busy year round (well, not winter obviously). specializing seems smarter than trying to compete with every other part 107 guy offering generic real estate packages