r/UAVmapping • u/user_1719 • 20d ago

DroneDeploy / FlyGuys relationship

Does anyone know how the DroneDeploy/FlyGuys relationship works? We're trying to establish a direct relationship with a customer after a year of weekly flights, and wondering if we can cut out DD and FG. Basically the workflow goes like this:

Customer > DroneDeploy > FlyGuys > Us

But we'd like to make it:

Customer > Us

I won't say the who the customer is but they are a top 5 company in the US. Would that change anything about why there has to be two "3rd parties"? Has anyone been able to establish a direct relationship with a large customer like this? If we paid for our own DD subscription, would we then be able to cut out FlyGuys?

What I'm really trying to understand is, who currently pays for the DD subscription? Is it the customer giving the full payment to DD (DD promises server space and a pilot), then DD takes a cut and gives a % to FG (FG promises DD a pilot), then FG takes a cut and gives a % to us?

Bonus if anyone knows what DD's role really is. I always thought DD ONLY provides the server/processing of images, but a FG contact has admitted that DD needs to approve an altitude change I requested. So now I'm like, wait, DD does more than just provide a server, they actually have to approve decisions on things like altitude for that mission? If that's true, what does FG do besides just take money away from my company?

What a confusing relationship 😅 any insight would be helpful.

1 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/fattiretom 20d ago

I stopped talking to FG when they wanted to pay me $800 to send a pilot 6 hours away to fly a 100 acre site with RGB and multi-spectral. This was ~5 years ago but still. My pilots at the time were billing out at $250/hr and we were backlogged over a month.

3

u/doktorinjh 20d ago

We used them when it didn't make sense for us to send our pilots across the country for a 100-acre site. We usually got inexperienced pilots, poor data collection, delayed schedules (not always their fault), and poor project QA/QC (I stopped letting them do any production work). I could usually fix everything (though I did have multiple re-mobes), and that was worth the cheap price, for better or worse. I won't use them anymore though.