Dronebase- is it worth it

If you're a high schooler or in college, it's a good way to earn beer money. But if you actually churn the economics, factor in gas, vehicle depreciation, drone depreciation, and total driving time, you're lucky if you're doing better than minimum wage.

If you can stack multiple jobs per day, and actually fly a 40 hour week (impossible to do because you're limited to a 4 hour flight window) and assume wind and weather are perfect you're still only earning minimum wage.

So let's call it like it is. DroneBase is a great way to fill your open mornings and early afternoons to fly your craft, do aerials, and tune your game for gas money and beer. You'll never make a living or put your kids through college. The economic model just doesn't allow for it.

Welcome to the Uber of aerial drone photography.
 
It might be worth it if your just out and you pass a nice house for sell to check if its listed as a pano and go ahead and shoot it but going out with the explicit intent to go shoot panos is a loosing proposition.
 
It might be worth it if your just out and you pass a nice house for sell to check if its listed as a pano and go ahead and shoot it but going out with the explicit intent to go shoot panos is a loosing proposition.

Please explain. How many panos do you have completed?
 
My DB experience.
I've done 75 Pano missions paid out $350 in about 4 weeks

Now some would say that's good but that's only a quarter verses the amount missions. I've also traveled in different areas to see if it would make a difference and I haven't received any payout as of yet from those locations.

When I was doing 10 a day I was getting paid for about two or three the next day and it kept happening over and over again as long as I kept doing close to about 10 today.

I do think they have their algorithm setup for their missions based on the location and how many you do and upload. I've only been paid $19 per image that was paid out. Even though it shows for sale on their website for $49, therefore I did not receive 50%. I'm assuming they have a sales team that's making a commission off the sales.

Overall I think it's a cool company however I worry that we all are creating a large database for them to Market to other third-party vendors and we do not get paid for it. It's certainly an honor System but I'd prefer to have some type of contract that Pilots will sign because we are submitting work to them. I will say the good thing about the missions is that you can always get paid multiple times on that mission.

Hope this helps
 
You can always rate them at TrustPilot:

Review DroneBase now

They do pay as promised, and fairly promptly for contract missions, but that's only part of the equation. If you try to make an actual living solely from speculative DroneBase missions you'll be disappointed when you compare missions paid and total income earned against the hours you spend, the wear and tear on your gear and your out of pocket costs.

What DroneBase does is exciting. They've got a slick site, there's always work if you want it (for now), and they will pay you to do what you love.

But the honeymoon implodes when you start to realize what your time is worth (I.e. what you really need to earn to pay your rent, feed the kids, make your car payment, etc.). Your flight windows are limited by lighting and weather.

Speculative mission payments are a crapshoot that only pay when DroneBase gets paid (then again, how would you ever know when DroneBase gets paid?). And prepaid contract jobs are few and far between (depending on geography and related demographics). For some pilots, that may be acceptable. Others, not.

YMMV
 
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Just started using Drone Base. I've done 5 pano missions and have been paid $19 for one of them (mind you, I uploaded them 2 days ago).

I have a full time job so this is a nice way to offset the cost of say... this hobby. Currently I am using the drone from my full time job so I am just hoping I can offset the cost of a P3 for my own personal use.

I don't think I would participate if I had to drive out a long ways to do missions. I have plenty within a 10 minute drive so it will hopefully end up with me getting some extra cash.
 
An earlier post pointed to the ultimate value with Drone Base. Drone Base is able to get people to use their own equipment while building a large and valuable set of aerial photos of houses around the USA. The value to DroneBase is not selling the panos to real estate folks for $50 a piece, the value will be selling 10s of thousands of photos in the future to data brokers.
 
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For me, yes Dronebase has definitely been worth it. Started in January just doing pano missions, now consistently getting well-paying client missions ($250+). Paid for my P4P and a new iPad and then some. Will definitely keep at it as long as possible. Not having to do any post processing is a nice perk too.

I would also check out BetterView, have only done a few missions but they're generally over $100.

Best of luck
 
Just did my first paid client mission with DroneBase yesterday. I had forgot about signing up, and realized I missed quite a few client mission offers lately. This mission was 3 miles away, and was completed on a P4P with 40% battery to start (i.e. very quickly). No post means quick turnaround, and DroneBase paid immediately. Pretty impressed, looking forward to more.
 
here is what i had done . after doing a few jobs with DB i went to the vistaprint page ordered a quick design on bcards . made a list of real state offices around me . drove around on saturdays had passed my cards on to a few realtors and so far i had a pretty good response from a few . all this was done in the tampa FL area , i just moved to LA last week and did the same thing ordered a few bcards with my new cell # and as soon as i get it ill start hitting up realtors around here ... in tampa i had good days on a saturday a realtor called me friday afternoon for the first time , we meet at starbucks sat morning did 5 houses all from around 10:30 am till 3.40ish pm we went back to a local bar with our laptops he agreed to take care of the editing and it turned out to be a 775$ day for me .
here in LA i plan to do things in a better way with the little experience i had gained and see how it turns out .
TRY TO DO THINGS ON YOUR OWN ... thats my message ..
 
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How are listings being updated??
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How are listings being updated??
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I've been checking the net to see if they're still on the market after doing a couple that were already sold. I wish you could spot your own listings and submit them.
 

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