Why Most Drone Quotes Lose Money (and How to Fix Yours)

The four quiet ways a quote loses money

When a quote goes sideways, it's usually one of these four. Sometimes all four, if the day really wants to humble you.

1. Drive time priced at zero

A 90-minute round trip costs real money. At the IRS standard mileage rate, 100 miles is over $70 in vehicle expense — before a single battery leaves the case.

2. Editing that "only takes a minute"

"I'll just edit tonight" is how a $300 shoot becomes a $300 shoot plus 4 unpaid hours on the couch. Editing is work. Put it in the quote.

3. Gear depreciation ignored

A $3,000 drone with a 2-year working life costs you roughly $4–5 per flight hour. Then batteries, props, ND filters, SD cards. It belongs in your overhead, not in the "worry about it later" pile.

4. Card fees forgotten

Stripe, Square, and PayPal take about 3% off the top. On a $500 job that's $15. Feels like nothing until you run 10 jobs a month and realize you flew a free shoot every quarter.

The fix

Use a quoting tool that asks for:

• Drive time and miles (pick one-way or round-trip)
• On-site hours
• Post-processing time
• Out-of-pocket expenses
• Whether the client pays via card

Then it computes a price that hits your target margin and benchmarks it against what others charge for similar work. No more "I think $400 is fair" guesswork.

Try the free calculator → — your next quote will be defensible and profitable.

Sources & further reading

Under-quoting is a known pricing failure mode and shows up clearly in operator cost data:

Pricing fundamentals

• McKinsey & Company — *The power of pricing
• Harvard Business Review — *Pricing strategy topic hub

Cost inputs

• IRS — *Standard mileage rates
• U.S. Energy Information Administration — *Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
• IRS — *About Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business

Rotor Rate companion reads

• Building your hourly rate: insurance, gear, overhead
• Setting your walk-away floor
• When to raise your drone rates: signals & benchmarks
• Lock in numbers on completed missions (Actuals)
• When to take a thin-margin drone job

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