@nick2491 - I think there’s two ways of approaching this.
If you’re looking for a largely passive income, you can make some money from this. I generate a few hundred pounds a year from fairly minimal effort. There’s a lot of filming and photography through the year to build up a catalogue that sells over the lean months. I target areas over the summer and then promote that content locally. The bigger pay days have come from a client with specific requests, but I’ve tended to get these from contacts either using or referring me. I did one job that was an old farmhouse being converted in to an office. The owners wanted the transformation documenting over time so it meant multiple visits, complex editing and so on. All that was still only a few hundred quid. There’s also an awful lot of free stuff I produce locally which just keeps me in the public eye and generates the odd inquiry. This doesn’t distract from the pure joy of the hobby and allows me to get stuff online when I can. I have several clips and photos that have been purchased to be used by clients this way and I don’t have to worry about day rates etc. "Here’s a clip, it costs £x. As an aside, some of my stuff was never intended to be commercial at the point of carrying out the flight but has been bought afterwards. This saves on the insurance costs.
If it’s more of an active, regular and bigger income you’re looking for, that is much, much harder. Think back over the last few months, there have been weeks on end where I couldn’t fly due to wind, rain or both. None of the survey/agency type work will wait for a weather window that you can fly in. Even in the height of summer, weather can ground you pretty quickly. It would be quite easy to go several months with no income through weather alone. You don’t (yet) have the experience or portfolio to charge top dollar, so you’re scrapping with a a lot of people for business. The easy availability of UAVs, the “my mate can do it” and your potential customers now owning a drone all make it harder, plus a GoPro on a long pole doesn’t care about wind or rain and gets largely the same image as you will with a drone.
Finally, an outline of costs would be a good idea. You may already have some of this of course. A decent PC/Laptop that can edit at speed, appropriate software to do it with (video and photo), licencing costs for any music (royalty free doesn’t always equate to commercial use), There’s a time requirement to learn/practice editing (again, you may already be good at this) as editing for a client is very different to editing for your own social channels. The quicker you can turn around an edit the more money you make. Commercial insurance will cost you £10 - £15 per flight and you may struggle to get an annual policy to begin with as you have no commercial experience, few hours and (I’m guessing) no GVC. All things that reduce risk for an insurance company. When I first got my PfCO, annual policies were stupidly expensive as I had so little experience. Throw in an abundance of memory cards, USB sticks and possibly cloud storage depending on how the client wants delivery, a bit of fuel and some safety kit (you won’t get on a lot of sites without high viz, boots and a lid). A lot of this will be deductible from your gross income for tax purposes though.
Of course, people do make a living from this. I think the halcyon days are over though and the newer entrants to the market probably need to think beyond the model that worked a few years ago. As a side-line, it’s great. Every year I get to treat myself to something because of it, it’s an excuse to get out and I enjoy it. Realistically however, it won’t ever pay my bills but you may have a different experience. Either way, good luck to you.
