Customer terms

What Astral Pic is

This service is run by Astral Pic ("we", "us"). The operator's legal name and postal address will be published here before the first booking. These terms are a contract between you and Astral Pic. You accept them when you create an account, and again when you tick "I have read the terms, the cancellation policy and the footage license" at booking. The version you accepted (2026-10-v1) is stored with your account and with each job.

Astral Pic is a venue. It is a website where you book an independent, licensed drone pilot, pay for the job, message your pilot and receive your files. We are not the pilot, we do not operate the drone, and the pilot is not our employee. Each booking also creates a contract between you and the pilot for the flight itself, on the price, scope, cancellation terms and footage license written here.

Astral Pic is also the pilot's limited payment collection agent. When you pay Astral Pic for a job, the pilot treats that as payment from you. We pass the pilot's share on after you approve the files. You never pay the pilot directly for a job booked here, and a pilot may not ask you to.

Who flies, and what we check

The pilot who accepts your job is the remote pilot in command under FAA Part 107. The pilot decides whether it is safe and legal to fly, gets any airspace authorization (LAANC or DroneZone) that the address needs, checks the weather and temporary flight restrictions, and is responsible for complying with FAA rules, state law and local rules at the site. The pilot supplies and insures their own aircraft.

Before a pilot can accept any job, a person at Astral Pic looked at three documents the pilot uploaded: a current FAA Part 107 certificate, the FAA registration label on their drone, and a liability insurance certificate showing at least $1,000,000 of coverage. We also check that the pilot's recurrent training is within the last 24 calendar months and search the pilot's name in the FAA's public Airmen Inquiry. The badges on a pilot's card show the month we checked the certificate and the insurance limit and expiry month.

What we do not do, so you can decide for yourself:

• We do not run criminal background checks or identity checks beyond the documents above.
• We do not hold airspace authorizations for the pilot and we do not guarantee that a flight is legal at a given address. The airspace note shown at booking comes from a fixed table of airports and says "likely" for a reason; the pilot's own check and authorization are what count.
• We do not insure the flight, the pilot, the aircraft or your property. The insurance is the pilot's own policy. If you or your brokerage need a certificate naming you as an additional insured, ask the pilot in the job thread before the flight.
• We do not promise a pilot will accept. If nobody accepts by the end of your window, you were never charged.

Your responsibilities

• Authority over the property. You may only book a flight over a property you own, lease, or are the authorized agent for (listing agent, property manager or contractor). You confirm this and your role at booking. Flying over someone else's property without authority can be an offense under state law; in Texas, Government Code chapter 423 makes it lawful to capture images of private property with the consent of the owner or lawful occupant, and that consent is what your attestation provides.
• Truthful attestations. The four boxes you tick at booking are statements we and the pilot rely on. Keep them true.
• Telling occupants. If someone else lives at the property, tell them about the flight before it happens. You agree to exterior photos and video of the property and of anyone on it.
• Site access. Give the pilot what they need to get to the property and launch from it: gate codes, dogs put away, who to call. If the pilot arrives and cannot get access, the full pilot payout is kept, as the cancellation policy says.
• Keeping people and pets clear. Keep people and pets away from the launch area and out from under the aircraft during the flight. Pilots will not fly over people unless they have an aircraft that meets FAA Category 1 to 4 rules or an FAA waiver.
• Common areas. If the pilot would need to launch or land from a homeowners' association common area, tell the association first.
• Scope. Do not ask the pilot to film a neighbor's property, interiors through windows, or identifiable people beyond what the job needs. The pilot will refuse, and should.
• Your account. Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what is done with your account.
• Indemnity. If you did not have the authority you said you had, or an attestation was untrue, you will cover Astral Pic and the pilot for claims, losses and reasonable legal costs that come from it.

We may close an account that breaks these rules, harasses a pilot or uses the service to watch, follow or surveil anyone.

Packages, quoted jobs and what "delivered" means

Package prices are fixed and the same for every customer in a metro. The price shown at booking is the whole price: no travel fees, no add-ons, no rush pricing. The pilot's payout is printed next to every price because it is part of the promise.

The shot list for each package is shown at booking and is what the pilot works from. Trees, airspace limits, light and weather can rule out a particular angle; when that happens the pilot says so in the delivery note.

A Roof Check is a visual record of the roof from the air with a short note on what the pilot saw. It is not an engineering report, an insurance inspection or a stamped document, and the pilot is not a roofer or an engineer unless they tell you so themselves.

"Delivered" means the pilot has uploaded the files for the package and marked the job delivered in their dashboard, which starts your 48-hour approval window. If what arrives falls short of the package description, ask for changes within that window (see Approval and changes).

Quoted jobs, events and weddings

Construction progress flights, events and weddings, multi-site work, commercial roofs and anything else off the menu go through a quote. You describe the job, verified pilots nearby name their payout, and the price you see is that payout divided by 0.8 and rounded up to the dollar. When you accept a quote, we set the job up and email you a Stripe invoice, usually within one business day. The scope is what you described and what the pilot wrote in their bid. Everything else in these terms applies to a quoted job in the same way, with the event date as the start of your window.

For events and weddings the pilot checks the over-people rules, venue permission, airspace and time of day before naming a price. Sustained flight over an outdoor crowd needs a Category 1, 2 or 4 aircraft broadcasting Remote ID, or an FAA waiver; a pilot without one keeps the aircraft off people, and that may limit what can be filmed. Indoor flying is up to the venue and the pilot.

Payment

• You pay after a pilot accepts. Booking costs nothing. When a pilot accepts your job, your dashboard shows a "Pay" button that opens a Stripe payment page for the package price. For quoted jobs, and for any package where a payment page is not yet set up, we email you a Stripe invoice instead and you tell us when it has arrived.
• Stripe handles your card. We never see or store the number.
• Pay within 24 hours of acceptance. If you have not paid by then, your pilot may release the job back to the board. You are not charged for that, and your job stays open to other pilots until the end of your window.
• A person confirms your payment, usually within a few hours of you paying. Your pilot is told when it is confirmed and does not fly before that. If you paid but your dashboard does not show it, use "I have paid" or email us with the job id.
• We hold the money until you approve. Your pilot is paid only after you approve the files, or 48 hours after delivery if you say nothing, and then within 7 days. If the job is cancelled, the cancellation policy says what, if anything, is kept for the pilot; Astral Pic keeps nothing from a cancellation.
• Platform fee. The difference between the price and the pilot's payout (20% of the price at launch) is Astral Pic's fee for running the service. It is already inside the price; nothing is added at checkout.
• Refunds go back to the card you paid with and reach it in 5 to 10 business days.

Approval and changes

When your pilot marks the job delivered, your files appear on your private delivery page and a 48-hour clock starts. The exact deadline is shown on your dashboard. Within those 48 hours you can:

• Approve the delivery. The pilot is then paid within 7 days.
• Ask for changes, once. Tell the pilot in a short note what is missing or wrong against the package description. The pilot re-edits or, if the shot could not be taken without another flight, says so. When the pilot delivers again, a new 48-hour window starts and you approve.

If you do neither within 48 hours, your pilot or Astral Pic can approve the delivery on your behalf, and the pilot is paid. We allow this because the pilot has done the work and cannot wait indefinitely; the window is long enough to open the files and look.

Approval is about whether the delivery matches the package. Taste is not a ground for changes once the shot list has been met. If something is seriously wrong, email help@astralpic.com with the job id before the window closes and a person will look.

Download your files and keep your own copies. The private page is for delivery, not long-term storage.

Cancellation and weather policy

This is the policy you tick at booking. Your dashboard shows which line applies before you confirm a cancellation.

Changing your mind. You can cancel or move your booking free until 5 pm the day before your window starts. After that, half of your pilot's payout is kept and paid to the pilot, because they held the time. Inside 4 hours of your window, or if the pilot arrives and cannot get access, the full pilot payout is kept and paid to the pilot. Astral Pic keeps nothing from a cancellation.

Weather and airspace

Weather and airspace. Your pilot decides whether it is safe and legal to fly. FAA rules require 3 miles of visibility and clear distance from clouds; our pilots also do not fly in rain, in sustained wind over 20 mph, or under a temporary flight restriction. If your pilot calls it off for weather or airspace you pay nothing extra and you pick a new window within 14 days.

Nobody accepts. If no pilot accepts by the end of your window, you were never charged. Close the job or book again.

Pilot cancellations. If your pilot releases the job for a reason other than weather or airspace, it goes back to other pilots at the same price, you pay nothing extra, and the pilot gets a mark on their record.

Refunds reach your card in 5 to 10 business days.

How it works in practice: "the day before your window starts" is the day before the earliest date you chose, in the metro's local time. A cancellation fee is taken as a partial refund of what you paid, applied by a person at Astral Pic in Stripe, and the kept amount is paid to the pilot. If you cancel while the job is still open and no pilot has accepted, nothing is kept because nothing was paid.

Footage license

The pilot owns the copyright in the photos and video they create. Once payment is confirmed and the delivery is approved, the pilot grants the customer a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, edit and publish the files to market, sell, lease, finance, insure, inspect, repair, build or document the property named in the job, including sharing them with agents, brokers, MLS services, contractors and insurers for that property. The pilot may show the work in a portfolio without the address. Astral Pic may show a delivery as a sample only when the customer has ticked the consent box. Clicking "I agree" on these terms is the signed writing for this license.

In plain terms: you can use the files for anything to do with that property, for as long as you like, and pass them to the people who work on or sell it. Uses outside that list, such as selling the footage as stock or using it to advertise an unrelated business, need the pilot's permission; ask in the job thread. You may not register the copyright as your own or remove the pilot's authorship from the file information. The sample consent box at approval is unticked by default and you can leave it that way.

Liability

The service is provided as it is. We do our best to keep it working and accurate, but we do not promise it will always be available or error free.

Astral Pic is not the pilot. The pilot is responsible for the flight, the aircraft, airspace compliance and their own conduct at your property, and carries the insurance for it. Astral Pic is not liable for what a pilot does or fails to do, for the content of delivered files, or for a flight that could not legally take place at your address.

To the extent the law allows, Astral Pic's total liability to you for anything connected with these terms or the service is capped at the fees you paid to Astral Pic in the six months before the claim or $100, whichever is greater, and Astral Pic is not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential losses such as a lost sale, a missed listing date or lost profit.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence. Some states do not allow some of these limits, so some of them may not apply to you.

Disputes

1. Tell us first. Email help@astralpic.com with the job id and what went wrong. Most problems are fixed by a person reading the job thread and the files.
2. 60 days to put it right. If we cannot sort it out informally, either side sends a written notice of dispute to the other (for us, the email above; for you, the email on your account). Both sides then have 60 days to resolve it before starting arbitration or a court case.
3. Individual arbitration. After that, any dispute between you and Astral Pic is settled by binding arbitration run by the American Arbitration Association under its consumer rules, by a single arbitrator, on an individual basis. Claims cannot be brought as a class or representative action. Hearings, if any, happen by video or in the county where you live. For claims under $10,000 the arbitration is on documents unless you ask for a hearing, and if you ask us to we will pay the filing fee.
4. Small claims carve-out. Either side can instead bring an individual claim in small claims court where it qualifies.
5. Opting out. You can opt out of arbitration by emailing us within 30 days of first accepting these terms. Everything else in the terms still applies.
6. Governing law. Texas law governs these terms, without regard to its conflict of law rules. Where arbitration does not apply, the courts of Texas have jurisdiction.

Disputes between you and a pilot about the flight itself are between the two of you, but tell us anyway; we will help and we hold the payment until the approval step is settled.

Copyright complaints (DMCA)

Pilots and customers upload files to Astral Pic. If you believe a file on the service infringes your copyright, send a notice under 17 U.S.C. 512 with your contact details, the work you own, the file and where it is, a statement of good faith, a statement under penalty of perjury that you are the owner or authorized to act, and your signature, to help@astralpic.com.

The name, postal address and phone number of our designated agent will be published here before the first booking.

We remove or disable access to material named in a complete notice, tell the person who uploaded it, and accept counter-notices under the same section. Repeated infringers lose their accounts.

Changes to these terms

If these terms change, the new version is posted here with a new version number and effective date, and account holders are told by email before it takes effect. A job keeps the version of the terms you accepted when you booked it. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept the new version.

Contact

help@astralpic.com

The operator's legal name and postal address will be published here before the first booking.

The privacy policy explains what we collect and who sees it. Pilots work under the pilot agreement.