For commercial drone pilots
Drone job boards & pilot networks, compared
There are three kinds of place to find paid drone work, and they are not variations on a theme — they differ on who sets your price and whether you ever meet the client. Everything else, including the fee, follows from those two answers.
Last reviewed 2026-09-15. Platforms change their terms — check each one's own pricing before you commit.
How the work reaches you
Three models, three trades
- 1
Enterprise dispatch networks
The network holds the corporate contract — an insurer, a solar operator, a national retailer — and sends you a mission at a rate it has already decided. You accept or decline. There is no bidding, no pitching and no client to manage, and you are paid on published terms whatever the client is charged. Zeitview, FlyGuys, RAAD and Bees360 work this way.
The trade is total: no price control, no client relationship, and no idea what the job was actually worth.
- 2
Open bidding marketplaces
A client posts what they need on a public board; any qualified pilot quotes their own price; the client picks. You set the figure and you speak to the client, which is what makes this the model that builds a business rather than a shift pattern. Droners.io and Paypixl work this way, and so does SkyLog.
The usual trade is a commission on every completed job — which is the one part SkyLog does differently.
- 3
Job boards and classifieds
Generalist boards and forums — Indeed, Upwork, Facebook groups, the drone forums — carry drone listings among everything else. Free, occasionally excellent, and entirely unstructured: no certificate checks, no reviews tied to real jobs, no way to tell a serious brief from a fishing expedition.
Worth watching. Not worth relying on.
Side by side
Who sets the price, who keeps it
| Platform | How work reaches you | Who sets your price | Client relationship | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyLog | Open job board + pilot software | You set your own price | You deal with the client directly | Flat subscription, or $7 per quote. 0% of the job. |
| Droners.io | Open bidding marketplace | You set your own price | You deal with the client directly | A commission on every completed job, from both sides |
| Paypixl | Bidding marketplace + delivery software | You set your own price | You deal with the client directly | A per-transaction fee plus a platform fee |
| Zeitview | Enterprise dispatch network | The platform sets the rate | No direct client relationship | No fee taken from you — the margin is inside the rate |
Fees are described in shape rather than in figures throughout. Other companies' rates are theirs to publish and can change without our noticing, and a dispatch network's margin — the gap between what its client pays and what it offers you — is not disclosed by anyone, so no figure for it appears here. Operating models were read from each company's own documentation: Droners.io (2026-09-15), Paypixl (2026-09-15), Zeitview (2026-09-15).
Where SkyLog fits
Model two, minus the commission
Clients post jobs free, every open job is public, you quote your own price, and you keep all of it. Instead of a percentage, pilots pay a flat monthly subscription, or $7 to quote on a single job with no subscription at all. Because the fee does not scale with the work, it is cheapest exactly where a percentage hurts most: the large jobs.
What you also get
- A public pilot profile with a portfolio, your service area, your rates and your certificate badges — a page clients can find and compare, not just a row in a database.
- Reviews tied to real jobs. A star rating can only be left by the party you actually transacted with, on a job whose quote was accepted on SkyLog, and it runs both ways — pilots rate clients too.
- A separate client view. Clients get their own simple portal for their jobs, quotes and messages. They never see the flight logs and maintenance screens built for pilots.
- The business software, free. Clients, jobs, flight logs with a GPS map, credential expiry reminders, drone inventory and PDF invoicing.
What SkyLog does not do
- No escrow. We never hold the money — you invoice the client and they pay you. That is the deliberate trade for charging 0%, and it does mean no platform-backed refund if a job goes wrong.
- No dispatch. Nobody hands you a mission. You choose what to bid on and you win it on your quote, which is more work than accepting an offered rate.
- A smaller network. The enterprise dispatch networks have national contracts and years of volume. We are newer, and in some regions and verticals there is simply more work on theirs than on ours.
How to choose
Pick dispatch if you want volume without selling
If you would rather fly than quote, a network that fills your calendar at a known rate is a genuinely good deal — especially early on, when you have no client list and no reviews. Treat it as supplemental income rather than the business.
Pick a commission marketplace if you want the platform in the middle
Escrow, dispute handling and a platform that stands behind the transaction are real protections, and a commission is what pays for them. On smaller one-off jobs with a client you will never see again, that can be worth the percentage.
Pick SkyLog if you are building a book of clients
When the jobs are big enough that a percentage stops being trivial, or repeat enough that you want the relationship rather than the transaction. A flat fee does not grow with your invoice, and the client is yours from the first job onward.
Common questions
What is the best website to find drone jobs?
It depends on which trade-off you want. Dispatch networks like Zeitview send you work at a rate they set, which is the least effort and the least control. Bidding marketplaces like Droners.io let you set your own price and meet the client, in exchange for a commission on every job. SkyLog is a bidding marketplace that charges no commission at all — you pay a flat subscription (or $7 for a single quote) and keep 100% of what you charge. Most working pilots use more than one.
Is SkyLog a drone job board or drone business software?
Both, and the job board is the front door. Clients post paid drone jobs free, every open job is public, and any Part 107 pilot can quote on the ones that fit. The business software — flight logs, credential tracking, invoicing, drone inventory — comes free in the same account so you can run the work you win. You do not need to bring your own clients to use SkyLog.
Which drone platforms take no commission?
SkyLog takes 0% from both the pilot and the client and never holds the money — you are paid directly by the client. Dispatch networks also take no commission from the pilot, but that is a different thing: they set the rate you are offered, so their margin is inside the price rather than deducted from it. Bidding marketplaces that let you set your own price generally do charge a percentage.
Do I need a Part 107 certificate to bid on drone jobs?
For paid commercial work in the United States, yes — the FAA requires a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate. SkyLog tracks it for you and reminds you before it expires, and your certificate shows on your public pilot profile so clients can see it when they compare quotes.
How do drone job boards protect me from not being paid?
Commission marketplaces typically hold the client's payment in escrow and release it once the work is approved — that protection is what the commission funds, and it is a real advantage of the model. SkyLog does not do this: we never touch the money, which is the deliberate trade for charging 0%. Agree your terms with the client directly, and invoice through SkyLog when the job is done.
Can I use more than one drone job platform at once?
Yes, and most pilots do. None of these platforms is exclusive. A common pattern is to take dispatch work to fill quiet weeks and bid on marketplace jobs for the higher-value work where you set the price and keep the client.
See what is open near you.
Browsing the board is free and always will be. Create a pilot account, set your service area, and get emailed the moment a matching job is posted.