What 223 drone companies publish about price, and what almost none of them do

We read the published prices of 223 named drone companies in August 2026, across nine currencies and 33 places, and recorded 415 figures. Every one came from that company's own website. Cost guide articles were rejected as sources, including the ones hosted on real operators' domains, because an article estimating what the market charges is not the same thing as a company stating what it charges.

We are publishing the findings because nobody else has. There is a great deal written about what drone work costs and almost none of it is measured. What follows is what the market says about itself when you only count the operators who are willing to put a number in public.

The method, and two thresholds fixed before we looked

A figure counted only if a named company published a price for its own service on its own domain. Each figure was graded. Grade A is a price on the company's own service or pricing page. Grade B is the company's own price quoted inside its own cost article. Grade C is hedged, self-labelled as out of date, internally contradictory, or unstable when the page was fetched twice. Only grade A derives anything: 369 of the 415 figures.

Two thresholds were set before any result was read, because a threshold chosen after seeing the data is not a threshold.

A band is stated as a range only where five or more independent companies publish a price for that job in that market. Between two and four companies it is shown as an observation with its count, and a single company stays in the file and off the page, because one operator's pricing quirk is not a reading of a market.

Bands are the 20th percentile of the low figures to the 80th percentile of the high figures, rounded outward. Nothing is converted between currencies. Every figure is in the currency its publisher used.

The day rate is a British habit

This is the clearest finding in the data and we did not expect it.

In Britain, 19 companies publish a day or half day rate and 14 publish a price for a property shoot. It is the only market measured where the day is the dominant published unit.

Everywhere else that inverts. In the Mediterranean, 6 companies publish a day rate against 18 publishing a property shoot. In the United States it is 2 against 14. In Canada, 1 against 14. In Australia, 1 against 5. In New Zealand, 1 against 6.

American, Canadian and Australian operators overwhelmingly price per site, per visit or per project. If you are a British operator quoting a day rate to an overseas client, or an overseas client reading a British price list, that difference is doing more work than the numbers are.

There is no London premium in published prices

Everyone believes there is one. The published evidence does not show it.

The one British company publishing a price for both London and Bristol prints the same figure for each. A second charges 50 pounds more to work outside London rather than inside it. The only explicit London uplift found anywhere in the survey is a travel surcharge levied by a company based in Berkshire, which is the cost of getting a van into town rather than a London rate.

The same pattern holds in the United States, where one firm prints an identical range on its New York and Los Angeles pages.

That does not mean London work is not worth more. It means the premium, if it exists, is negotiated rather than published, and anyone quoting from published figures should know that.

About one company in five says whether tax is included

Of the 223 companies, 47 state their tax treatment anywhere at all. That is 21 percent. Among the 63 British companies it is 13, which is also 21 percent.

The consequence is that published prices are frequently not comparable with each other. Two firms advertising the same number may be 20 percent apart once VAT is settled, and the reader has no way to tell which.

There is a regional pattern worth knowing. French operators quote excluding tax by default and label it. New Zealand operators state GST almost always. Australia is split. Croatia and Thailand are largely silent.

A third of published prices are not really prices

Of the 415 figures, 207 are fixed, 140 are "from" prices and 67 are ranges.

So 34 percent of everything published is a floor rather than a price. A "from" figure tells you what the cheapest possible version of the job costs and nothing about what your version costs. It is the most common way this market advertises without committing.

What nobody publishes at all

The most useful finding is an absence, and it is consistent across every market we looked at.

Every dedicated LiDAR and legal survey firm found in Canada publishes no price. Every certificated survey operator found in New Zealand publishes no price. Every CASA certificated cinema operator found in Australia publishes no price. Every British heavy lift company publishes no price. Two companies in the entire survey publish a figure for a crewed unit with a larger aircraft.

No trade body fills the gap either. The current crew agreements we checked run to roughly 65 grades with no drone, no UAV and no aerial line, and the ratecards of the main broadcasting union have none.

So the published population is systematically the smaller end of every market. The better the operator, the less likely they are to publish anything, and any figure derived from published prices, including all of ours, describes the tier below the top rather than the market as a whole.

The numbers

Three jobs, as published, August 2026. Ranges clear the five company floor. Observations are marked and carry their count.

An aerial property shoot, commonly eight to twenty edited stills: United Kingdom GBP 100 to 350 from 14 companies. Mediterranean EUR 75 to 375 from 18. United States USD 125 to 275 from 14. Canada CAD 150 to 300 from 14. Australia AUD 150 to 325 from 5. New Zealand NZD 275 to 500 from 6. Indonesia IDR 1,300,000 to 2,900,000 from 2, an observation. Thailand THB 5,000 to 14,500 from 3, an observation.

A roof or building inspection, imagery only, with a written report charged separately by almost everyone: United Kingdom GBP 150 to 500 from 16 companies. Mediterranean EUR 225 to 475 from 10. United States USD 225 to 625 from 9. Canada CAD 250 to 875 from 3, Australia AUD 275 to 2,250 from 4 and New Zealand NZD 100 to 250 from 3, all observations.

The New Zealand figures are a different product rather than a cheaper market. There the drone survey is sold as an add on to a builder or pre purchase report, not as a standalone inspection.

Survey, mapping and progress work: United Kingdom GBP 475 to 1,400 from 7 companies. Mediterranean EUR 325 to 800 from 10. United States USD 300 to 925 from 7. Canada CAD 200 to 575 from 7. Australia AUD 150 to 2,300 from 4, an observation.

The unit changes with the border here. French and Italian operators price the flight and the data processing as two separate line items. American firms sell monthly programmes with a minimum visit count. One Canadian operator prices maps per square metre by resolution. A single figure flattens all of that.

What this is not

It is not a price guide and it is not advice about what to charge. It is a record of what a particular set of companies said in public in one month, gathered under a stated rule, with the thresholds fixed in advance and the gaps named as gaps.

It will go out of date. We will run it again and change the date on the figures when we do, rather than leaving numbers up with no measurement behind them.

If you publish your prices and we have your market wrong, we would rather know.