If you’ve got a drone, then chances are you’ve shot some pretty amazing footage. If you’re not already making use of it. Then, this article will walk you through a detail guide on “How To Sell Drone Footage?”.
The easiest way to sell drone footage is by posting it on a site like YouTube and then linking it in your description. People will be able to see the video, and if they like it, they’ll click through to your site. Moreover, here is a list of websites where you can sell your drone footage in 2023:
- Shutterstock
- DroneStock
- Pond5
- Getty Images
- Drone Foot
Why You May Want To Sell Your Drone Footage?
Selling drone footage is the perfect way to turn your hobby into profit. Whether you’re looking for a side income or just want to make your drone cost neutral, there are many reasons why selling drone footage may be right for you.
With just a few minutes of work and some basic information, you can start making money off of flying drones today!
Side Income
You can earn money with your drone as a second job, or to supplement your primary source of income. You may be looking for a new way to make cash on the side, or perhaps you’re already employed full time and want some supplemental revenue from the sky above?
Whatever your goals are, this guide is designed to help you get started earning money with your drone—so let’s jump right in!
Better Than Sitting On Your Computer Unused
You may be sitting on a gold mine of drone footage. You might have shot it, but now you’re wondering how to sell drone footage. Here are some tips:
- Drone footage is expensive to shoot and can be used in many different ways, so your profits will be high if you know how to sell drone footage.
- Use the right tools for editing and sharing your video with the world!
What Type Of Drone Footage Sells Well?
If you want to sell your drone footage, try to think about what types of videos are in demand. The most popular types include:
- Nature Shots
- Urban Landscapes (urban, cityscapes)
- Unique Or Recognizable Infrastructure (cities, buildings)
- Time-lapse Videos (breathtaking views of nature or urban landscape through the seasons)
Now that you know what type of drone footage sells well, it’s time to start thinking about how much money you want to make. If all else fails and no one wants to buy your video, try uploading it on YouTube for free!
Nature Shots
Nature Shots are some of the most popular types of drone footage. In general, people love nature, and they like to see it from a new perspective.
This can be especially true when you look at nature in a beautiful way, or through time-lapse photography. Nature Shots have also become increasingly popular due to the fact that they are relatively easy to shoot and sell.
Here’s what you need to know about shooting natures shots with your drone:
- Nature is beautiful! If you’re going for something pretty (and not necessarily trying for any kind of artistic effect), then just put yourself in front of some good scenery and start filming away. You don’t even need any fancy filters or editing techniques; just get nice shots from different angles so that people can see how great everything looks from above.
- Time-lapses are easy too! The basic idea here is just taking lots of photos over time with your camera on a digital clock or watch—you’ll probably want one with second hands so that you can keep track—and then stitching them together later using software. If there isn’t enough light where there’s no natural illumination during the day (for example at night), consider using other methods such as artificial lighting off-camera while shooting stills so they’ll capture better detail later when used as part of an animation sequence.”
Urban Landscapes
Urban Landscapes are easy to find and usually a good size, which makes them easier to sell. You can use them as wallpapers or for time-lapse videos.
Unique Or Recognizable Infrastructure
But first, let’s take a look at some of the most popular types of infrastructure.
- Buildings and bridges. These are two of the most common subjects for drone footage, and they’re easy to make interesting photos out of with some careful positioning. When you shoot from an angle that complements a building’s shape or a bridge’s structure, it can look amazing! Just remember that this kind of shot requires planning—you won’t find any good angles just by flying around willy-nilly.
- Roads, highways and other infrastructure. Infrastructure is another popular subject because it has such a wide variety of forms: from highways and roads to train tracks and even pipes under roads (if you’re looking for something more specific than just “infrastructure,” try searching for things like “pipelines” or “power lines.”)
- These are often photographed as straight lines going against an otherwise flat background–but again, this kind of shot requires planning ahead in order to get the right angle and framing for your photo!
Time-lapse Videos
Time-lapse Videos are a great way to show off your drone footage. They can be used for a number of different purposes. For example, you could:
- Show movement in a static image
- Focus on one subject at a time and let the viewer see what’s around it
- Cover an entire gathering or event through different angles
1. Top Sites To Sell Your Drone Footage
If you want to sell your drone footage, there are several websites that can help. DroneStock is one of the most popular sites for commercial drone footage.
Pond5, Getty Images and Shutterstock all offer stock photography services as well. Blackbox offers a platform for commercial users to upload their aerial video files and track its sales activity
These websites will help you get started with selling your own videos.
Drone Stock
The next step after using Drone Stock is to start selling your drone footage. We recommend starting with a good place like Drone Stock, which has an excellent reputation.
Drone Stock makes it easy for you to upload your photos and videos, so you can focus on getting the highest possible prices for them. They also have good customer service that will help you with any problems or questions you have along the way!
Pond5
Pond5 is a stock footage marketplace with one of the largest selections in the industry. They have a good search engine, customer support team and royalty-free music and sound effects. If your footage needs to be edited or requires other services, they provide these as well.
Getty Images
Getty Images is one of the biggest stock photo agencies, and they have a drone section where you can submit your work to be considered for purchase. Your best bet is to get in touch with them directly and let them know what you’re looking to do—they’ll send you an email template that will help guide your pitch.
Once you’ve got a relationship with Getty Images, they’ll want to see some samples of your work before accepting you into their drone library.
They typically buy between 5-10 images per month from freelancers working in this area, so it’s not easy to get accepted by Getty Images (which means the pay rate should be pretty good).
They offer standard rates of $200-$500 per image depending on its usage rights and size requirements; if this sounds like something that might interest you, check out their website for all the details on how to sell drone footage through them!
Shutterstock
So let’s say you’ve got some drone footage you want to sell. You might be surprised to find that there are actually a lot of places where you can do this.
One of the most popular is Shutterstock, which calls itself “the world’s largest marketplace for visual content.”
The company has over 80 million images, vectors and videos available for licensing via its website, and has over 2 million customers who license images every month.
In fact, it’s estimated that a single image can bring in anywhere from $200–1,000 per year when it’s used by businesses and publications around the world!
Blackbox
Blackbox is a photo and video marketplace that offers a range of pricing options, including free. If you want to make money from your drone footage, you can upload it and Blackbox will sell it on your behalf. You’ll earn 70% of the sale price (which varies based on what kind of license someone buys).
2. Start Your Own Website Selling Niche Footage
The third way to sell drone footage is to create your own website about selling drone footage. You can hire someone to do this for you or learn how to do it yourself if you have the time and inclination (and know-how).
Once your site is up and running, the next step is getting traffic to that site. This might require some marketing skills on your part in order to get people interested enough in what you’re selling so they’ll actually visit your site and check out what you’ve got available.
Setting Up A Website
When you’re ready to start selling drone footage, the first thing you’ll need is a website. Even if you plan on marketing your videos through other channels (which we’ll cover later), having a website is an important part of building your brand and establishing yourself as an expert in this rapidly growing field.
In this section, we’ll go over all of the things that go into setting up a site: domain name, web hosting, web design and development, content management system (CMS) setup and customization, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM).
A domain name is simply the URL that people visit when they want to reach your website. It can be purchased from one of several providers such as GoDaddy or HostGator for $12-$15 per year; these companies also offer free custom domains with certain hosting packages but I would recommend going with what’s available because trying out something new may end up costing more than it’s worth down the road.
Driving Traffic To The Website
There are a number of ways to drive traffic to your website and drive sales. Social media is one of the most popular ways to advertise, but other strategies include blogging, press releases and email marketing. You can also use paid ads on search engines like Google or Facebook if you have a budget for it.
Monetizing The Website
Now that you’ve learned how to fly a drone and edit footage, it’s time to start making money. The most obvious way is by selling your photos and videos through the website.
To sell stock video footage from your website, simply upload all of your clips into an account on Shutterstock or Unsplash (or both). Be sure to label each clip accordingly so that consumers can easily find what they want.
For example, if you have a series of clips showing a group of people playing soccer at sunset in front of an impressive mountain range, label them “soccer game at sunset with mountains in background” or something similar.
When pricing your clips, be sure not to charge too much as this will deter customers from purchasing them for use online or in print publications.
Allowing customers more freedom will help them make their own creative choices instead of being limited by what they perceive as expensive prices for stock content—and who knows? Maybe they’ll even come back later when they’re ready to make some money off those same images!
Ads
Ads can be a great source of revenue for drone content creators. However, there are some drawbacks to placing ads in your drone footage.
For example, if viewers are looking at your video on their cell phones and an ad pops up, it can be distracting or even intrusive to them. In order for ads to work effectively, they need to be placed strategically so that viewers don’t feel like they’re being bombarded by them.
If you have the right content and product mix (product mix meaning how many different types of drones you have), then advertising could potentially generate thousands of dollars per month with each new piece of content that you make!
And in some cases, if your videos are really good and well-made enough with the amount of views they’ve gotten so far then companies will actually contact YOU directly instead because they want YOUR opinion on what products would look best!
So basically put yourself out there when making these videos because it could bring some serious cash into your bank account right now without any effort whatsoever!
Affiliate
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn passive income. Affiliate programs are what allow companies to pay you a commission for promoting their products or services.
You might also be familiar with affiliates as “affiliates” in the world of direct sales and network marketing, but affiliate marketing doesn’t have anything to do with recruiting new people into your own business—it’s about promoting other people’s stuff!
There are two main ways to make money this way: by selling physical goods, or by promoting digital products through email lists or websites.
The first option works well if you already own an ecommerce site and want another stream of revenue from existing customers; otherwise it can take some time (and money) before you see any results from this type of promotion.
Digital product promotion is easier because the only thing required is an email list (which could be built up over time) and some basic website development skills—you don’t have to wait for someone else’s store inventory!
Selling Photos
When you’re selling drone footage, it’s important to think about how you want to present yourself and your work. Do you want to be a person who is known for shooting aerial shots? Or do you want to focus more on creating imagery that tells stories and evokes emotion?
Once you’ve answered these questions, it will be easier for you to figure out where exactly in the world of photography and video production makes sense for selling drone footage.
Conclusion
You can sell drone footage in a few different ways. You can sell it on your own website, or you could look into a marketplace like Shutterstock or iStockphoto. If you want to go the latter route, make sure that you have all of your permissions and licenses in order.
Hopefully, we’ve given you some ideas on how to make money from drone footage. We know it can be a difficult market to break into and that there is a lot of competition out there.
But if your passion is capturing unique aerial shots and sharing them with the world, don’t let that stop you! Keep creating and putting yourself out there for people to enjoy—it will all pay off in the end.
Frequently Asked Questions (how To Sell Drone Footage)
What Is The Best Way To Sell Stock Photos?
There are a number of stock photo sites that you can sell your drone footage on, but here are the most popular:
- Shutterstock – one of the biggest and most well-known stock photo companies in the world. They have a strict submission process so be sure you’re following their guidelines closely when submitting your work.
- iStockPhoto – another big name in stock photos, offering millions of images to users across the globe. Their submission process is very similar to Shutterstocks’, so check out those guidelines first before submitting your work!
- Fotolia – a smaller but still reputable company with over 20 million submissions from people just like you! And they offer an exclusive bonus program where they’ll pay you 50% revenue share if your photos sell after uploading them through Canva! If you don’t know how to use Canva yet don’t worry we’ll teach you everything there is know about this awesome tool soon enough 🙂
As always feel free to leave any questions or comments below so we can help answer them quickly 🙂
Is It Legal To Sell Photos Of Yourself On Facebook?
You can sell your photos on Facebook, to a stock photography site, to a news organization, or to a magazine. You can also sell them on your own website if you have one.
If you’re interested in making money off of the drone shots that you take with your drone (or other camera) then keep reading!
How Do You License A Photo For Commercial Use?
A commercial license allows you to use a photo or video in a way that is intended to make money. For example, if you are using the footage in an advertisement or promotional materials for your business, it would be considered commercial use.
In order to license your drone footage commercially, please contact us at [email protected]. We’re happy to help!
How Do I Sell As Stock Photos For Free?
If you’ve got the chops, you can sell your drone footage as stock video. If that sounds like a tall order, don’t worry: it’s not. You’ll still need to put in some work but there are so many places where people are looking for great drone footage that it’s easy to get started if you’re willing to do a little research and put in some effort.
Most sites have free trials or free access if you sign up as a contributor. I recommend signing up for multiple accounts so that when one site has limited supply of your content (or none at all), another place may have more than enough demand for it.
Can You Make Money Selling Photos Online?
You can definitely make money selling photos online!
It all depends on how many photos you sell. The more pictures you post and sell, the more money you’ll make.
So if you want to get started with photography as a business, start by posting your best shots on social media and stock photography websites like Shutterstock or Getty Images (which are the two most popular).
