Drone Pricing Strategy-Why DJI is so Expensive

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Anyone who pilots quads knows who DJI is and what they mean to this industry. So what about DJI drones pricing strategy? For those quad users, many have spent easily more than $1000 USD on this hobby. As 80% of the audience using RTF drones and DJI drones would advise anyone, they are not cheap. Perhaps the real question should be, are they expensive?

Are DJI Drones Expensive?

If you take a look at the price of DJI products, the argument can be made that they look expensive.

As an example, the Phantom 4 Pro with the RC screen costs $1800 and Inspire 2 with an X5S camera costs almost $6000. Not cheap, right?! But now consider that these products have a 3D TOF sensor, Obstacle Avoidance super-bright screen and a 1 inch camera with mechanical shutter. Simply put, there is no other drone on a market with these kind of specs. The same holds true with the DJI Inspire 2 (X5S). What other drone has a micro 4/3 camera with interchangeable lenses and a 5.2K RAW video capabilities?

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DJI drones are expensive but they give you more than anyone else does. They also end up lowering prices the longer their drone is bon the market. I'm sure the phantom 4 pro will be reduced at some point in 2017. My point is I think they are competitively priced based on what they are giving you. I do not work for DJI, just think they make pretty good products. There are a lot of drones out there with the price we all may like. But do they work?


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I recently bought my first drone, a P4, and initially thought it was expensive but that was before I realized what it is capable of.
Now I am amazed that they can sell such technology and reliability for such a low price.


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"Cost to Produce" MUST include more than just the cost of the material and construction/assembly. Engineering costs money. Developing software/firmware to do what it does costs money. It may not be tangible in the sense the remote and the actual bird are, but Engineering is a substantial portion of costs that needs to be factored in when asking what it "cost to produce the product".

There is also the cost of tooling/machinery needed to create the components such as molds, jigs and any other machine unique to making a drone.

Business infrastructure support is also the part of the cost of a drone.

the question is how much does it cost for a P4P or a DJI product to be produced ?
 
yes but after producing up to a threshold the cost of production decreases. This threshold was met for a lot of drones but their price did not decrease as was expected.
 
And it has. When the P4 came out it was ~1400 bucks. You can buy it now for $1k. So that's almost a 1/3 drop in price... Also its a business. Let's face it, DJI doesn't have any serious competition so they don't really need to drop their price. Their only competition is themselves...

yes but after producing up to a threshold the cost of production decreases. This threshold was met for a lot of drones but their price did not decrease as was expected.
 
I am considering a serious drop in price. However, this is not possible due to strategy of earning more and more profits
 
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And it has. When the P4 came out it was ~1400 bucks. You can buy it now for $1k. So that's almost a 1/3 drop in price... Also its a business. Let's face it, DJI doesn't have any serious competition so they don't really need to drop their price. Their only competition is themselves...
P4 is now $849 on Amazon.
 
Buy a $100 AUD dollar drone that you find at a toy kiosk. You'll get 1 x 23 second flight.
Buy a $2000 AUD dollar drone and you might get 1 x 18 minute flight. =)
If you progressively learn and don't take silly risk, you will gain more return.

And also contemplate on building your own drone. If time is money then I would expect the average builder to exceed the $1000 AUD pricing if you try implementing half the functions and reliability the P3Standard offers.
 
Also with a toy grade quadcopter you are looking at 8-10 minutes 12 usually tops, there are some out there now that can do better but the majority only fly for about 8-10 minutes I get 15+ on my P3S that also helps justify the cost. Other drones try to copy the DJI and IMO very few get it right.
 
What frosts me is the pro models don't all come with an HDMI port. $5 more materials, at most, and they could have provided HDMI like Solo and Typhoon H. They want to lift another $100 from my wallet on something that would have cost an extra $5 to design into a "real pro system". I don't mind spending more for DJI because I know it's superior, but this product shortcoming just irks me. They have no business calling it a "Pro" system when it doesn't come with HDMI out.....IMHO.
 

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