What's New in Rotor Rate v1.9: Charge for the Gear and Deliverables You Bring

This one comes straight from a chief pilot who reminded us that the same aircraft can produce very different jobs — and very different bids — depending on what you bring to the field and what you have to hand back afterward.

Two new sections on every job

Open Other details on any job in the calculator or the flat-rate evaluator and you'll see two new pickers.

Equipment add-ons

For the gear you bring beyond the drone itself: GNSS rovers and base stations, total stations, ground control points, ground vehicles, boats, traffic control kits, tethered power systems, backup aircraft — anything that changes the value of the job because it's rolling with you.

• Pick from a preset list or add a custom row.
• Choose flat fee, per-hour, or a percent of your on-site labor.
• Set a quantity, and the total flows straight into the fair-bid math.

Payload sensors that live on the drone (Thermal, LiDAR, Multispectral) still use the payload picker so you don't double-charge for the same capability.

Processing & deliverables

For the outputs the client expects to receive: 2D orthomosaic, photogrammetry model, 3D textured model, point cloud (LAS/LAZ), topographic map, volumetrics report, DEM/DTM, thermal inspection report, inspection PDF, edited video, edited photo set — or anything custom.

• Each row carries the processing hours it takes, plus an optional flat fee for license or export costs.
• Hours are billed at your active post-processing rate, so longer processing scopes automatically raise the fair bid.
• Multiple deliverables from one flight? Add all of them. The hours stack, the bid goes up, and the breakdown shows each one as its own line so nothing is hidden.

Why this matters

A one-hour flight that produces only a couple of edited photos and a one-hour flight that produces a full orthomosaic, a 3D model, and a volumetrics report are not the same job. Charging the same price for both is how good pilots quietly lose money on the second one.

Both pickers show up in the flat-rate evaluator too. When someone offers you a lump sum, you can list out the gear and deliverables the job actually needs before you decide whether the offer is a good one.

Everything is optional. If you don't add any add-ons, nothing changes for how your bids come out today.

-Rotor Rate Team-