Drone pilot jobs near home, with the payout printed on the offer.

$143 to $279 per flight. You see the pay, the distance and the shot list before you accept, and you can say no to anything.

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Aerial view of green fields, a forest and a water tower filmed from a drone — Sample aerial footage, not a customer delivery

What is the work?

Astral Pic sends you paid flights near your base: aerial photos, listing videos and roof checks with the payout printed on the offer before you accept. You see the pay, the distance and the shot list first.

You choose your own jobs and hours, use your own aircraft and insurance, keep your copyright, and you can decline anything with no penalty and no acceptance score. Off-menu jobs are quoted at the price you name. We check your Part 107 certificate, your aircraft registration label and your insurance certificate once, then you are visible to customers in your metro.

Typical jobs

Aerial Photos. 12 to 15 edited stills of a house or lot, up to 30 minutes on site.
Aerial Video. A 60 to 90 second edited 4K clip plus 5 stills, up to 45 minutes on site.
Listing Bundle. Both of the above, up to 60 minutes on site.
Roof Check. 30 to 50 stills of every slope plus a short written note, 30 to 50 minutes on site.
Quoted jobs. Construction progress, commercial roofs, acreage, events and weddings, at the price you name.

Where

Dallas-Fort Worth first. Redfin's market tracker counts 91,742 homes sold in the metro in 2025, the most of any US metro, and the FAA's October 2026 airmen file lists about 4,900 Part 107 holders with a releasable address here. There is work and there are pilots, so we are starting here. Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tampa and Orlando are next.

How jobs reach you

Right now new jobs appear on your board while your dashboard is open, and you can turn on an alert in that tab. Email and text alerts are coming. Jobs are open to every verified pilot in the metro whose radius covers the address; the first to accept wins, and there is no ranking.

What does each flight pay?

Four fixed packages, four fixed payouts: $143 for Aerial Photos, $239 for Aerial Video, $279 for the Listing Bundle and $183 for a Roof Check, each for 30 to 60 minutes on site plus editing. The customer price is printed next to every payout, here and on every offer. Off-menu jobs, including events, pay the price you quote.

Payouts updated October 2026

Package	What you deliver	On site	You earn	Customer pays
Aerial Photos	12 to 15 edited stills	Up to 30 min	$143	$179
Aerial Video	60 to 90 second edited 4K clip plus 5 stills	Up to 45 min	$239	$299
Listing Bundle	15 stills plus a 60 to 90 second clip	Up to 60 min	$279	$349
Roof Check	30 to 50 stills of every slope plus a short written note	30 to 50 min	$183	$229
Quoted job	Construction, commercial, acreage, events and weddings	As quoted	Your quote	Your quote ÷ 0.8

How the fee works

The customer price includes a 20% platform fee at launch. Astral Pic may change the fee with 30 days' written notice; the planned step is 25% once a metro's weekly fill rate passes 90% for four weeks, and the pilot agreement says so. No lead fees, no bidding on packages.

When you are paid

Within 7 days of approval. Approval is the customer approving the delivery or, if they say nothing for 48 hours after you deliver, you or Astral Pic approving it on their behalf. Right now a person at Astral Pic sends each payout through Stripe and records it on your Payouts tab.

If the customer cancels

Cancellation is free for them until 5 pm the day before the window. After that, half of your payout is kept and paid to you. Inside 4 hours of the window, or if you arrive and cannot get access, you receive the full payout. Astral Pic keeps nothing from a cancellation.

For comparison

Pilot forum reports collected in our October 2026 market notes put pay on the large inspection networks at $50 to $100 for a 20 to 30 minute roof job. Thumbtack's 2025 figure for aerial photography averages $125 an hour before its lead fees.

Every offer on your dashboard shows what the customer pays and what you earn, for example $179 and $143 for Aerial Photos.

How does it work?

Apply once with your documents. After a person has checked them, jobs inside your radius appear on your board with the payout, the distance and the shot list. Accept one, wait for us to confirm the customer's payment, fly it in daylight, upload within 24 hours, and you are paid within 7 days of approval. Decline anything, with no score.

Apply

Your public first name and last initial, a photo and a two-line bio. Your base address, kept private, and a radius of 10 to 50 miles. The packages you take, whether you take event work, your aircraft, your documents, and the pilot agreement. Save each section as you go.
Watch the board

Open jobs in your metro and inside your radius show the package, the city and ZIP prefix, the distance, the window, the payout, an airspace flag and the shot list. The exact address appears after you accept. First to accept wins; declining is free and the customer never sees it.
Fly after payment is confirmed

The customer pays after you accept, and a person at Astral Pic confirms it, usually within a few hours. Then you run the go/no-go checklist: payment confirmed, airspace authorization reference where needed, weather inside limits, no flight restriction, aircraft registered and Remote ID on. A weather no-go is free and the customer picks a new window.
Upload and get paid

Upload within 24 hours of the flight and press Deliver to customer. They approve within 48 hours or it is approved for them. You are paid within 7 days of approval to the Stripe Express account we help you set up after verification. Both sides can leave a review.

What do you need?

A current FAA Part 107 certificate with recurrent training inside the last 24 calendar months, each drone registered under Part 107 and broadcasting Remote ID, at least $1 million of third-party liability insurance, your own aircraft, and a base in Dallas-Fort Worth. No minimum hours, no portfolio review, no exclusivity. You bring the judgment and the aircraft.

Part 107 certificate. It never expires, but 14 CFR 107.65 lets you fly commercially only if you passed the initial knowledge test or completed the FAA's free online recurrent course (ALC-677 on FAASafety.gov) within the previous 24 calendar months. We read the completion date on your certificate and compute the end of the 24th month; accepting is blocked after that until you upload a new one. No certificate yet? Our free drone license course walks through the rules and the FAA's steps.
Registration and Remote ID. Each drone registered under Part 107 ($5 for three years) with the number on the airframe, and Remote ID by a standard drone or a broadcast module. The FAA ended discretionary Remote ID enforcement on March 16, 2024. Sub-250 g aircraft are not exempt for paid work, and an aircraft that only flies inside an FAA-recognized identification area cannot do customer jobs (FAA registration and Remote ID pages, as read in October 2026).
Insurance. A certificate of insurance showing at least $1,000,000 of third-party liability per occurrence and its expiry. Annual or monthly on-demand both work as long as it is in force on the day; accepting is blocked once it lapses. $1 million is the figure most real estate clients ask for (SkyWatch's real estate insurance guide, as read in October 2026).
Your own aircraft. In good order, with a camera that gives edited stills, and 4K video if you take the video packages. You decide what you fly.
A base and a phone. Your base address stays private; customers see a coarse area and your radius. The customer gets your phone number only after you accept their job.

How does verification work?

A person at Astral Pic looks at each document, usually within one business day. We check the photo of your certificate and look your name up in the FAA Airmen Inquiry, read the completion date on your recurrent certificate, read the limit and expiry on your insurance certificate, and match the registration label photo to your aircraft list.

What you upload

The front of your Part 107 certificate, and the back if you have it. Your recurrent training completion certificate, or the initial knowledge test report if you passed it within 24 months. Your certificate of insurance. A photo of the registration label on each airframe. Your legal name as printed on the certificate, kept private.

What we do not do

No background check and no identity check beyond what Stripe does when you set up payouts. We do not check your certificate number against the FAA, because the FAA Airmen Inquiry does not publish certificate numbers; we check the image and the name. The FAA does not verify pilots for us and we never say it does, and we do not insure you or your aircraft.

What customers see

Your first name and last initial, your photo, your bio, the line Flies within 25 miles of their base in your metro with your own radius, the packages you take, and dated badges in the form Part 107 checked Oct 2026 and Insured to $1M through Jun 2027 (example wording). Your legal name, address, phone and documents stay private.

Statuses and expiry

Not submitted, Under review, We need one more thing, Verified, Not approved, Paused. Thirty days before your recency or insurance lapses your dashboard warns you; after the date, accepting is blocked until you upload the new document and we have checked it.

What about off-menu jobs, events and weddings?

Anything that is not one of the four packages goes through quotes: construction progress, commercial roofs, large acreage, multi-site work and events. The customer describes the job, you see it on your Quotes tab if it is inside your radius, and you name your payout from $50 to $5,000. The customer price is your number divided by 0.8.

Event and wedding jobs are quoted. You name the price, and you only take them if you turn on event work in your application. Flying over people needs an aircraft that meets one of the FAA's Category 1 to 4 standards, or an FAA waiver; over an outdoor crowd, only Category 1, 2 or 4 with Remote ID.

In your application you tell us the over-people category of the aircraft you would fly at events, from none to Category 4. Event quotes show the venue, the date, the hours, whether the flying is indoors or outdoors and whether a crowd is expected outdoors, so you can price them properly or leave them. When a customer accepts your quote, we set the job up and send them a Stripe invoice; from there it runs like any other job, with your payout printed on it.

For example, if you quote $360, the customer pays $450 and the platform fee is $90.

Are you an employee or your own business?

Your own business. You choose which packages you take, your base and radius, which jobs you accept, your hours, your aircraft and your insurance. You can decline or release any job, there is no acceptance score, and you may work for anyone else. The pilot agreement states the rates and payment timing in writing.

What we do ask

Fly only the job scope. Launch and land from the subject parcel or from public land with permission. Keep the camera on the subject property, no interiors through windows, and avoid identifiable people. Get and record LAANC or DroneZone authorization where it is required. Follow the shot list. Upload within 24 hours. Do not fly before payment is confirmed. Report an accident to the FAA within 10 days under 14 CFR 107.9 and to us the same day.

Releases

Releasing for weather or airspace is free, always. Releasing for schedule or any other reason inside 24 hours of the start of the customer's window earns a mark on your record, and two marks in 90 days pause your account. Declining a job before you accept it never counts for anything.

Your copyright

You own the copyright in what you shoot. The customer receives a license to use the files for that property once they have paid and approved, and you may show the work in a portfolio without the address. The full text is in the pilot agreement.

Taxes, insurance and pay

You are paid within 7 days of approval through a Stripe Express account, Stripe collects your tax identity, and your insurance is your own policy at whatever price you find; the published guides below give the ranges. The questions pilots ask most are answered here; the rest is in the pilot agreement, which you read and accept inside the application.

What does liability insurance cost?

Annual drone liability policies at the $1 million level run about $500 to $1,200 a year in the pricing guides we read in October 2026 (SkyeBrowse's drone services pricing guide; the broker BWI quotes a commercial photographer at $639 a year). Hourly on-demand coverage exists too: Drone U's insurance guide puts it at roughly $5 to $15 an hour, and SkyWatch lists monthly plans from $44 and annual plans from $466. Whichever you choose, your certificate must show at least $1,000,000 per occurrence and an expiry date.

How do taxes work?

You are an independent business, not an employee. Stripe collects your tax identity when you set up your Express account, and we issue 1099 forms where the law requires. Astral Pic never stores W-9s, Social Security numbers or bank details. Keep your own records of mileage, equipment and insurance; we are not tax advisers.

How and when am I paid?

Within 7 days of the customer's approval, or of you or Astral Pic approving on their behalf once 48 hours have passed since you delivered, to the Stripe Express account we email you a link for after verification. Right now a person at Astral Pic sends each payout and records the reference on your Payouts tab, so you can see what is due and what has been paid. Quoted jobs pay the exact amount you named.

Do I have to take event or wedding jobs?

No. Event work is off until you turn it on in your application, and even then every event is a quote you can skip. The only event-related thing every pilot agrees to is the over-people rule: fly over people only with an aircraft that meets one of the FAA's Category 1 to 4 standards, or under an FAA waiver, and never hover over an outdoor crowd except with a Category 1, 2 or 4 aircraft broadcasting Remote ID.

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