1. The fields
2. The drone
3. Batteries and crew stops
4. Costs
5. Your price
Check the numbers, then click Work out my quotes.
Your quotes
| Field | Acres | Sorties | Hours on field | Cost | Your quote | Margin | Recommended quote | Recommended $/acre |
|---|
What each price per acre would do
| Price per acre | Revenue, these fields | Margin | Season profit |
|---|
How it works
Speed: acres per minute is swath width times ground speed, cut by your coverage efficiency. The pump caps the speed: gallons per minute is the application rate times acres per minute, and it cannot exceed the pump flow, so a high rate slows the drone down.
Sorties: a sortie ends when the tank or the battery runs out, whichever is first. Between sorties the crew mixes and refills and swaps a battery; a sortie also waits for its battery set to finish charging, so with few sets the charger sets the pace. Time on the field is the first sortie start to the last sortie end, found with a closed form and re-checked by replaying every sortie.
Cost: drone wear per flight hour, battery wear per sortie, crew cost over setup, driving and spraying, truck cost per mile, and your fixed yearly cost spread over the season acres. The recommended quote is the cost divided by one minus your target margin, never below your minimum charge. Break-even acres is the fixed cost divided by what each acre earns above its variable cost.
Not modelled: wind, weather and spray windows; water haul time; mixing of products; re-flies and drift complaints; chemical cost or markup; taxes and financing; seasonal demand; customer payment delays; and your own licence, insurance and compliance costs beyond the fixed figure you enter. Unverified against real jobs: the closed-form time is checked by an independent sortie-by-sortie replay, and the cost lines are re-added, but nothing here is checked against a flown field.
Common questions
How much should I charge per acre for spray drone application?
Work it from your own costs: drone wear per flight hour, battery wear per sortie, crew time on the field, setup and driving, truck miles, and your yearly fixed costs spread over the acres you expect to spray. Divide the cost per acre by one minus your target margin. The calculator does this for each field and for the whole job mix, and shows what each price per acre would do to a season.
How many acres per hour will my spray drone really cover?
Less than the brochure. The coverage rate is swath width times ground speed, cut by a coverage efficiency for turns and overlap, and the speed is capped by how fast the pump can deliver your gallons per acre. On top of that, every sortie ends when the tank or the battery runs out, and the crew then refills and swaps a battery. The calculator reports spray-only acres per hour and the true time on each field including those stops.
What limits a spray drone: the tank, the battery or the charger?
Whichever runs out first. A sortie ends when the tank is empty or the battery is, so a big tank on a short battery wastes tank. Between sorties the crew needs the refill and swap time, and if you have too few battery sets the charger sets the pace instead. The calculator names the limit for your setup so you know whether another battery set or a bigger pump would help.
Why is there a minimum charge per field?
A small field costs nearly as much to reach as a big one: setup, driving and a crew standing there. The minimum charge covers that. The calculator shows which fields hit the minimum, and the recommended quote for each field, which is never below it.
What does extra % mean on a field line?
Time added for hard fields: irregular shapes, trees, power lines, slopes or many obstacles. 25 means the spraying takes a quarter longer. It slows that field only, so it also increases the number of sorties when the battery is the limit.
Does this tell me what chemical rate or product to use?
No. It only does arithmetic on the application rate you type. The label, your state applicator licence, your aviation authority rules for drone spraying and the customer's instructions decide what you may apply and how. Check them before you quote.
Is my customer list uploaded or stored?
No. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent to a server, there are no accounts, and nothing is saved when you close the page. Download the quote table as a CSV to keep it.