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Drone quote calculator for Quebec
Stop guessing your rates. Enter your hours, your rate and your costs: the tool gives you your floor price, your real margin and your estimated profit in real time.
- 100% free
- No data sent
- Local saving of your projects
Project information
Costs and parameters
Costs and minimum price
Minimum price to reach your target margin
—
Adjusted cost ÷ (1 − target margin)
Proposed price and profitability
Estimated profit
—
Price − Adjusted cost
Real margin
—
Profit ÷ Proposed price
Direct cost margin
—
Price ÷ Total direct cost
How to prepare a professional drone quote in Quebec
Most pilots who leave the profession do not leave because they fly badly. They leave because they worked at a loss for a year without knowing it.
The 4 elements of an accurate quote
- Field hours: travel, setup, flight, teardown. Not just the time the drone is airborne.
- Post-processing hours: ingest, editing, colour, exports, client revisions. This is almost always the underestimated line.
- Direct costs: travel, permits, authorisations, subcontracting, specialised equipment rental.
- Overhead: insurance, software, equipment depreciation, accounting, administration, prospecting.
Why pricing decides whether you survive
A price that is too low does not bring you more clients: it brings you clients who cannot pay what your work is worth, and it removes your ability to renew your equipment. A defensible price list is the first piece of infrastructure of a drone company.
Drone pricing FAQ
How do you price a drone service in Quebec?
Add your field hours and post-processing hours, multiply by your target hourly rate, add your other direct costs, apply your overhead percentage, then divide the total by 1 minus your target margin. The result is your floor price. The calculator does this automatically.
What is overhead and why include it?
Overhead covers everything not directly billable to a client: insurance, software licences, equipment depreciation, accounting, administration, prospecting. A value of 0.15 means 15%. Ignoring it is the number one cause of unprofitable contracts.
What target margin should I aim for?
A margin of 0.35 to 0.45 is a common starting point for a drone operator in Quebec. Below 0.25, a single reshoot or bad weather day can wipe out your profit.
Why do most pilots undercharge?
Because they only count flight time. Travel, mission planning, authorisations, ingest, editing, revisions and admin often add up to more hours than the flight itself.
Is my data sent anywhere?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Saved projects stay on your device and never pass through any server.
Want to go further?
The calculator gives you a number. The training gives you the positioning, the script and the method to get that number accepted.